"A fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and an expert on the human skeleton, Mary H. Manhein assists law enforcement officials across the country in identifying bodies and solving criminal cases. In Trail of Bones, Manhein reveals the everyday realities of forensic anthropology. Going beyond the stereotypes portrayed on television, this real-life crime scene investigator unveils a gritty, exhausting, exacting, alternately rewarding and frustrating world where teamwork supersedes individual heroics and some cases unfortunately remain unsolved." "Manhein provides accounts of dozens of cases from her twenty-four-year career. Some of them are famous. She describes her involvement in the hunt for two serial killers who simultaneously terrorized the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, region for years; her efforts to recover the remains of the seven astronauts killed in the Columbia space shuttle crash in 2003; and her ultimately successful struggle to identify the beheaded toddler known for years as Precious Doe. Less well-known but equally compelling are cases involving the remains of a Korean War soldier buried for more than forty years and the mystery of "Mardi Gras Man," who was wearing a string of plastic beads when his body was discovered." "Manhein describes how the increased popularity of tattoos has aided her work and how forensic science has labored to expose frauds - including a fake "big-foot" track she examined from Louisiana's Kisatchie National Forest. She also shares ambitious plans to create a database of biological and DNA profiles of all of the state's missing and unidentified persons."--Jacket.