U professor plays role in high-profile forensics case
Todd Fenton is perfectly comfortable in his laboratory on the fourth floor of Fee Hall, even though he’s surrounded by small fragments of prehistoric remains of teenagers and an intact human skeleton lying on the table next to him.Fenton, a forensic anthropologist and anthropology professor at MSU, works daily to identify the cause of death in cases when it is unknown or when a crime victim’s identity remains a mystery.“My favorites are the ones where you have to figure out the individual death story,” he says.Fenton received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and earned his master’s degree at the University of Arizona in Tucson.He has been working on campus since 1998.“I love forensic anthropology because you can work a case one day and assess the trauma to a body, positively identify the remains and when you go home at night there’s a sense of accomplishment like no other field allows,” he said.Fenton and the rest of the employees at MSU’s forensic anthropology lab have recently been receiving increased statewide and national attention for their hard work and positive results.
