Denver ? Compared with some dead bodies Dennis Van Gerven has examined, the 127-year-old remains in the grave of John Wesley Hillmon are downright fresh.

Van Gerven, a professor of anthropology and President’s Teaching Scholar at the University of Colorado, made a name for himself studying health and disease in ancient populations of the Nile Valley. He is also known for his extensive collection of mummified human remains from Sudanese Nubia.

So, trying to confirm who’s in the grave of a Kansas cowpuncher reportedly killed in 1879 should be a snap, right?

Not necessarily.

“This could be Geraldo (Rivera) opening the sealed room of (gangster Al) Capone’s vault, the whole hoopla, and man, there’s nothing there,” Van Gerven said.

“There could be just tiny vestiges of what might have been a skeleton years ago and disintegrated pieces of coffin.”

If Douglas County District Court grants an exhumation petition, Van Gerven’s best guess is that the exhumation will be done the week of March 27.

The first eight inches or so of soil in Section 4, Grave 555 at the city of Lawrence-owned Oak Hill Cemetery will be removed by backhoe, Van Gerven said.

Then more delicate digging by hand will begin.

For all his experience, Van Gerven – whose resume includes work at CU’s celebrated project at the pre-Incan ruins of Gran Pajaten, Peru – has no firm idea what he’ll find.

“With the Nubian mummies,” he said, “in one grave I’d get a mummy, and three feet over, I’d get a mess.”

What skeletal remains are found will be taken to the laboratory of Van Gerven’s friend, James Mielke, Kansas University anthropology department chairman, for study.

Van Gerven believes the best bet for determining whether the remains are that of Hillmon or, as life insurance companies alleged, a man named Frederick Adolph Walters, is the use of digital photography.

Photographs are available of both Hillmon and Walters. Digital images of the cadaver’s skull will be put in a computer.

Then cranial matches will be attempted with overlays of the Hillmon and Walters photographs.

“There’s some peculiarities around the base of the nose (of Hillmon), which I think were definitive,” said Van Gerven.

“If we’ve got a good skull and can reconstruct the face, that should do it.”

A second matching technique is to compare the skeleton’s age with that of the two men – Hillmon was 31 at the time of his presumed death, and Walters was 24.

Van Gerven and CU law professor Mimi Wesson also have located Daniel C. Davis Jr., a grandnephew of Walters, who has agreed to donate DNA if needed.

That is not a first option for identification, however. A grandnephew would have no more than a 25 percent match in genetic markers.

The remains in the Hillmon grave will be reburied within four days of exhumation.

Though Van Gerven is fascinated by the science involved in the identity hunt, he’s also gripped by the opportunity to resolve a century-old mystery.

Did Hillmon kill Walters, then dress Walters’ body in his own clothes as part of an elaborate life insurance fraud?

Or did three insurance companies wrongly attach Walters’ name to Hillmon’s corpse to avoid paying out on three policies worth $25,000?

“My gut feeling is that it’s Hillmon, from the shape of the face, the shape of the nose,” said Van Gerven, referring to pictures he has seen of the living Hillmon and the questioned corpse.

“But the perverse Dennis would love to find out that it’s Walters. I’m just perverse enough, I’d like to be the one to find out – ha, ha, they (Hillmon and his wife) did it after all!”