Tulsa City Photographer Captures Inside Look Of Forensic Lab At Oaklawn Cemetery

Scientists are studying the human remains found in a mass grave at Oaklawn Cemetery, inside an onsite forensic lab. The team is working to determine whether the remains are connected to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. 

From the fence at Oaklawn Cemetery, the public can see forensic lab at a distance. 

News On 6 and other media outlet cameras are not allowed inside, but a City of Tulsa photographer took a tour with Dr. Phoebe Stubblefield, who is the lead forensic anthropologist on the team. 

After remains are carefully brought inside, the first place many of them go is the radiography room, to be X-rayed.  

"The X-ray is shortening, considerably, some of our time spent picking through the soil,” Stubblefield said.  

She said the next step is to process the image in a plate scanner. 

"We get the image on the screen. And we look for features that might be associated with a cause of death like bullets or metallic scatter from bullets,” Stubblefield said.  

Dr. Stubblefield said so far, the team has found artifacts like safety pins, buttons, plates that read “At Rest,” that sit on caskets, and lots of nails.  

The next part of the lab she showed in a City of Tulsa video, is where a team of people try to learn as much as they can about each set of bones. 

"Here in this part of the analysis we find things like 'Did they have arthritis and where?' or 'Did they have an injury that's healed? Where is it located?’” she said.  

Then, Dr. Stubblefield said, the remains go to a room with a microscope, and all the information about each set of remains is documented. But it is not all done on the computer.  

"We're not digital,” she said. “We do run on a mix of paper and digital files." 

The last stop on the tour is the storage system, where remains are held in cardboard boxes on a shelfing unit made of PVC pipes, until the remains are moved to another storage space. Eventually the remains will be reinterred.