Lion -- thanks, and my thoughts are with you and your mother.
I was just wondering if, since we don't know time of death, every one's making this harder than it needs to be and she was actually a member of the class of 1975.
Thank you, Craig. Even prior to having access to the original ME's report(thanks again, Craig
, I understood that her teeth were present in her skull. In addition, many of her bones were found in disarticulated(separated at the joints--in this case from natural decomposition) but in good condition. Although, we have yet to find a forensic specialist able to give us a time-line for decomp of a human body left in the open in the Houston area, decomp follows a fairly predictable time-line dependent in a large part to the conditions, climate, soil type, and more.
We have all heard of bodies thousands of years old that are intact. But, in these cases the bodies had either been frozen all that time(high up in the mountains in the ice or snow) or the body was in a tomb in the desert. In unprotected, warmth which lots of humidity as in the Houston area decay occurs most rapidly. Since her teeth were still present and not disarticulated, scattered, or decayed her TOD was more likely 6 months to a year prior to discovery.
In addition to many of her bones still being present and her teeth being present and intact there was bone marrow present in at least one long bone or rib. They tested Princess Blue for drugs via her bone marrow. This means her bone marrow was present and viable for testing. I don't know for how long bone marrow will still be present and viable for testing in remains left in the open in the Houston area. But, chances are it may not be present and viable after just a couple of years. I have yet to find conclusive facts on this yet, unfortunately.
Here is a web site with some general info about decomp of a human body.
http://www.anthro4n6.net/forensics/
It is possible that there is a zebra here(less common than a horse). The zebra would be that someone killed her, froze her, and finally dumped her body years later. But, that is a huge long shot of a zebra.
Lion
