As we get nearer to the deposition scene it becomes understandable why the man’s remains were missed, despite there being evidence of recent human activity all around. His bones are partially engulfed in brambles, nettles and mosses. Most of his weather-worn and degraded clothing has taken on the palette of the plants around him. Only his skull can be clearly seen, and even that only when we are almost standing on top of his remains.
Sophie and I start to look in more detail at the deposition scene, being careful not to touch anything yet. The first thing we need to do is establish roughly where in the undergrowth his remains are; it’s becoming quite hard to see in the now failing light. It’s also starting to get rather chilly, the wind is picking up and there are flakes of sleety snow in the air. Sophie asks me what I think, no doubt gently testing the scope of my abilities. To me, it looks like his remains have been here for a long time, several years at least. Young sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) and ash (Fraxinus excelsior) saplings are scattered around the area and several are growing very close to the skeleton. Most appear to be several years old. The brambles that are enshrouding his remains also appear to be about the same age. He has been there a long time, largely alone except for the occasional pyromaniac teenager gang and exhausted rough sleeper.
After an hour spent examining the scene, we retreat up the embankment to discuss how to proceed. By now it is almost dusk, and the weather is becoming quite unpleasant. The temperature has dropped, and icy darts of rain sting our faces. Sophie and I present our initial observations to the CSM and the PolSAs. The detectives have already departed. By now I know this tends to happen quite often – they’ve always got places to go. We all agree what actions should be taken next. The most important thing is to secure the scene overnight, which means that some unfortunate junior police officers are going to have to spend the night ensuring that nothing is disturbed by either the curious or the criminal. And, even though the man’s remains have lain under the stars for years, we need to erect tents to provide additional cover and reduce the chance of interference.
The PolSA team are sent down to erect the tents and secure the ropes with sandbags or anything weighty that comes to hand, and to set up lighting. The weather is now vile. Whilst this is happening, I explore the nearby vegetation, partially out of general curiosity but also to try to get an understanding of what vegetation management has been undertaken over the last few years. Understanding this will make interpreting the deposition scene easier. On closer inspection, many of the sycamore and ash saplings are older than they initially appeared. Their apparent youth being caused by their having been felled in the past and then regrown. Most of the regrowth appears to be less than ten years old. Sophie focuses on making notes on the position and condition of the remains. I join her, partially because I’m curious to learn more and because I need to take a closer look at the vegetation growing around and through the remains. By this time, metal tread plates have been laid along parts of the common entry path and around the deposition scene. These spread our weight and should prevent damage to any undiscovered evidence underfoot.
Sophie is very keen to see if she can see any signs of damage to the bones. No flesh remains and there is only the lightest whiff of decay, even when our noses are in close proximity to the bones. She is unable to see any signs of damage or trauma to the bones that may indicate violence. However, in this light and late hour she is unwilling to commence a full recovery and documentation. Sophie will need several hours to document the position of the bones and any personal effects that remain. I will also need to map the position of the main vegetation features around the remains as well as examine them more closely. Sophie will then lead on recovering the man’s remains and personal effects. Each one will have to be photographed before being placed into evidence bags, or for the larger objects, boxes. We will have to return tomorrow. Once more, we trudge up the slope; by now because of the heavy footfall and the fading light it is starting to get a little treacherous. At the top, Sophie briefs the CSM. Our overall conclusion is that the man’s remains appear to have been there for many years, probably up to a decade.
Forensics is certainly not all glamour and, by the end of the day, we are muddy and tired. We have been booked into a nearby hotel. It’s one of those typical roadside jobs, and is sufficient. On arrival at the hotel, Sophie and I retire to our rooms and have a quick brush up, and we then return downstairs for a late supper. Among my friends and family, one of my more famed attributes is my enthusiasm for food. Despite my slender frame, I have the appetite of a Roman emperor. I like food and I like a lot of it! I order my meal, which on arrival is rather disappointing. Sophie is keen to talk through the case and our observations. Over the years, I have come to know that this is very typical of her. She can work for hours. Quite often I’ll find that if we are on a two or three-day job she’ll have worked into the small hours compiling her notes or dealing with tasks relating to other cases she’s working on. I can’t do that; I really need my sleep! Even though we are quite different in some respects – she’s a married mother with a young son, I’m a gay man with no dependents (apart from my long-suffering partner) – we are alike in some respects. We both find people rather annoying at times. Our patience is largely reserved for plants or the dead. I’m deeply grateful for the informal mentoring Sophie has given me over the years. I have not trained formally in forensics, but If I were to be starting afresh, I certainly would consider doing one of the forensic science courses which are now increasingly available. My experience of entering forensics rather late in my career has been fascinating, but some formal training would have eased the transition. I have been very fortunate to have the support of experienced people like Sophie who have guided me through my career and have taught me so much. Her extensive experience of working in a police force and more recently, her years in the private sector, have been invaluable in helping me develop professionally. Over the years, I have never heard her speak blithely or with disregard for any of the deceased that we’ve work with. She speaks with a tone of fondness and an appreciation that what she does matters.
Talking about murder and decaying bodies around the dinner table in a restaurant is rather odd. It also requires quite a bit of care and discretion. We talk in hushed tones and euphemisms, our eyes occasionally darting around the room to see if anyone has overheard us. As we’re talking, Sophie’s phone rings and she answers. I listen to the hmms, yeses and okays, and eat my rather awful garlic mushrooms. How is it possible to wreck garlic mushrooms! When the call ends, Sophie looks concerned and tells me that the senior officers overseeing the case want to meet us the following morning. We are to go to the main police station. We have been summoned. We suspect it is because our conclusions do not sit well with their expectations. Time for bed: we’ll need fresh heads in the morning.
As I ready myself for sleep, I run through my observations and conclusions, hoping that I’ve not overlooked something, and fretting that I might have made a fool of myself. As I close my eyes, my brain fills with images of leaf litter, dead stems and bones; I drift off to sleep.
I’m not at my best in the morning and being in an airless hotel room that a close friend would describe as ‘worm-medicine’ coloured, does not improve me. I stagger down to breakfast and drink as much coffee as my system can take. Half an hour later, we are in a meeting room in the police station. The furniture is worn and stained. As much as television crime dramas try to emulate the full gloom of the average British police station, they never quite achieve it. They are generally damnable places. Those of us who grumble about the public sector and the quality of our policing should be compelled to spend a month working in a local police station, ideally mopping floors, with a toothbrush. I recently visited a major police station in one of our larger cities, where, despite being of recent construction, there were signs of dilapidation. In the basement there was a charming sign asking visitors not to feed the local rat population and my host warned me that the lift lights regularly
failed.
As we wait for the meeting to start, sitting on the faintly smelly furniture, several detectives and senior officers walk in and sit down. I wouldn’t quite describe the atmosphere as hostile, but they don’t appear overly happy to be attending the meeting, nor do some of them seem too pleased to see us. Quietly, Sophie asks me if I’m okay. I reply, ‘yes’, which is true.
One of the detectives is steadily eyeballing me. He’s in his early fifties and is clearly an experienced officer who appears thoroughly sick of his job and no doubt has little time for distractions. I can sense his antipathy. I can’t be sure it’s not homophobia, but I’ve seen that look before. Having confronted homophobes and racists on the streets of London in my past, I’m not too concerned, just a little irritated. I can see where this is going and I’m going to have to nip it in the bud. The meeting starts and the most senior officer introduces himself and then introduces the other people in the room. Sophie then commences to summarise our actions to date and offers our initial observations – that the man’s remains appear to have been there for many years, probably up to a decade. She then turns to me to explain my own conclusions; the eyes of the boss flicker over me, he thanks her and invites me to proceed.
I quickly decide it’s time to assert myself, without appearing rude and aggressive. I also don’t want to expose Sophie to criticism, because these are people she knows. I take the plunge. I explain that before I proceed with the botanical science, I feel it’s important to explain that, while I may appear to be an ivory-tower academic from London I have a great deal of experience of the plant life of these isles, I have ‘real-life experience’ (whatever that means!). Even though I’m addressing their boss, I’m carefully standing my ground against some of the people in the room, particularly he who’s been continuously eyeballing me. After my brief speech, the senior officer smiles and thanks me for my candour and asks me to proceed. Several detectives slump back in their chairs and reluctantly start listening to me, including the eyeballer.
I start by saying that my observations are provisional. I will fully present my findings after we’ve completed our examination and documentation of the scene and I have checked my samples back at the museum. Even at this point in my career in forensics, I have learnt not to offer final conclusions until I am confident that I have done all I need do to substantiate them. Resuming, I explain that there is evidence that the vegetation surrounding the man is at least six years old, probably older. I outline how it is possible to make a rough estimate of the age of the saplings by carefully studying their branching patterns and the scars left by leaf buds. I also outline some of my observations relating to the brambles surrounding the remains, which lead me to conclude that the man has been there for quite some time. It simply would not be possible for the plants to grow in the manner they had if the man’s remains had arrived there more recently. I sense that the detectives are slowly becoming more interested. They start asking me the odd question. They seem genuinely surprised that ‘flowers’ could help establish how long undiscovered remains had lain on open ground. The meeting then moves on to how the work will proceed, after which Sophie and I head back to the scene.
When we arrive there, all is in turmoil. Overnight, the wind picked up and flung one of the tents against the fencing of the nearby railway, while the other one is crumpled on the ground. An officer who was on overnight duty explains that they had done their best to prevent further chaos, but the wind had been too strong. We spend half an hour or so helping the PolSAs put everything back in order. Sophie and I then resume our task of documenting the scene and retrieving the man’s remains.
First, Sophie and I carefully extract the man’s skull from the embracing vegetation, and she examines it carefully, looking for signs of damage. Skulls are beautiful things and holding one is a deeply intimate experience. I briefly hold it to see if there is any information to be had from the attached vegetation. Apart from a thin sheen of green algae growing on the surface, facing upwards towards the rain and sunlight, there is little to observe. A small stem of common ivy (Hedera helix) had attached itself to the skull and left behind a few fibrous rootlets. There are two or three tiny wisps of moss attached. All in all, they only confirm that the skull has been there for at least one growing season. We need more information.
I gently pass the skull back to Sophie, who carefully places it in a box, closes the lid and writes some notes in her book and on the box. It is then carried away and locked inside a police vehicle. Slowly, as we start to remove the layers of loose leaf-litter, twigs and sprays of moss, the man’s skeletal vertebrae, ribs and upper arms are exposed. Most of his clothing has decayed, although some fragments of trouser pockets and waistband, belt, jacket and shirt cuff and collar remain. We find personal items as we proceed. Everything is recorded and placed in boxes or bags. As we remove the loose vegetation and personal items that are retrievable, we are hampered by the plant growth through the remains. I am keen to retain as much of the lower stems and roots as possible, but we need to take the upper portions away to allow Sophie to do her work. I pull out my secateurs and start pruning. This feels like quite an odd operation to be doing whilst I’m manoeuvring around bones. Somehow, I feel slightly ridiculous and superfluous. I finish my gardening, compile my notes and wait for Sophie to remove the remains so that I can proceed with examining and removing the roots and lower stems of the plants that have grown through and over the remains. Most of the plants I retrieve are brambles. I make a note of how old I estimate each one of them to be and retain some for further examination. At this point it’s mid-afternoon and, we have been at the scene for several hours, mainly on our hands and knees. It’s not as cold as it was and the sleet has stopped, but we need a rest. Once more, we head up the embankment for a ‘brew’, a sandwich and a bar of chocolate. As I have come to discover, by police standards this is a good meal. Many of them have terrible diets while on the job! After 15 minutes our late lunch is gone, and we head back down the increasingly slippery slope.
Sophie resumes carefully measuring and documenting the scene. She has laid a long tape measure across the site, from which all further measurements will be taken. The main features of the area – such as the larger trees, the positions of debris like car tyres and, of course, the position of the man’s bones are noted and are drawn onto a scale plan that will later be digitally plotted for use in reports. I start cutting down a few saplings, as I want to take back a few stem samples to take a further look at and confirm their age. By dusk, our work is complete, and I head for the train station and home. Once back in London, I need to make a detour to the museum to deposit my samples in a secure store. I have no desire to lose them or have them stolen. I’m home by about 11 pm and head straight to bed. My knees hurt.
3
Becoming a Forensic Botanist
Being in the presence of the dead is an intense experience. Sometimes, I am called to a crime scene soon after the person has been discovered. As a result, I witness what remains of the last moments of a person’s life. In the initial stages of an investigation it is sometimes not known how a person died or how they came to be where they are. Their remains are often a testament to what befell them. I have seen the bodies of people who have committed suicide where they are either lying down or partially sitting up apparently taking their last look at this world. Other remains speak of the haphazard nature of life, of unfortunate people who fall to their death or are victims of motoring accidents. The damaged bones and brutalised remains of victims of violence portray the nature of their death. Their remains often appear to encapsulate their state of mind in the moments leading to their death. I can clearly recall the terrorised tension in the decayed limbs of a young woman who had been raped and then murdered. She lay lonely in a ditch, with autumn leaves blown over her, the leaves providing her with dignity in death.
Inevitably and understandably, I often get asked ‘how do you cope?’. Generally, I feel ‘fine’ – very British! This is not a denial
of what I have experienced, quite the opposite. People often wonder how I separate myself emotionally from the details of the crime. So far in my career, I have done the opposite. I don’t disassociate from the victims: I feel quite engaged with them, even if I can never know what they were really like. I feel very connected to the person and want to learn more about them. I care very much about them, and their family and friends. Having said that, I don’t become anxious about playing my part in solving the case; my emotions are largely reserved for making sure I do a good job and don’t make any mistakes. Sometimes, when I am involved with searches, it is frustrating not to be able to find someone. But it is important to accept that investigations are very reliant on a wide range of expert disciplines and the accuracy of witness statements. Get one piece of the puzzle wrong and it can be very hard to locate someone. I do feel sad when I travel through certain parts of the country knowing that a victim is out there, possibly within eyesight. Quite often, I familiarise myself with the background to a new case on the internet. My efforts tend not to focus on what the journalists are reporting but go towards researching the local environment and plants. Sometimes this is useful information for me but sometimes it is simple human curiosity. I am most definitely not one of those people that gawps at car crashes on motorways but it does help to learn as much about the case as possible beforehand.
For me, there is no horror in decaying flesh and skeletal remains. The horror is in the minds of the perpetrators; they are the ones who must try to sleep at night and are bound to relive what they have done. The remains of the dead are extraordinarily beautiful and complex. Ironically, they are a hub of life. The biology of decay is incredibly intricate and offers many avenues of research for forensic science. I am not so foolhardy to believe that I will always be fine. Sooner or later I am likely to find what I do very hard to deal with. But, it’s worth it. Being part of a community of people doing their best to serve justice for the dead and bring a degree of peace for the living is an honour. So far in my career I have only occasionally felt that flutter of emotional disturbance: one victim bore a striking resemblance to a family member which was very unsettling.
Murder Most Florid Page 3