Dr. Bill Bass opens the long, brown cardboard box, a slender rectangle that could hold long-stemmed roses. The forensic anthropologist reaches in to select a human skull. Three dozen people lean up in their chairs as the retired University of Tennessee anthropology professor cradles a dead man's head in his hands. Bass threads thin metal survey stakes — the type more often used to mark utility or property lines — through holes two bullets left in the skull. Neon orange flags at the stakes' tips protrude from the skull cavities.
A few people groan quietly; most appear enthralled. William M. Bass is in his element. He's holding bones and teaching.
It's a humid early evening in June at James White's Fort; Bass is speaking at the downtown landmark's $75-a-ticket "Forensics at the Fort" benefit. He talks for nearly an hour, holding up other skulls from his box to teach their stories. He answers questions until it's nearly dark, only ending when assistant Susan Seals gives him the "stop" signal from the back of the group.
The lecture is one of dozens that Bass, who retired from UT in 1995, gives in a year to groups that include churches, the Knoxville Bar Association and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. This night skulls substitute for one of the 15 or so sets of slides he often brings. Those images of decomposing corpses, shown at a breakfast lecture Bass gave at a forensic conference, once appalled crime writer Patricia Cornwell. To the 84-year-old Bass, maggot-covered bodies and bullet-pierced skulls are pieces to puzzles.
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