Poop Clues Help Give Time of Death on "Bones"

In the episode of "The Pinocchio in the Planter," a kid who was peeping into the women's shower from a window falls in a planter and uncovers a body. He screams as if the skeleton has a hold of him and cannot get up.

As the "Squint Squad" checks out the box, Dr. Hodgins finds hook worms at the end of the planter away from the foot. As he pulls one of the worms out of the soil, Booth grosses out over the slimy bugger. When Jack looks at the body, there are thousands of hook worms crawling all over the body.

Once he realizes the worm is to far from the anal sphincter, as Bones puts it, he measures how far the lone hook worm traveled from the pooped on body. Dr. Brennan explains to Booth how the anus relaxes during death, it caused their victim to poop at the time of death. Booth grosses out again over this information.

Now back to the traveling hookworms for a moment. Jack measures the hook worm at the end of the planter from his anal sphincter area. The length measured three feet-four and one-sixteenth inches. He tells Booth and Brennan hookworms can only crawl one foot a day. Bones figures the man had been dead three days, eight hours, and forty-five minutes.

Since this could be something made up just for the show, I searched a bit and found out pooping upon death can happen. I read through a discussion of the Snopes.com site about this topic.

Pooping upon death during this episode of "Bones" is not the first time this has been used in a show. It has been talked about in movies as well as it happening in real life. Apparently, defecating on death can happen to a person or animal when they die if their rectum is full. However, it does not happen to everyone that dies.

Pooping at death is not the only thing that can happen upon death. If you are interested in the conversation mentioned at Snopes.com, you can check it out at Defecating at the Moment of Death.

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