In a matter of days, the first dead human will be put out to rot in the North Carolina mountains, all in the name of science.

Dr. John Williams runs the Forensic Anthropology Lab at Western Carolina University, he says, "I want to have them smell it, see it and if they can handle it great."

Students will get a chance to have real world experience in a body farm. It'll be the second of it's kind in the nation. The other is just across the mountains in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Williams says, "What we gather here as information will be different from what they gather."

Different soils, bugs, weather all mean different rates of decomposition. Important when you're trying to figure out how long someone has been dead and what killed them.

Williams says "So we are hoping as a discipline, to have facilities like this all over the country."

Helping detectives solve mysteries.

We're told security will be very tight with cameras and other tools.