CHICAGO (Hyde Park Media) - Death will have its due. As literary references ranging from the Bible to the Bard not so gently remind us, our fate is sealed. It is, quite literally, ``worm`s meat`` for one and all. But if we leave the laments over our providence to philosophers and poets and turn instead to a scientist for the worm`s point of view, a critical social function - criminal justice - can be aided by their somber task. Just ask Bernard Greenberg.

A professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago for 34 years, Greenberg is one of a handful of entomologists in the world who apply their intimate knowledge of insects and larvae to the even more intimate question of murder.

Though a relatively obscure field, forensic entomology is not new. It was formalized a century ago by the French biologist J.P. Megnin when he identified eight stages of the human body`s decomposition, along with various stage-specific insects that take up residence after our souls depart.

As Greenberg tactfully explains it: ``The human cadaver, compared with other ecosystems, is a mere patch in time and space. Yet it has its distinctive faunal succession with a predictable schedule of arthropod arrivals and departures.``

In other words, studying the feeding patterns of the ancients` ``worms`` -  i.e. modern science`s maggots et al. - may be used to determine time of death or perhaps whether a body has been moved (there are ``city`` and  ``country``  flies), often critical elements in a murder investigation.

As Greenberg explains: ``Three groups can be recognized in the succession. The first and primary consumers are necrophagous species, usually the larvae (maggots) of flies and beetles. The second group are the parasites and predators of the necrophagous, including rove beetles and their larvae,  ants and parasitic wasps. The last to arrive are a potpourri of  accidentals, shelter-seekers and opportunists.``

The first to arrive are Greenberg`s specialty. Among his many works is a two-volume treatise on fly-borne disease published by Princeton University Press, and his knowledge of the pests` parasitic relationship with man is recognized internationally.

It was a local event, however, that first drew Greenberg into the world of men, maggots and murder.

``It was in the summer of 1976,`` recalls James McCarter, the Cook County assistant state`s attorney who initially sought out Greenberg`s expertise. ``A double homicide . . . narcotics related.``

Police had raided the South Side apartment of three suspected drug dealers. The trio apparently thought the two men living downstairs had turned them in.

The two men ``were killed there in the 3-flat. . . Shot with a .38,`` says McCarter. ``The bodies were dumped in the basement of an abandoned building in the neighborhood. These guys even rented a trailer`` to transport the bodies.

One body was found in the building inside a steamer trunk, the other wrapped in a blanket and old carpeting on the floor a few feet away, he says. The suspected drug dealers were charged with murder. Three years later, when the state`s attorneys finally were ready to go to trial, they realized they needed to corroborate the time of death. The state`s main witness - one of the drug-dealing defendants, ``a flipper`` who had agreed to cooperate with the prosecution - was not the sort juries traditionally put a lot of  faith in, McCarter related.

``Another D.A. in the office,`` he recalls, ``suggested we contact an entomologist because the bodies were covered with maggots when the police found them.``

After a few calls to the Field Museum and local universities, McCarter says, ``we found if you wanted to know anything about maggots,  get Greenberg.``

``All I had to work with were a few black-and-white and color photographs,`` says the professor. They showed ``the victims were covered with post-feeding larvae,`` essentially maggots that were finished eating but still moving around.

``There were also a few puparia, larvae that have contracted into little dark barrels. They turn from white to brown to black,`` Greenberg explains. ``Kind of like a timing device.``

Though a dozen common species of flies live in our region, Greenberg was confident he was looking at the progeny of Phaenicia sericata, the predominant carrion fly in most urban areas. More commonly known as ``blow`` or ``bottle flies,`` these greenish-bronze meat-eaters ``really show up in a hell of a lot murder cases,`` he says.

Whatever the species, carrion ``flies can normally find a body within hours, be it a rabbit, fox, dog or human. They have noses better than bloodhounds.``

``It`s their living, and they`re good at it. There`s not a lot of corpses lying around - they`re at a premium - so they zero right in.``

Within a couple of hours of finding a host, the females lay an average of 250 eggs each, frequently in a cluster, Greenberg says. The resulting mound often contains several thousand.

Because all insects are temperature driven, the rate of flies` complex passage from eggs to larvae to pupae and finally to full-grown adults largely depends on the weather.

(It`s the frenzied feeding of the maggots, by the way, that often confounds the medical examiner`s attempt to estimate the time of death, says Greenberg. They`re programmed to increase their body mass 1,000-fold in only a few days. Studies show that this can decrease the victim`s body mass by as much as 60 percent, quickly creating a near-skeleton.)

``It takes a certain number of degree hours (hours at a specific temperature) for each stage to be reached,`` says Greenberg. Consequently, to reliably date specimens found on a body, then extrapolate the time of death, Greenberg needed to compile developmental data on the life cycles of  eight fly species raised at four different temperatures. ``If I ever run into another (kind of) fly at a murder scene,``  he says, ``I`ll have to do more research.``

Greenberg now acquired several weeks of hourly degree readings from the closest weather station to the murder scene - in this case Midway Airport - along with evidence of light-colored, thus relatively young puparia in the three-year-old colored photographs, and his own research. Thus armed he was able to calculate the time of death to within 2.5 days of the actual event.

His testimony confirmed that of the state`s witness; all three defendants were convicted and are serving long prison terms.

The case was the first of 30 confirmed or suspected homicides in seven states, from Connecticut to Hawaii, that Greenberg has worked on. And while it clearly was important for him, it also was something of a milestone in American jurisprudence. It was the first, according to prosecutors, in which entomologic evidence based solely on photographs was admitted into a murder trial.

In fact, since Greenberg took up the role of armchair detective, ``rarely have I ever been called in to look at a body,`` he explains. Instead, he instructs investigators to take plenty of color photographs and to collect and preserve the larvae, adults or specimens in other stages found on the victim. Using specimens, weather data and photographs back at his lab, the professor goes to work.

``When I first got into this, it was almost impossible for me to look at these,`` Greenberg says while flipping through a stack of macabre color snapshots drawn from case files. ``As a biology student I dissected everything subhuman. In school, I used to eat a sandwich with one hand and dissect a monkey with the other. But I find these things very hard to take.

``Especially whenever the inhumanity is extreme. . . It depresses me and kindles a kind of rage.``

Greenberg has no regrets about his involvement, though.

``It makes perfect sense for me to do this,`` he says. ``It didn`t take any retooling . . . It`s all fly biology.

``I`m happy to apply what I know to something that`s as important as this, something that can lead to a conviction or acquittal. It`s very satisfying to see justice done.

``I`ve been working with flies for almost 40 years. I sit in the ivory tower and wonder - with all the books I`ve published, with all the articles - what does it matter, who really cares?

``With this, there`s something about being able to help. It`s applying what I know in a most dramatic way.``