William M. Bass

Biography Bass was born in Staunton, Virginia to Marvin and Jenny Bass.

Bass attended Hampden-Sydney College before transferring his junior year to the University of Virginia for his undergraduate degree in psychology, which he received in 1951, and was a scholar at the US Army Medical Research Laboratory from 1953 to 1954, where he studied psychophysiology. He received his master's from the University of Kentucky in 1956. He completed his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1961. His research career began as an archaeologist, excavating Native American grave sites in the Midwestern United States during the latter 1950s and 1960s. He mentions in Death's Acre that this activity earned him the informal title "Indian grave-robber number one" from an Indian activist, though no clashes with Native Americans ever occurred. He started the university's anthropological research facility in 1980, which was the first in the world. He established the university's Forensic Anthropology Center in 1987.

Most of Bass' research has been on osteology and human decomposition. Bass' research, along with his graduate students, has made many advances in how to determine the cause and time of death of a person and the conditions in which death took place. His research has formed the basis of techniques used by medical examiners, forensic pathologists, homicide detectives, and other law enforcement personnel in postmortem investigations.

In addition to his research, Bass has also assisted law enforcement in forensic investigations. He has investigated multiple high-profile cases, including the 1983 Benton fireworks disaster, the Tri-State Crematory scandal, and the 2007 exhumation and autopsy of The Big Bopper, in which he determined the cause of death, which had not been confirmed initially.

Bass is the third generation in his family to have an educational building named after him. The William M. Bass III Forensic Anthropology Building dedication ceremony was September 27, 2011, near the Body Farm.

Personal life Bass has been married three times. He married his first wife, Mary Anna Owens, whom he met while doing research for the Army, in 1953. Owens died of colon cancer in 1993. His second marriage, in 1994, was to Annette Blackbourne, who died in 1997 from lung cancer. Bass has three sons, Charlie, William Marvin IV, and Jim. Bass was a devout Christian for much of his adult life, but now he is an atheist.