She was dressed up – in heels and a silk blouse – and hitching a ride into Washington, D.C., in a friend’s new car. But as she stepped into the car with its new leather seats, the bucket top flexed, the lid came off and the brain popped out, landing in her lap.

“Formaldehyde really burns when it lands. Oh my gosh, really burns,” France said. She pulled off her contaminated clothing and borrowed a colleague’s gym shorts, diverting to her hotel room with one hand on the brain bucket and the other holding up the much-too-large shorts. She regrouped. The next day, she made her mold.

“The brain survived, the car seats survived, I survived,” she said.

Now, a hard plastic cast of that brain sits on a shelf in her Front Range laboratory. France, 67, has for more than three decades worked as a board-certified forensic anthropologist based in Colorado, examining bones to help determine the circumstances around death. She can look at a skeleton and determine the person’s gender and age when they died. She helps authorities identify bones of the long-dead or long-missing, and she’s worked in the aftermath of airplane crashes, an explosion, the 9/11 attacks.

This year, she testified in two high-profile Colorado cold cases: the murder of 13-year-old Dylan Redwine, who went missing in 2012, and the 1984 killing of 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews. In both cases, the children’s bones were found long after they went missing. In the Redwine case, the suspect was convicted. In the Matthews case, the jury was hung on a murder charge. But the verdicts mean little to France.

“This is going to sound really weird to say, but I am disinterested in the outcome,” she said. “My part in testimony is not to put somebody in jail…It¶¶Òőap none of my business what the jury decides. I just speak to the evidence, I speak to the science.”

France won’t talk about any of the ongoing criminal investigations she’s involved in to avoid jeopardizing the cases. But she has a reputation for being fair and methodical when testifying in court, those who’ve worked with her say. She exudes confidence, said Chuck Heidel, an investigator at the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office.

“She doesn’t go out on a limb,” he said. “She knows people’s lives depend on these results and on her opinions.”

That strong sense of professional ethics continues outside the courtroom, said geologist Jim Reed. Once, in the 1990s, he and France traveled to Russia to help authorities there search for the bodies of two missing members of Czar Nicholas II’s family. The Romanov family was murdered in 1918, but there were rumors that a daughter, 17-year-old Anastasia, had somehow survived the slaughter.

The Russians believed Anastasia’s bones had been found. But France looked at bones they’d collected and was not convinced, Reed said. The Russians wanted the scientists to sign papers essentially declaring the bones to be Anastasia’s, but France refused, Reed said. The Russians weren’t happy. One Russian official berated France and Reed, yelling and red-faced.

“The pressure on her to lie was tremendous,” Reed said. “It was one of the joys of my life to watch her do battle with these people and refuse to compromise her integrity.”

***

On the job, France must separate the emotions of death from the work of examining bodies and bones.

If she’s dealing with a decomposing body, full of bugs and odors, she’ll put that reality in the far background of her mind, and focus instead on finding clues, she said.

“That¶¶Òőap when I just have to say, ‘OK, I’m looking for the gunshot wound, I’m looking for the sharp force injury, I’m looking for clues as to this person’s identity,” she said.

She looks past the bugs; maggots don’t have much to offer her.

“Not me,” she said. “A forensic entomologist would be looking at the maggots. Actually, I had a conversation about this with a forensic entomologist, and I said, ‘I don’t know how you can deal with all these maggots.’ And he said, ‘I don’t know how you can deal with everything else.’”

France has for years been part of NecroSearch International, a nonprofit organization staffed by volunteers in a variety of disciplines who help law enforcement search for hidden graves and missing bodies. G. Clark Davenport, a founding member of the group, said France can compartmentalize even when others can’t.

“She’s capable of taking some things that if you and I saw them, it would probably give us PTSD right away,” he said. “She’s capable of taking those images in the case and putting it on a shelf.”

And she’s practical, he said. Once, Davenport and France responded to a scene where human remains had been found under a mattress. The whole time they worked there, a dog stood close by, he said.

“Someone made a comment that this is probably the dog’s lunch pail,” Davenport said. “So Diane said, ‘You have to find out who has that dog, and if the dog brought anything home, like a bone.’ (It was) just a common sense thing that law enforcement wouldn’t think of.”

France doesn’t suffer fools, Reed said, and the detectives and cops who work with France are no exception. She seems to cut through egos and misogyny, he said.

“She is quick to set ground rules,” he said. “When she walks into a room, it¶¶Òőap a matter of how you carry yourself. I think just the professionalism that she radiates is so palpable, that seems to diffuse it.”

France said she early on sought advice from a professor, Alice Brues, about dealing with misogyny, and Brues, a pioneer in the field who was forced to listen to her classes at Harvard University from the hallway because she was a woman, told France not to acknowledge such behavior.

“She said, ‘Just do your work and get on with it,'” France said. From then on, if a gun-toting officer at a scene asked what a “little thing” like France was doing in such a job, she’d reply, “The same thing you are.”

Investigators learn from her, said Shane Walker. In 2011, he bought most of a casting business France founded in 1985 to create replicas of bones and other specimens for universities, museums and other places that need realistic-looking copies, either for display or study. He works from France’s lab.

“There was a detective in here the other day (working with her) and it was so cute, he was just like, “I’m so damn happy I met you,’” Walker said, and laughed. “Because she’s a great teacher.”

A textbook France authored on comparing human and non-human skeletal remains is considered fundamental, said Michala Stock, a board-certified forensic anthropologist who heads the Human Identification Laboratory at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She called France “a giant in the field.”

“It¶¶Òőap been instrumental for helping guide, when we find fragmentary skeletal remains, of helping to sort out whether the remains we are looking at are human or not,” Stock said. “…She definitely helped shape the field.”

***

The lab where France works is filled with casts of bones. Human skull casts are lined up on shelves against one wall. Boxes are labeled with phrases like “Human head,” “Chimp left hand,” “Pelvic girdles,” and “Feet originals.” There’s a cast of a polar bear skull, a fin whale brain, a tiger tongue and 80,000-year-old bone harpoon points.

During a recent visit with The Denver Post, France bounced from cast to cast, spilling their origin stories in a rush.

“Feel that,” she said, thrusting out the tiger tongue cast. “It¶¶Òőap extremely rough.”

On the counter under the tiger tongue sat a skull cast with two gunshot wounds.

“He was, as I understand it, involved in the drug trade and was executed,” France said, picking up the cast and pointing to a gunshot entry wound at the base of the skull. “This is a pretty typical location for an execution.”

Over the years, France has seen an increase in bones with gunshot wounds.

“Bones reflect society,” she said.

These days, France is moving toward retirement, though she expects to keep volunteering with NecroSearch for the long haul. She’s written five books — technical books and textbooks — and may publish some different work going forward.

For a long time, France was the only board-certified forensic anthropologist in the state. But there’s another based in Denver now, Stock, and knowing she is there has given France some peace of mind about retirement.

“I was not willing to, and am not willing to turn over my clientele to somebody who isn’t board-certified,” she said.

When everything is said and done, and France herself becomes nothing but skin and bones, she hopes her own skeleton will be sent to the Smithsonian.

Scientists there could examine her bones, her broken neck and arthritis. She’s kept her medical records, too, to supplement her bones. It’ll be a research packet, a lifetime in the making.

“That way,” she said, “My contributions to the field will never stop.”

“I have had trouble remembering a criminal defendant who has shown such an utter lack of remorse,” Judge Jeffrey Wilson said during the sentencing hearing Friday morning. “This leads me to believe that you need significant punishment… and you need to be removed from society for a long period of time.”

Friday’s sentencing culminates nine years of agony for the boy’s family: the initial searches in the woods for Dylan’s body, the indictment and arrest of his father, numerous court hearings, and an emotional five-week trial in June and July, at the end of which a jury convicted Mark Redwine of second-degree murder and child abuse.

“Dylan was 13 years old when he took his life,” Elaine Hall, Dylan’s mother and Mark Redwine’s ex-wife, told the judge Friday during sentencing. “He had his whole life ahead of him. He would have done it and would have done it well. You robbed him of his youth, robbed him of what he would have been.”

It frustrated her that Redwine never took responsibility for his actions, Hall said. That he never opened his mouth when search-and-rescue teams endlessly combed the mountains and lakes nearby and, all along, Redwine knew where Dylan’s body lay.

“When I think about what happened that night, Dylan looking up at his dad… What were you thinking when you saw his big blue eyes?” Hall said. “I don’t think it even fazed you. I think you need the maximum sentence — you have a lot of soul-searching to do.”

Dylan’s brother, Cory Redwine, said the past nine years “have been nothing short of misery.” Over the years, he said, he thought about what he could have done to protect Dylan from his own father.

“I can’t bring Dylan back,” Cory Redwine told the judge. “I can’t talk to Dylan so I pray to him. I dream of him… Dylan is my hero and became more of a man in 13 years than Mark became in 60.”

Prosecutors asked the judge to give Redwine the maximum 48-year sentence as they ticked off his cover-up the day he killed Dylan, his deception of investigators as they searched the area for the boy’s body in the days after his disappearance, and the terror and anguish he caused the family and the community.

“Dylan’s father is the one who is supposed to be there for him,” said Christian Champagne, Durango’s district attorney and one of the prosecutors on the case. “He was the one who was supposed to love and nurture him and protect him and keep him safe. Instead, he took his life — he stole it from him.”

Redwine, whose attorneys Friday indicated will appeal the verdict, spoke only when the judge asked him if he wanted to say anything.

“No, your honor, I do not,” he said, clad in orange prison garb.

During the five-week trial, prosecutors alleged that Redwine, 59, killed his son while the boy was on a court-ordered Thanksgiving 2012 visit to his father’s house. Redwine killed Dylan, prosecutors said, during a fit of rage after the boy confronted him about photos showing Redwine eating feces out of a diaper.

Redwine’s defense attorney argued during the trial that the case was circumstantial — that it was more likely Dylan ran away and was killed by a wild animal.

The case drew international attention, sparking a massive search-and-rescue operation after Dylan went missing. His remains weren’t found until 2013, when bones were located roughly eight miles from Redwine’s house. Investigators found the boy’s skull two years after that, more than a mile from the rest of his body.

A La Plata County jury convicted Mark Redwine of second-degree murder and child abuse Friday in the 2012 death of his 13-year-old son, Dylan Redwine — the culmination of nearly a decade of investigations, court proceedings and an agonizing wait for justice for the boy’s family.

Friends and relatives in the Durango courtroom erupted when the judge read the words “guilty.”

“He’s where he belongs,” Dylan’s brother, Cory Redwine, said outside the courtroom after the verdict came down for his father. “He’s Dylan’s murderer. That’s how he’ll be remembered and how he’ll have to live the rest of his life.”

During the five-week trial, prosecutors alleged Redwine, 59, killed Dylan while the boy was on a court-ordered Thanksgiving visit to Redwine’s house outside of Durango. Prosecutors said Redwine killed his son during a fit of rage after the child confronted him about photos that showed Redwine eating feces out of a diaper.

Investigators found traces of what is likely Dylan’s blood in Redwine’s living room, but Redwine’s defense attorneys said it’s impossible to know when the blood was deposited on the couch, under the rug and on a coffee table. A former girlfriend of Redwine testified that she saw the boy cut his finger in the living room in 2011.

In closing arguments Thursday, Redwine’s defense attorney said the case was circumstantial and that it was more likely that Dylan ran away and was killed by a wild animal.

Redwine is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 8 and will be held without bond until then.

Dylan’s disappearance drew national attention and sparked large search and rescue missions, but none of his remains were recovered until 2013. Some of his bones were found about eight miles from Redwine’s house that year. In 2015, part of his skull was found about 1.5 miles from the other bones.

Family and friends hugged and consoled one another outside the courtroom after the verdict, many sporting blue “Justice for Dylan” wristbands.

“This entire process been surreal,” Dylan’s mother, Elaine Hall, said outside the courtroom. “From when Dylan went missing, to when they found his remains — living in a world of not knowing what happened to my son.”

Hall had no doubt that the jury would return a guilty verdict Friday.

“Mark is going to be penalized for what he did to my son,” she said. “He knows as well as us — he was the one who took Dylan’s life.”

The emotions have run the gamut over the past nine years, Hall said, adding that she hopes Dylan’s case will be used to help prevent future instances of family violence.

“I’ve cried. I’ve been mad,” Hall said. “Right now, I’m just ready to remembering Dylan and his story rather than the gruesome details of his death.”

Cory Redwine described his younger brother as “bright and powerful.”

“Going forward, our family will do everything to keep Dylan’s memory on who he was as a person and try to live our best life him,” Redwine said. “Make him proud of us.”

As for Friday night, Hall said, “We’re gonna let our hair down. That’s about all I’ll say.”

Mark Redwine’s legal fate moved into the hands of a jury Thursday following closing arguments in the 5-week-long murder trial in Durango.

Redwine, 59, is accused of second-degree murder and child abuse in the death of his son, 13-year-old Dylan Redwine, who disappeared during a court-ordered visit to his father’s Vallecito home over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2012.

Prosecutors have said Redwine killed his son in a fit of rage during a confrontation over photos that depicted Redwine eating feces out of a diaper. The photos irreparably damaged the relationship between Dylan and his father, who was increasingly cut off from his youngest son in the months before his death, prosecutors alleged.

“The defendant killed his son because they were in a deteriorating, damaging relationship that turned deadly in November 2012,” Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, who helped prosecute the case, said during closing arguments.

Redwine’s public defender, Justin Bogan, said Redwine was wrongfully accused in a highly circumstantial case with “thin evidence” and asked the jury to return a not guilty verdict. The defense has argued that Dylan ran away from home and was killed by a wild animal.

“Justice is not achieved, closure is not achieved, when the wrong person gets convicted,” Bogan said. “I submit to you that because of the evidence and lack of evidence in this case, justice is a not guilty verdict.”

Dylan’s disappearance prompted an extensive search and drew national attention. Some of his bones were found in 2013, in rugged terrain on Middle Mountain about eight miles from Redwine’s home. Part of his skull was discovered in 2015 about 1.5 miles away from the first site.

Investigators allege Dylan was killed on the night of Nov. 18, 2012, in Redwine’s living room, where forensic scientists discovered traces of blood on a coffee table, couch and under a rug. During closing arguments Thursday, Dougherty said Dylan might have confronted his father about the photos of Redwine eating feces, but admitted to the jury that there is no way to prove exactly what happened when Dylan was killed.

“Perhaps it¶¶Òőap the poop pictures,” Dougherty told the jury. “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you what was going on in his mind that night. Perhaps Dylan just said, ‘F-U.’ Perhaps Dylan cursed at him. … Whether it was the diaper pictures — which obviously had an impact on Dylan and (his brother) Cory, both were terribly disturbed by seeing their dad like that — or whether it was Dylan just saying something, the defendant had had enough.”

Bogan argued to the jury that the prosecution’s uncertainty meant jurors should render a not guilty verdict.

“If they cannot tell you, after nine years, what happened, because they don’t know — if they don’t know, you don’t know,” he said.

Investigators wrongly focused their investigation on Redwine, reading into his actions after Dylan disappeared as evidence of guilt when they were in fact just the actions of a grieving father, Bogan said, dismissing evidence that didn’t point to Redwine as the culprit.

“When someone is on trial for murdering their youngest son, and the prosecution’s thesis is, ‘What if,’ or ‘maybe,’ or ‘can you imagine’ — that¶¶Òőap a window into how weak the evidence is in this case,” Bogan said. “…When they’re starting off with ‘maybe,’ your deliberations end with ‘not guilty.'”

The jury broke for the day not long after the completion of closing arguments and will resume Friday.

Mark Redwine’s defense team rested its case Wednesday without addressing the sordid photos that prosecutors allege motivated Redwine to kill his 13-year-old son, Dylan Redwine.

Redwine, 59, is accused of killing Dylan while the boy was visiting his father’s Vallecito home over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2012. The murder trial is in the fourth week of testimony and the jury is expected to begin deliberations Thursday, after closing arguments.

Prosecutors have argued that Redwine killed his son in a fit of rage when Dylan confronted his father over photographs that depict Redwine dressed in a bra and eating feces from a diaper. Redwine’s defense attorneys argued that Dylan ran away from home and may have been killed by a wild animal.

Redwine’s public defenders did not address the sordid photographs as they presented their case, though they did establish during the prosecution’s case that Dylan’s older brother had confronted their father about the photos while Dylan and Redwine were on a trip together, and that Dylan was not harmed at that time.

Redwine said in court Wednesday that he would not take the stand in his own defense.

“I have decided not to testify, your honor,” Redwine told Sixth Judicial District Chief Judge Jeffrey Wilson, who accepted the decision.

Redwine’s defense team instead focused on undermining key pieces of evidence against their client.

Prosecutors said a cadaver dog alerted to the scent of human remains in Redwine’s truck; defense witnesses questioned the reliability of the dogs. Prosecutors said traces of Dylan’s blood were found in Redwine’s living room; defense witnesses cast doubt on whether that blood belonged to Dylan and suggested the small amount of blood found could be present whether or not a crime was committed. Redwine’s ex-girlfriend testified that Dylan cut his finger in the home and dropped blood on the floor a year before he disappeared.

“It doesn’t always mean someone was killed there, if you see blood,” forensic scientist Richard Eikelenboom testified Tuesday. “You have to put it into the bigger picture of the crime.”

Investigators believe Dylan was killed on the night of Nov. 18, 2012, but a mail carrier testified for the defense that she saw a boy who could have been Dylan walking on the afternoon of Nov. 19, 2012.

Initially, she told investigators she was absolutely certain she’d seen Dylan walking with another boy, testimony revealed, but she later said she was only 50% sure. She told investigators the boy she saw was wearing a black backpack.

Some of Dylan’s belongings, including a black backpack, were never found.

Prosecutors characterized the mail carrier’s observations as one of hundreds of tips in Dylan’s case that were thoroughly investigated and found to be false. They also called a woman who was 10 when Dylan disappeared, and she testified she and her friend were the children who walked by the mail carrier, not Dylan.

The jury will return Thursday morning for closing arguments and deliberation.

Mark Redwine’s 13-year-old son Dylan cut his finger and bled in the living room of his father’s home more than a year before he went missing, Mark Redwine’s ex-girlfriend testified Monday as Redwine’s defense team worked to explain why Dylan’s blood was found in the home after the boy disappeared.

Redwine, 59, is standing trial on charges of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in Dylan’s death. Dylan disappeared from Redwine’s La Plata County home in November 2012, prompting an extensive search that stretched for months. Some of Dylan’s remains were found in 2013 in rugged terrain on Middle Mountain, not far from Redwine’s home.

Prosecutors have argued that Redwine killed Dylan in a fit of rage; Redwine’s defense team has suggested the boy was killed by a wild animal. Investigators who searched Redwine’s home found traces of blood that likely belonged to Dylan on a couch, under a rug and on a coffee table in the living room, testimony in the murder trial has shown.

On Monday, Karen Alexander, who dated Redwine for several months, testified that she saw Dylan cut his finger while she was visiting the family around Labor Day 2011. She testified that Dylan was cutting meat for dinner when he cut his finger, and that he bled a few drops on the floor of the living room. The bleeding was stopped with a paper towel and a Band-Aid, she said.

On cross examination, she admitted she’d never before mentioned to law enforcement that Dylan had cut his finger, although she was interviewed twice by the FBI in 2012 and 2013 and shared numerous other details about her trip that weekend.

“You never told them either time that Dylan bled in that house, did you?” Sixth Judicial District Attorney Christian Champagne asked her.

“I’m sorry, but it happened,” she testified. “…This was the first time anybody had asked.”

The trial is in its fourth week of testimony, which will continue Tuesday.

The damage on Dylan Redwine’s skull could have been made by a coyote’s teeth or claws and the boy’s head could have been carried for miles by the scavenger, a forensic anthropologist testified Friday morning in a Durango courtroom.

The expert testimony came as attorneys opened their defense in the murder trial of Mark Redwine, who is accused of killing Dylan, his 13-year-old son, in 2012.

The testimony from Bruce Anderson, an Arizona forensic anthropologist, in La Plata County Court showcased the defense’s central argument in the case: that Dylan’s death can be attributed to an animal, not a person, as a previous expert witness posited earlier in the trial.

Dylan’s death was ruled a homicide by the La Plata County coroner, but the cause of death was not determined.

Friday morning’s testimony centered on marks made in Dylan’s skull, which was found 1.5 miles from the rest of his remains.

Anderson testified that coyote teeth can be sharper than a dull knife, and could be responsible for the small bit of broken bone in the boy’s skull. He added that coyotes have always been known to carry human remains miles away.

Prosecutors have said Mark Redwine killed Dylan in a fit of rage over sordid photographs. Expert witnesses brought by prosecutors earlier in the trial testified that several factors made it highly unlikely that Dylan was killed by an animal, and that fractures found in his skull appeared to have been made by a knife or sharp tool.

The prosecution rested its case Thursday afternoon.

Redwine’s attorneys attempted to call an expert witness to begin their defense Friday morning, but a judge ruled that the witness should not take the stand until he could evaluate an objection from the prosecution.

Friday’s testimony came after nearly three weeks of prosecution testimony delving into Dylan Redwine’s death.

The 13-year-old was reported missing on Nov. 19, 2012, and his disappearance prompted an extensive search and drew national attention. Dylan’s remains were not found until 2013 and 2014.

The first set of remains were discovered about eight miles from Redwine’s home.

Mark Redwine told authorities that his son’s fishing rod was missing within hours of 13-year-old Dylan Redwine’s 2012 disappearance in La Plata County, focusing the early search efforts for the boy on the Vallecito Reservoir — well away from the location where Dylan’s remains were eventually found.

Mark Redwine, 59, who is standing trial on charges of second-degree murder and child abuse in Dylan’s death, told investigators he’d searched his house for his son’s fishing rod and couldn’t find it, and suggested Dylan might have wandered off to go fishing.

Later, investigators would comb the property for evidence without finding the fishing rod, according to testimony in the high-profile murder trial, which is well into its third week.

But one month after Dylan’s bones were found in June 2013 — in rugged, wooded terrain on Middle Mountain, nowhere near a fishing spot — Redwine suddenly claimed to have discovered the fishing rod in his garage. He turned it over to investigators, La Plata County sheriff’s Lt. Tom Cowing testified Wednesday.

“He mentioned how he’d moved his ATV from the garage and discovered the fishing pole behind a washing machine,” Cowing testified for the prosecution, which is seeking to prove that Redwine killed his son on the night of Nov. 18, 2012, and then worked diligently for years to mislead investigators and cover his tracks. Prosecutors suggested Redwine used the fishing pole to intentionally misdirect search efforts for Dylan.

Prosecutors have argued that Redwine killed his son in a fit of rage during a confrontation about photos that depict Redwine eating feces from a diaper. Redwine’s defense attorneys have argued that Dylan ran away from his father’s home and could have been attacked by a wild animal.

Dylan’s remains were scavenged by wild animals, but he also suffered a skull fracture that appeared to happen around the time he was killed, and two small marks found on his skull appeared to have been made by a knife or sharp tool, two experts testified.

Robert Kurtzman, a forensic pathologist, examined Dylan’s bones and determined Dylan’s manner of death to be homicide even though he could not pinpoint the boy’s cause of death, Kurtzman testified Wednesday. He said the two tool marks on the skull were a major factor in that decision.

“It¶¶Òőap not natural in any way to have skeletal remains with cut marks found in an open environment,” he testified. “It doesn’t happen in nature. Bears don’t carry knives.”

A cadaver found the scent of human remains in Redwine’s truck, the dog’s handler, Carren Gummin, also testified this week. Redwine’s defense attorneys, who have dismissed the dog’s work as “junk science,” focused on undermining the dog’s credibility during Gummin’s cross-examination.

Dylan Redwine suffered a skull fracture above his left eye and was cut with a sharp tool around the time he died, a forensic anthropologist testified Thursday during the murder trial for Mark Redwine, who is accused of killing his 13-year-old son in November 2012.

Forensic anthropologist Diane France discovered two marks on Dylan’s skull that were likely caused by a knife or sharp tool around the time of death, she testified, going over photos of the damage in painstaking detail with the jury.

Redwine, 59, is charged with second-degree murder and child abuse in Dylan’s death. Prosecutors have argued he killed his son in a fit of rage during a confrontation about photos that show Redwine eating feces, and have said Redwine hid the boy’s body in a rugged area on Middle Mountain not far from his Vallecito home.

Redwine’s defense attorneys have suggested the boy left home and was fatally attacked by a wild animal.

The boy’s bones and the partial skull — which were recovered in 2013, 2014 and 2015 — had obviously been scavenged by wild animals, France testified. The animal activity left clear tooth marks, punctures and grooves on all of the bones France examined.

But one roughly 1.6-inch-long fracture above Dylan’s left eye was likely not caused by animals, she testified, and instead appeared to be caused by blunt force trauma.

“You could have something blunt hitting the cranium, or the cranium hitting something blunt,” she testified.

On cross-examination, France admitted she could not pinpoint the cause of the fracture, and could not completely rule out that the fracture happened when an animal — like a cow, which are common in the area where the cranium was found — stepped on Dylan’s skull.

She also agreed with public defender Justin Bogan that she could not pinpoint the day or even the month the fracture or cuts happened, and agreed that the conditions a body is in — like being buried under snow — can make it harder to tell how close to the time of death a skeletal injury happened.

In addition to the fracture, two small, straight lines on Dylan’s cranium — the partial skull that was recovered — were made by a sharp tool, not by animal teeth, France testified. Knife or tool marks leave a V-shaped indentation in bone, France said, while animal teeth create a U-shaped mark. The two straight marks on Dylan’s cranium, which are each thinner than a millimeter, left V-shaped indentations, France said.

She testified she knows of nothing in nature that would create such marks. On cross-examination, she acknowledged she could not pinpoint what type of sharp tool made the mark.

In later testimony Thursday, Redwine’s son from a previous marriage — Dylan’s half-brother, Brandon Redwine — testified that Mark Redwine brought up the phrase “blunt-force trauma” several times during a phone conversation in June 2013 on the day that bones found on the mountain were confirmed as Dylan’s, but two years before Dylan’s skull was discovered.

Brandon Redwine said that during the conversation, his father spontaneously brought up “blunt-force trauma,” and said the phrase passionately, in a way that struck Brandon Redwine as unusual.

“I remember telling my wife, ‘He’s telling me what happened,'” Brandon Redwine testified. “…It shocked me a little bit.”

Also Thursday, Mark Redwine’s first wife, Elizabeth Horvath, testified about a comment Mark Redwine made during a camping trip in the late 1980s, after the family arrived at a remote campsite in the mountains.

“Looking around, he had made a comment that, ‘This would be a good place to leave a body,'” Horvath testified.

Several factors make it highly unlikely that 13-year-old Dylan Redwine was killed by an animal when he disappeared from his father’s La Plata County home in November 2012, a biologist testified Wednesday during the murder trial for Dylan’s father, who is accused of killing the boy.

The expert testimony undermines 59-year-old Mark Redwine’s defense that a wild animal killed Dylan after the boy left home on Nov. 19, 2012. Redwine is standing trial on charges of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in Dylan’s death.

Fatal bear and cougar attacks are already rare, biologist Heather Johnson testified, but the conditions around the time Dylan disappeared, coupled with the place where his remains were found, make it even more unlikely he suffered an animal attack — and particularly a bear attack.

During the fall of 2012, Johnson was part of a multi-year research project that was tracking bear behavior in the Durango area, particularly focusing on conflicts between bears and humans. The researchers collared and tracked more than 400 bears, and pinpointed the time of year that bears hibernated.

In 2012, bears in the Durango area hibernated early, she testified. The average start date for hibernation among tracked bears was Oct. 11, she said, and the latest tracked bear to hibernate that year did so on Nov. 11 — days before Dylan disappeared.

Bear conflicts with humans are more likely in areas with ample human food sources, like trash cans or houses, which was not the case in the area of Middle Mountain where Dylan’s bones were found, she said. Also, bears become less active in the weeks before hibernation, she testified, and stop looking for food. The animals tend to avoid areas near forest roads, like the one Dylan’s bones were found near, during hunting season, she said.

There have been four recorded fatal bear attacks in Colorado since 1900. Fatal mountain lion attacks are even more rare: just two in the state, Johnson testified. Both bears and cougars are unlikely to drag a carcass more than a couple hundred yards from the site of a kill. A coyote might pick up a bone and carry it several hundred yards, Johnson testified.

Dylan’s skull was found about 1.5 miles as the crow flies from the rest of his remains. One of the hikers who found the skull, Daniel Foster, testified that he thought the area around the skull was an “animal den,” because the grass was pushed down and there were clumps of fur in the brush.

Testimony in the murder trial will continue Thursday.