Identity Crisis

The Murder, the Mystery, and the Missing DNA

By: Jefferson Bass

Narrated by: Charles Constant

Length: 1 hr and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Renowned forensic anthropologist Bill Bass - founder of the Body Farm - tackles one of his most baffling cases ever in this real-life spellbinder.

In 1978, 56-year-old Leoma Patterson left a bar in Clinton, Tennessee, and was never seen again. Six months later, a female skeleton was found on a wooded lakeshore in a neighboring county. The bones were consistent with those of the missing woman, and one of Patterson's daughters recognized a ring found at the death scene as her mother's. The bones were buried, and six years later, a relative of Patterson's - one of the men she was last seen alive with - confessed to killing her. Case closed.

But the tentative identification - made years before DNA testing was available to confirm it - failed to convince some of Patterson's relatives. And so it was that in 2005 Dr. Bass found himself winding around hairpin curves to the mountainside grave, where he would unearth the disputed remains and collect DNA samples. The forensic twists and turns that followed would test the limits of DNA technology...and of Dr. Bass's half-century of forensic knowledge.

©2015 Jefferson Bass LLC (P)2020 Tantor

Preface to the Jefferson Bass Books

I have totally enjoyed his books and wish I had read this book before I read the series on the Bone Farm. So much background information.

Great true story.

Loved Bass' writing as always. Such authentic description and a kind view of humanity shining through.