MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- Imagine having this on your resume: Assisting in the Jeffrey Dahmer serial murder case, identifying victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, and even putting a name to the body in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Robert Mann will make a mid-state appearance this coming week at Middle Tennessee State University. Dr. Mann has examined more than 8,000 ancient and modern human skeletal remains.
Among his other credits, Mann has undertaken well over 50 expeditions to recover and repatriate the remains American military personnel who went MIA on battlefields worldwide.
Dr. Mann says it’s really quite remarkable just how much you can tell about a person from skeletal remains.
“If you’re tall, if you’re short, if you’re a man or if you’re a woman, if you’re young or old. If you’re active or not and the type of diet you’re on. And it even records some of the diseases that you may have had.”
Dr. Mann says it can be emotionally draining to work with human remains. He admits it can make for some sleepless nights.
“I do wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and think about these different cases, and I think about ‘How am I going to help solve a case?’ but you really have to put the emotions on the back burner because if you don’t you’re not going to be able to do your job.”
Dr. Mann is this week working to process the remains of recently repatriated American soldiers who died in the 1847 Mexican-American War.
Mann speaks Monday night beginning at 6:30 p.m. in the MTSU Student Union. The event is free and open to the public.