Why the bones of Guatemala's civil war dead may bring the justice they deserve

In the face of  death threats, a forensic anthropologist has spent the past  two decades patiently exhuming  the victims of Guatemala’s civil war. Now  his work might bring justice for their murders, writes Maggie Jones

ONE afternoon in 1994, during his senior year in college, Fredy Peccerelli sat at an anthropology conference in Atlanta and stared at the man onstage.

Peccerelli had seen the renowned bone detective Clyde Snow before, but only in a textbook. Snow, who was in his 60s, leaned forward at the lectern, speaking in his genial Texas drawl about blindfolded skulls and bodies dumped in clandestine graves. He wore his usual attire of an Irish tweed jacket, cowboy boots, and a fedora.