Forensic Class at Boy’s Latin School of Maryland Uses Maggots For Criminal Investigation

With talented faculty alongside, students at the Boy’s Latin School of Maryland learn the core values of courage, integrity and compassion while striving for academic and personal excellence. Jim Haluck, instructor of an honors forensic course at The Boy’s Latino School of Maryland, helps students examine the scientific techniques used by criminal investigators in the laboratory to solve crimes.

A new lab entitled Sarcophaga bullata, which deals with meat and maggots in an attempt to determine if drugs were used by a deceased human body, has recently made the news in the forensic world. Instructor Haluck explained, “The boys in honors forensic sciences are loading their test tubes with drug laced ground beef and larvae of Sarcophaga bullata flies. These flies lay eggs on deceased humans and can be used to determine time of death and any drug use by the deceased individual. After about three days of feeding on the drug-laced meat, the boys will extract the maggots and grind them to prepare their body fluids for thin-layered chromatography analysis. The samples taken from maggots will be compared to reference drug Rf values for identification.”

The forensic class at the Boy’s Latin School of Maryland places the students into the shoes of forensic entomologist, helping them obtain a better understanding of the work these professional provide to the field of forensic science.

Click here to read more about the Boy’s Latin School of Maryland and the Forensic Class!

Source: The Boys’ Latin School of Maryland

[Abstract written by Noel Andres, ForensIQ Intern, 4/17/14]