Understanding insects helps ‘bug man’ understand death
Los Angeles Times
CLEVELAND — Joe Keiper squinted into a microscope and pressed the dead maggot with a pair of surgical forceps to determine how much human flesh the fat, white larva had eaten.
The forensic entomologist had plucked hundreds of them off a corpse found inside a Cleveland house the day before Halloween.
“Understand insects, and you can understand death,” said Keiper, a slender, balding scientist of 40.
For nine years, Keiper has studied all things creepy-crawly as the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s director of science and curator of invertebrate zoology.
Local cops just call him the bug man.
Keiper is one of fewer than 20 people in the U.S. who do this sort of forensic work on a regular basis. He tracks the life of insects to solve the mysteries of human death.
From his windowless museum lab here in northern Ohio, he has helped local police and federal investigators solve 32 cases since 2001.
The clues he finds from maggots, flies, beetles and other insects rarely paint the whole picture of death. They are only bits and pieces. But there are usually thousands upon thousands of pieces available, each contributing to the whole story.
“I follow where the bugs lead me,” Keiper said. “Their lives tell a story about death. You just have to know how to read the story they’re trying to tell.”
This latest case is as mysterious as any he has handled.
The remains of 10 women have been found at the duplex on Imperial Avenue, along with a skull in a bucket in the house’s basement. The duplex’s sole resident, Anthony Sowell, 50, has been arrested and charged with five counts of murder so far.
Investigators continue to search for more bodies.
“Working with bugs, in a crime scene or in nature, I’ve learned that everything has a role to play in life,” Keiper said. “Everything has its purpose.”