Since USF announced a proposed “body farm” at the Hillsborough County Sheriff's training facility in Lithia, area residents have been up in arms.
On Friday afternoon, The Tampa Bay Times reported USF announced it will cancel its plan to pursue such a facility at that location.
Perhaps the biggest criticism has been on the lack of communication with and input by local residents for the project, known as the Facility for Outdoor Experimental Research and Training or FORT, which has been in development for more than a year.
The project's proponents attempted to rectify that Thursday night in the packed cafeteria of Pinecrest Elementary, but the is intention to educate locals about their proposal was met with fear and outrage.
Things started off smoothly enough, with the Dean of the USF's College of Arts And Science Eric Eisenberg opening by encouraging audience involvement and stressing the positives of what a project could bring to Lithia's reputation.
“Rather than being a source of embarrassment or bad intention for Lithia,” said Eisenberg, “we think that the research being conducted will be a point of pride, will help law enforcement in solving cold cases and missing person cases.”
Following Eisenberg was USF Anthropology professor Erin Kimmerlee, who explained how the facility would benefit in developing remote sensing, simulating mock crime scenes and burial detection and excavation, among other aspects of the field. She also cited some well known cases such as the bodies found at the Dozier School and the Abraham Shakespeare murder as instances in which law enforcement could have been aided by knowledge that FORT could provide on how bodies decompose outdoors in Florida's unique climate.
From this point on, it became clear that most of those in attendance weren't there to learn about the project, but instead voice their displeasure about what they considered an attack on their community.
Foregoing a proposed private round table with the experts in attendance, Lithia residents instead took turns approaching the microphone and voicing their support or opposition to the project, starting with Terry Holden, who has lived with her family in Lithia for eighteen years.
“We do not want a body farm in Lithia. It's not compatible with our beautiful area," she said. "The proposed facility would do nothing to help us reach our goals of keeping our community the highly desirable, beautiful family oriented community that it is. … You need to understand that you are coming from a research or law enforcement viewpoint, we are coming from a viewpoint as homeowners and as the residential citizen viewpoint. We live, we work and we play in Lithia. We are raising our families here. We have a highly vested interest in our town. Our opinion should be of primary importance. No one asked for it a year ago.”
Holden proposed in alternative to place the facility somewhere closer to USF, maybe on property the university already owned.
This comment portion of the event brought out a range of criticisms of the project, with the most common being the smell that would emanate from the site, along with the negative effect on home values and the general lack of consultation with Lithia residents about the proposal.
"I'm not here to give anybody a hard time, I'm just asking you to take a hard look at what you're doing to the people who spent their lives building their lives here,” said William Rayburn, who lives on property directly adjacent to the training facility.
As the meeting wore on complaints only got more bizarre, with allusions being made to post-revolution Paris, a fear that Lithia might become one of the ten scariest places on Earth and a concern that scavenger animals such as coyotes could eventually develop a taste for human flesh.
While in much smaller attendance, there were those that supported the project. Gretchen Elizabeth, a Lithia resident since 1999, said she would be proud to be one of the first to donate her body to the project. Kirk Smith from nearby Dover spoke of his experience at a similar facility in Tennessee and that fears of the smell would be unwarranted.
Lithia resident Frances Chavez urged the audience to look at the benefits FORT could bring.
“Why are we opposing something that is going to be a benefit?" he said. "Not only to law enforcement but also to families that have lost loved ones. I don't see problems with this. I'm sorry, but it's time that we realize progress is going to happen.”
Still, despite the support, one couldn't help but feel Tracy Andershaw, who was the final resident to give her opinion, summed up the event organizers' night.
“I bet you guys are glad this is over,” she said.
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2015.