Identity Crisis
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Publication date: June, 2015
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In 1978, 56-year-old Leoma Patterson left a bar in Clinton, Tennessee, and was never seen again. Six months later, a female skeleton was found on a wooded lakeshore in a neighboring county. The bones were consistent with those of the missing woman, and one of Patterson's daughters recognized a ring found at the death scene as her mother's. The bones were buried, and six years later, a relative of Patterson's -- one of the men she was last seen alive with -- confessed to killing her.
Case closed. But the tentative identification -- made years before DNA testing was available to confirm it -- failed to convince some of Patterson's relatives. And so it was, in 2005, Dr. Bass found himself winding around hairpin curves to the mountainside grave where he would unearth the disputed remains and collect DNA samples. The forensic twists and turns that followed would test the limits of DNA technology -- and of Dr. Bass's half-century of forensic knowledge. |
Fascinating True Story!! 5 stars
By Julie Whiteley on April 30, 2015 This is a fascinating true story that follows a puzzling case in which a family in Tennessee is uncertain if their grandmother, who was allegedly murdered, was properly identified. After an exhumation, DNA analysis came back with shocking results, which led to a facial reconstruction, and even more DNA work, which only brought with it more questions than answers. A Real Page Turner 5 stars By RJ Parker on April 28, 2015 -- True Crime Author of 18 books The identity of a woman buried for over 25 years was presumed by some family members to be that of Leoma Patterson, but other people weren't convinced. It took acclaimed Forensic anthropologist Bill Bass a great deal of time, multiple DNA testing, and a strand of hair in an old file to determine who this woman really was. A short but well-written documentation of another Bass scientific mystery. |