Forensic anthropologist Walter Birkby, who used an intimate knowledge of the human skeleton to solve crimes and identify the nameless, died early Saturday. He was 83.
Birkby was a nationally recognized expert in human identification and was called on to substantiate locks of Beethoven’s hair and look for signs of cannibalism on the exhumed bones of the notorious Alferd Packer party.
He testified in some of the most high-profile homicide cases in Pima County and was in demand in other jurisdictions as well.
Birkby, affectionately known as "Dr. Death," researched and taught at the Arizona State Museum and the UA Department of Anthropology and served as a consultant and later employee of the Pima County Medical Examiner.
•Dr. Death was sweet and funny•
Bruce Anderson, forensic pathologist for Pima County, trained under Birkby.
“There wouldn’t be forensic anthropology in Pima County without him,” Anderson said.
“He was a wonderful man. He was kind and he was fair. He taught us that you would not misrepresent yourself or say something beyond your level of skill. You are serving the law and serving justice.”
Birkby was born and raised in Gordon, Nebraska. He attended Creighton University for a year before joining the U.S. Marine Corps and serving in Korea.
When he returned, he trained as a medical technician, then went to Kansas University. “He wanted to be a pathologist,” said Carmen Birkby, who was married to him for 59 years.
At Kansas, he met William Bass, considered the father of forensic pathology. “He took a few courses with Bill Bass and that was that,” Carmen Birkby said. Birkby came to the University of Arizona in 1963 for graduate school.
He stayed on as curator of physical anthropology for the Arizona State Museum. He researched remains from some of the major archaeological digs in the Southwest, taught classes for the School of Anthropology and developed his forensic specialty, working with Pima County and investigative agencies across the country.
“His classes were wildly popular,” said Anderson. “He was an interesting lecturer and an interesting man.”
“He really liked teaching and he really liked his kids,” said Carmen Birkby. “He was really proud of all his students and they’ve gone on to accomplish a lot in forensic anthropology.
One of his former students, Laura Fulginiti, is forensic anthropologist for the Maricopa County Medical Examiner. Another, Madeleine Hinkes has that post in San Diego County.
Fulginiti and several other students came to Tucson for Birkby’s retirement party in 2009, during which Pima County dedicated the Walter J. Birkby Forensic Anthropology Lab.
In addition to instilling his students with discipline and a sense of responsibility to the truth, he also treated them to his peculiar sense of humor.
The coffee mugs in Birkby’s Human Identification Lab bore skull and cross-bones and he gave detective-novel names to his more interesting cases: “The Cranium in the Coffee Can” and “I Dismembered Mama.”
The humor did not override his compassion, said Anderson. “He thought homicide cases were the most fun and the most interesting, but also the most tragic.”
Birkby continued to work for Pima County after retiring from the UA in 1996. The Medical Examiner was swamped with work — most of it resulting from the need to identify the bodies of migrants found in the desert.
“The bulk of the work was just figuring out who a person was and getting that person’s remains back to their family,” said Anderson.
Birkby never wanted to retire, said Anderson, but did so after early signs of mental deterioration. Anderson said his death was due to “complications of progressive dementia.”
In addition to his wife, Birkby is survived by a son, Jeff, of Tucson; a daughter, Julie Mattis of Brooklyn, Michigan, and a grandson, Tyler.
The family has not yet planned a gathering in his honor, but expects to do shortly, said Carmen Birkby.
