The Freeman Ranch is no ordinary ranch. Instead of growing crops or raising cattle, they do something else entirely. Something that might make you a bit squeamish.
Sprawled across the 16 acre farm are the remains of roughly 50 unclothed human bodies in different stages of deterioration. This is not a location for a serial murderer's hideaway. The Freeman Ranch is one of the five body farms located in the United States.
Heed this warning: some readers may find the photos of the Freeman Ranch, part of the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University, unsettling. It is a leading institute for investigating how the human body breaks down.
The research from the Freeman Ranch has been of tremendous value to law enforcement organizations everywhere. The reality that a comparable “farm” is banned in Europe only adds to its worth.
Scientists take advantage of donated bodies to assess how different weather and terrain shape the decay of human bodies.
Fresh cadavers are delivered to the ranch on a regular basis. Researchers and graduate students must sanitize and document the specimens before they are released into the field.
Scientists can either leave the new bodies uncovered in the open, or trap them inside a two-foot-high cage. This gives them the chance to observe the impact of bacteria and insects on the decaying process.
When inside the cage (pictured below), the body progresses through three states of decay. Initially, the bacteria inside the body cause it to bloat as they release gases from the carbon. This is followed by advanced decay, which transpires when the body bursts and releases decomposition liquids. Finally, the dry decay stage is attained after several weeks and is the condition that most bodies at Freeman Ranch are in.
This is what happens to a body when it is left outside a cage for several weeks; vultures and other wildlife caused the destruction of the ribcage.
Freeman Ranch is constantly surveilled, owing to the type of research done there; however, researchers claim they have never experienced an intrusion.
It would be unduly harsh to say that the Freeman Ranch is morbid and gross; its research is actually beneficial to the world.