Police Call on Professor to Use His Archeological Skills to Unearth Clues to Crimes

Peter Thomas may not carry a gun or a badge, but he is considered one of the craftiest detectives in Vermont, a Sherlock Holmesian figure to whom police turn when conventional investigatory methods falter.

Like his fictional predecessor, Thomas, an associate archeology professor at the University of Vermont, is summoned on exceptionally difficult cases and asked to apply his finely honed powers of observation and deduction.

Using the techniques developed in his science, Thomas has found hidden grave sites, tracked down poachers and mapped the positions of human skeletons for clear presentation to jurors miles from the crime scene.

“I’m not Quincy,” Thomas said. “I’m not the guy who gives them all the answers. I’m no boon to detective work. But I can offer some expertise based on years and years of experience in the field.”

‘Pretty Good Clues’

“You can recover more information from a scene if you approach it methodically rather than digging up a hole, removing the body and leaving,” Thomas said. “There might be some pretty good clues there.”

“If somebody does somebody in and puts them in a hole and covers them up, I think that is where the archeologist is particularly helpful,” Thomas said.

“First of all, the archeologist has developed the skills to locate buried evidence, and secondly, they have developed the skills to rigorously inventory everything found on the one hand at an archeological site and on the other hand at a crime scene.”

In fact, Gov. Madeleine M. Kunin recently gave Thomas a citation for his unique contributions to the fight against crime.

For instance, when Vermont state police received a tip that members of the reclusive Northeast Kingdom Community Church were burying stillborn babies without death certificates, Thomas was called in to advise investigators.

“We went up to this field, and the state police were issued shovels and told to dig up the field,” Thomas said. “But I said, ‘Let’s see what we’re up against.’ ”

Systematic Sampling

Thomas began systematically sampling soil in undisturbed sections of the field and came up with a characteristic geological profile.

When the soil profile in one area of the field proved to be inconsistent with Thomas’ findings, work was begun.

Thomas removed the topsoil, and underneath, in the subsoil, was the outline of a round hole. Digging deeper, Thomas unearthed a small cardboard box. Inside was a stillborn child whose death had not been reported to state officials.

Police were able to photograph the tiny, anonymous grave without destroying the site by digging up the entire field.

In his normal professional life, Thomas, who focuses on field research rather than teaching, looks for archeological sites threatened by development, an assessment required under both state and federal environmental laws.

Thomas got involved in investigatory work about five years ago, when he was asked to work with the state’s chief medical examiner to identify some bones. Since then, he has worked on 10 to 15 cases, mostly murders or cases involving buried objects.

‘Potential Homicide?’

“There are a lot of unmarked graves around,” Thomas said. “The one thing they need to know right off is, is this evidence of a potential homicide?”

Although Thomas’ skills have impressed police, his work as an investigator has in turn given him new insights into his own discipline.

“One of the things you learn in any homicide case is that all the answers aren’t at the burial scene.

“I guess what that means, archeologically, is that I can go out and investigate a site but there are lots of things that people may have been up to there that I can get no clue of through archeology.

“I can figure out what they ate and what tools they used and where they got the raw materials and what other groups they had social relationships with, but I have no idea at all what, for instance, they thought about the supernatural or when the local dance was.”