Often times a body is not discovered before it is very decomposed or skeletonized. In these instances the Tarrant County Forensic Anthropology Laboratory will recover and analyse the skeletal remains. In many cases the identity of the person is unknown and a complete biological profile is created. Factors such as sex, age at death, ancestry, stature, and individualizing traits are documented. Injuries are documented and characterized according the time they occured. Antemortem injury occured prior to death and shows healing. Perimortem injury occurred around the time of death and possibly caused the death. Postmortem trauma occurs after death and includes animal scavenging.

At times, a potential identification is known and the anthropologist will compare radiographs of a person while living to radiographs taken of the deceased person. Comparison of bony features can often confim or rule out identification.

The anthropology team assists local law enforcement in recovery of skeletonized and decomposed remains. Remains may be on the ground surface or buried or partially buried. Sometimes a person's remains may be outdoors for several years and weather and animal activity may scatter remains over many acres.

The physical and biological characteristics of an individual are determined using visual methods and metric methods that utilize calipers for bone measurements. A stereomicroscope is used to evaluate all the bones for signs of trauma or damage. The microscope has an imaging system to photodocument the findings.

Some cases remains unidentified even after years of effort by the Medical Examiner's Office and law enforcement. All cold cases of unidentified remains are maintained in a database in the anthropology laboratory. Leads are followed and efforts are made to obtain media and public attention on the archived unidentified cases. The anthropologist will arrange for facial reconstruction by clay approximation of the face or drawing to obtain an image that can be shown to the public. All unknown identity cases are also handled by the Texas Department of Public Safety, Missing Persons Clearinghouse in Austin, TX. Images of our unidentified can be viewed on their webpage  TXDPS Missing Persons Clearinghouse