William Ross Maples, Ph.D. (Dallas, Texas; August 7, 1937 - Gainesville, Florida; February 27, 1997) was a forensic anthropologist. He worked at the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory at the Florida Museum of Natural History. He usually studied about bones and helped in many famous criminal searches, including the question about Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna's survival. He wrote the book "Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist". The book is about his life from when he began being interested in anthropology and about some of his most famous forsenic cases.