What’s in a name? Well, if you’re USF researchers, you can’t afford to have “body farm” identify your proposed work–support of the Sheriff’s Office notwithstanding–on two acres in a sparsely populated part of south Hillsborough County.
The plan to build an open-air facility–on county-owned land–where bodies could naturally decay would have, among other things, aided law enforcement agencies and researchers in their pursuit of missing person- and cold-case leads. No matter that some three dozen people had already indicated interest in donating their bodies to science.
Perhaps “Forensic Farm” would have been more palatable. But “body farm” sounded too much like another zombie movie. Call it the “eew” factor.