Recently, at the anatomy lab on Linfield University’s Portland campus, William Borman rolled back a large metal cover and unveiled a cadaver.
The audience for this exercise was members of MMIW Search & Hope Alliance, a group that helps search for missing indigenous people.
And the group was not just there to observe.
A tinge of formaldehyde filled the air as members donned surgical gloves and leaned in to examine the body’s musculature, skin, veins and nerves.
“It’s really important that our volunteers know what we're looking at, what we're looking for, and what they're getting into,” said Kimberly Lining, the founder of MMIW Search & Hope Alliance.
Lining said the reality is that when it comes to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons cases, search teams have to be prepared for the likelihood of finding a corpse.
She said this need to educate her team drew her to Borman, a professor of basic science at the University of Western States which leases the anatomy lab on the Linfield University campus.
Borman said cadavers are normally used for students studying to become health professionals and chiropractors, but he was compelled to make them available for MMIW Search & Hope Alliance.
“It's a great organization to help bring closure to families who are missing their loved ones,” said Borman. “And if we could provide some sort of learning opportunity for those folks, I thought that was a great thing.”
This may be the first collaboration between a cadaver lab and an MMIP organization. Lining said the aim is to help search volunteers gird themselves for the strong possibility of finding a dead body, and discern between human and animal remains. She said the teeth and vertebrae of deer are often mistaken for those of people.
A crisis of widespread concern
The National Council of Urban Indian Health reported 9,575 entries were made for American Indian/Alaska Native persons in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center Missing Person File in 2020. And 71% of all cases were AI/AN people under the age of 21. Over the past decade, many Native organizations and resources have formed to help track MMIP cases and aid search and recovery efforts.
“Organizations like us are out here really trying to combat the crisis,” said Lining. “And we respect and honor all the people that have donated their bodies to science so that we could continue our work.”
Lining herself said that she’s seen death up close many times, including the death of her best friend in 2017. The woman died in a Portland-area hospital ICU after being severely beaten by her boyfriend.
“It was an open wound that calloused over and I think through my years of traumatic experiences with violent death, I've seen a lot, it's prepared me,” said Lining. “I think just due to fire, like steel is forged through fire.”
But for most people, exposure to death and corpses isn’t a recurring thing. So the cadaver session with Borman provides Lining’s volunteers with a safe and supportive environment where they can get accustomed to the presence of a human body, and learn about its structure and functionality.
Two volunteers, Sabrina Griffith and Isabella Regalado, said they would recommend this experience to anyone thinking of helping search for missing people.
“Just seeing the veins, the actual ligaments, the bone, the muscles, it was quite surprising to see it and feel it in real life,” said Griffith, who’s been with MMIW Search & Hope Alliance for more than a year. “I’ve only touched bones and stuff like that, so it's very interesting to actually feel the inner part of our body.”
“It's actually been better than anticipated,” said Regalado, who joined the group a few weeks ago. “I thought it would be a little bit more gruesome, but everyone has been very professional and understanding, and everyone has been doing their best to educate everyone else.”
Borman took questions from the volunteers over the nearly two-hour session, from how the cadavers are embalmed to how trauma and injury can manifest in the human body.
Lining and Borman both emphasized that viewing cadavers in a controlled-environment lab isn’t the same as coming across a body in the wilderness or city. Such bodies aren’t preserved, and beyond what the cause of death inflicted, they would be subject to the elements and scavengers.
“If it's in the wilderness, in the forest, bears, cougars, wolves…they're gonna tear at stuff and leave the bone,” said Lining. “So definitely pieces more than together.”
In the last half hour of the visit, Lining quizzed her volunteers on human anatomy and considerations to take when discerning human and animal remains in the wild.
“Maybe they want to move on and go into medical school,” she said. “I want to also give them a chance to pioneer a path, maybe this will give them that.”
Nearby, Borman sprayed a blue hydrating liquid to keep the cadavers from drying out and developing mold. The four shown to Lining’s volunteers were acquired in April of 2025, and are two men and two women who died in their 80s or 90s who specified they wanted their bodies used for instructional purposes.
“The donors that I have the opportunity to work with are here because they, in their own way, wanted to contribute to people's education as well,” said Borman. He added that everyone at the cadaver session was respectful and asked great questions.
“I'm pleased that we were able to make this happen. If she were interested in doing it again, I’d be open to doing it,” he said.
Before leaving, Lining and the volunteers gave small gifts of gratitude to Borman, including a plant and a pouch of tobacco.
MMIW Search & Hope Alliance is preparing for two search efforts in the coming weeks. One will be at the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in northeast Oregon, and another is planned for the southern part of the state.
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