Body Farm - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

The concept of a body farm in general as well as the existing institutions in particular have been used in several crime-related works of popular culture. Notable examples include:

• Patricia Cornwell's novel The Body Farm is based on the University of Tennessee facility, but not on actual events surrounding it. The character of Dr. Thomas Katz was based upon Dr. Bill Bass. In his book, Death's Acre, which has a foreword by Cornwell, Bass and co-author Jon Jefferson describe the experiment he undertook on her behalf. A similar experiment conducted by the fictional Dr. Katz solves the book's mystery.
• Authors Jon Jefferson and Bill Bass have published a number of fictional murder mystery novels based on the body farm at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville under the pseudonym Jefferson Bass. The lead character is based on Bill Bass.
• In the British television series Waking the Dead, forensic pathologist Dr Eve Lockhart has her own body farm. She reappears in a spin-off series The Body Farm.
• During episode #6.17 of Fox's television series Bones entitled "The Feet on the Beach", medical anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan and her partner FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth visit a fictional body farm at the University of Hogansburg, New York.
• In episode #2.15 of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation entitled "Burden of Proof" a murder victim's body is dumped at the Body Farm among other bodies.
• Simon Beckett's novel Whispers of the Dead is set in and around the body farm in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is the third book in a series centered around protagonist Dr David Hunter, a forensic anthropologist. The series itself was inspired by Beckett's visit to the body farm in Tennessee.