'Body farm' near Sydney helps train first responders with real cadavers
By Sarah Gerathy
Topic:Forensic Science
12m ago12 minutes agoSat 29 Mar 2025 at 8:22pm
A worker dressed in a white jump suit uses a tablet to record items lying on a table.
A participant records items collected during a training exercise at the UTS body farm near the Blue Mountains. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
In short:
Dozens of AFP officers, soldiers and forensics experts gathered for a training drill at a "body farm" run by the University of Technology Sydney near the Blue Mountains.
The drill mimicked a disaster, but the bodies first responders identified were real.
The UTS facility is the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere, which allows for studies on how bodies decompose in Australia's climate.
It's a grim scene that confronts dozens of Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers, soldiers and forensics specialists at a secret bushland location at the foot of the Blue Mountains.
They've been told two suspected terrorists have been holding six people hostage, but a bomb has gone off and all eight have been buried under the rubble for some time.
The team has been tasked with identifying the victims' remains and investigating how the explosion occurred.
But while this scenario is only a drill for a joint training exercise, the bodies the teams are working to recover are real.
They've been donated to one of the world's only "body farms" — a University of Technology Sydney-run facility that's officially known as the Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research.
Training you can't get anywhere else
Two women in white jumpsuits use a thermal camera to test bricks during a training exercise.
Two members of a training group conduct a thermal test during the training exercise. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
Two people in white jumpsuits use a fingerprint testing setup while a group of others investigate in the background.
Participants use a fingerprint testing setup during a drill. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
It's a highly-secure facility, topped by razor wire, where scientists study how human bodies decompose.
But for five days it was transformed into a training ground for a multi-disciplinary exercise bringing together law enforcement agencies, defence personnel and forensic specialists from across Australia.
AFP Inspector Rod Anderson said the unique exercise offered challenges and opportunities that you can't get elsewhere.
AFP Inspector Rod Anderson is seen in his uniform.
AFP Inspector Rod Anderson said the drill added "an element of realism that I haven't seen before in any training environment". (ABC News: Adam Kennedy)
"It adds an element of realism that I haven't seen before in any training environment," he said.
"We understand it's the only training environment in the world that is doing this sort of disaster training with these cadavers."
Inspector Anderson is part of the AFP's Disaster Victims Response team — he's been deployed to the grisly scenes of disaster all over the world, from the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004 to the MH-17 plane crash in 2014.
He said in those scenarios there was immense pressure to quickly find and identify victims, as the world and the victims' families watched on.
An aerial view of a body farm showing drill participants in white jumpsuits around the site.
An aerial shot of the facility used by a group of AFP officers, soldiers and forensic specialists. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
"The main driver I suppose for us is to bring that comfort to families as quickly as we can at a really terrible time in their lives," he said.
"The world is getting a lot smaller and a lot more dangerous and there's no doubt it's not a matter of if we need to deploy our resources again, it's when."
New technologies at a mobile mortuary
A worker in a white jumpsuit carries vials of samples collected at the UTS body farm.
Test tubes containing samples gathered at the UTS body farm. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
At a mobile mortuary set up on-site at the body farm, forensics officers were able to put their skills to the test.
"We are testing new technology, we tested some rapid DNA technology, we tested some fingerprint technology obtaining fingerprints from deceased persons," Inspector Anderson said.
A person in a white jumpsuit uses a computer linked to a rapid DNA testing machine.
Drill participants were able to test new technology, including rapid DNA testing equipment. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
"One of the biggest things that come out of these exercises is the networks that get created between the state and territory police as well as the military and our forensic specialists."
The work of the Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research is made possible by people who choose before their deaths to donate their bodies to the University of Technology for science and research purposes.
A participant arranges personal items including a wallet, sunglasses and a cell phone gathered during the drill.
Participants gathered personal items during the drill as the worked to identify victims' remains. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
Before it opened in 2016 the main studies on how human bodies decomposed were conducted in United States facilities, but Australia's different climate, ecological and geological diversity meant those studies didn't always suit the needs of local law enforcement agencies.
But Inspector Anderson said as the only facility of its type in the southern hemisphere, it is now drawing the attention of other countries who want to access the training.
"We had the opportunity during this exercise to have our Interpol colleagues from around the world observe the exercise and since then I've been flooded with requests to do similar sort of training for their countries in Australia," he said.
Posted12m ago12 minutes agoSat 29 Mar 2025 at 8:22pm
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