the rest of the story

only a skeleton left after just a couple months! I thought it would take a bit longer... must be some hungery little critters out there cleaning up.

Yeah. I found on on the side of I-5 once, murder victim, he had been there for approx five months. Pretty skinny by then, but not what I would call a skeleton. Might just be headline gathering wording on the part of the reporter...

If the person did indeed die of homicidal violence, like a gunshot or shotgun blast to the chest, that would be an "open" invitation to every vulture, crow, mouse, rat, opossum, raccoon, coyote, blowfly, etc in the neighborhood. And the area has a river running through it, which increases the amount of wildlife.

Also, it's a relatively moist area, which seems to contribute to decomposition, as opposed to the mummified remains found under dry conditions.

Sue

Maybe that is why my guy looked so good. Three .32's (what a goofy caliber to off someone with) to the head, dumped along I-5 in central CA in Aug (average daily temp 100+++, very low humidity). Lots of coyotes in the area, I was really surprised that all of his parts were still there...

At the right time of year around here (central TX), it wouldn't take long. This summer, a large dog was hit down the road from my house. Nothing ugly, just dead on the side of the road. Within a week and a half it was clean bones. Between the flies and the dermistid beetles, it was completely stripped clean. Morbid but facinating; the day after it was hit it looked like it had been shaved, there was a halo of hair outlining its body. The beetles had cut the hair. I wasn't until it was a skeleton, looking almost like a museum display, that larger animals messed with it and scattered the bones.

A few years ago, near the same spot, a feral pig lay pretty much complete for almost two months during the winter. Just kind of got waxy looking and dehydrated.