Murder Most Florid

by Mark A. Spencer

  I was once called to a potential crime scene where the heavily decayed remains of a man had been found. It was the middle of winter and, as usual, bitterly cold. Heavy rain had been falling for several days and the ground was very wet and slippery. I said hello to the officer managing the perimeter and signed myself in. There was a press photographer with a cumbersome camera in the middle distance trying to assess where they could best get some decent shots. Sploshing through the soggy football pitch by the railway embankment I approached the CSM and introduced myself. The railway embankment was steep, and we all had to resist slithering back down as we hauled ourselves up to where the man lay. He was wearing all-weather gear and was lying, straight legged, on his back facing the sky. The wonderous work of the microbial community had progressed a long way; there was relatively little flesh remaining on his face. His lower jaw was slightly dropped and most of his teeth could be seen. As I leant in, I tried not to stumble, the soil sliding from underneath me. There was a fairly strong smell of decay, but the low temperature meant that the volatile organic compounds that cause the decay smell were less mobile in the air. If it had been hot, the smell from the man’s remains would have been almost overpowering.

  We decided to retreat down the slope and discuss how we were going to document the scene and get the man’s remains down the slope safely, all while remaining physically intact ourselves. The PolSA team had to build a common entry path using ladders laid on the surface of the slope, and, while they were doing that, I tried not to fret too much about the damage they were doing to the vegetation. It is quite hard to persuade half a dozen large, wet PolSAs not to damage the bushes as they scramble up a railway embankment in the pouring rain. So, I decided to back off and go for a quick tea break.

  Once the ladders were in place, we headed back up. As the forensic anthropologist worked on making an assessment of the man, I started to look at the vegetation around and underneath him. I looked out towards the surrounding houses, roads and the football pitch. These were the last things he saw. His body appeared quite composed, his legs stretched out below him facing down the slope and his arms by his side. The vegetation surrounding him showed no signs of significant damage, apart from that caused by our team and the person who discovered him. As is so often the case, it was a dog walker. The lack of damage to the vegetation appeared to rule out a struggle or a fight, and I couldn’t see signs of an exit route created by another person through the nettles, brambles, buddleia and Japanese knotweed. The upper torso, head and arms of the man were resting on the remains of the vegetation flattened by the weight of his body. His lower torso and legs appeared to have slid underneath the sprawling stems of a bramble bush. It was rather like he’d climbed into bed and pulled up the blanket halfway.

  Overall, the vegetation evidence suggested that he simply stopped walking, lay down and died. It seemed almost peaceful. I made my notes of the scene, and while the forensic anthropologist and the PolSA team worked to carefully lift his remains and get them down the slope, I set myself the task of finding his route to his final resting place. I had to move very carefully through the vegetation; I didn’t want to slip and disturb anything. After about half an hour, I started to feel that I could trace his last steps. The damage to plant stems and branches, most of which were Japanese knotweed, was erratic. He appeared to have veered up and down the bank for about thirty metres. I can’t be certain, for I was not there when he died, but within the vegetation were traces of a man’s last movement, lurching about, alone in the undergrowth until he came to a stop and died.

  The knotweed provided very useful information on when the man died as well as the route he took. Japanese knotweed is infamous, particularly now that its invasiveness has had an impact upon the saleability of properties. It’s also a remarkable plant. Nearly all the Japanese knotweed in Britain and Ireland is from a single clone, a female. This is also true of the majority of the Japanese knotweed plants that escaped cultivation around the world: they are derived from the same clone. As Japanese knotweed is a widespread invasive non-native species in many parts of the world,especially Europe and North America, the plant is the largest and most successful female on the planet. It surprises people that the three-metre-high stems are each less than a year old. Every spring, the stems grow from the perennial underground rootstock. Yet despite being vigorous and all-conquering, individual Japanese knotweed stems are quite easy to damage and the effects can be seen for months after. As I examined the knotweed at the scene, I could see that the damaged portions included the smaller side branches supporting the fluffy white flowers. These flowers open late summer and, because the stems were damaged during the flowering season, I was able to provide an estimate of how long the man’s remains had been there. Several months.

  A few days later I learnt that the man had been identified. He had been physically and mentally unwell for several years and had not been seen by family members for at least a year. I was also told that there was information to suggest that he’d been sleeping rough and that the postmortem was unable to identify a cause of death. He was too badly decayed. Tragically, a vulnerable person fell through the net and, quite literally, the police had to pick up the pieces.

  5

  Tales of Knives and Wood

  Despite the widespread cachet, forensics is not glamorous. Frost- and filth-encrusted ditches by trunk roads have limited appeal. And the work rarely achieves the suspenseful scenarios enacted in television crime dramas. Usually, the work is slow and laborious; however on occasion, it becomes charged with suspense. Sometimes, as it progresses and the secrets of a scene are revealed, the atmosphere increasingly takes on a dramatic air.

  This atmosphere of unfolding drama once developed at a suspected crime scene I was called to, where human remains had been discovered. Somebody had found them while walking their dog along their usual daily route. The owner followed their dog off the path and found themselves in a small clearing walled in with a dense growth of vegetation, and in the middle was the burnt-out remains of a large fire. The dog walker noticed some bones projecting from the ashes and retreated to call the police. Having received the call requesting I attend the scene, I rushed out of the herbarium at the Natural History Museum, headed home and stuffed a few clothes and toiletries in a bag – it might have been an overnight stay. I then hurtled towards Euston station to catch my train.

  On the train, a Virgin Pendolino – my least favourite train, horrible, cramped, stinky things – I gazed out of the window and gloomily watched the lurid, pesticide and fertiliser-drenched landscape of south-east England pass by. This country of ours may appear to be a green and pleasant land, but much of it is dying and we are to blame. Aside from cursing our idiocy, I mentally evaded the pong of the Pendolino by musing about potential grave or deposition scenes. I found myself looking at small patches of scrubland on the outskirts of market towns or neglected and disused railway embankments running through the gutted former industrial heartlands wondering what secrets they held. Clearly this was idle musing, but no doubt some of those places do harbour the remains of the lost and missed. There are two or three stretches of our mainlines where I can see railway embankments or shady streamsides where, in the past, I have worked with the remains of the dead. Every time I pass these locations, I quietly say hello to the deceased.

  Having rushed from Euston I was very relieved to find that the scene had remained largely undisturbed since its discovery. This is not always the case. All too often I arrive at a scene to find it has been razed to the ground by the PolSA team. It’s quite hard to assess vegetation when it is piled ten foot high. The scene was in a small area of a former industrial site surrounded by modern housing. Through it ran the remains of the disused railway siding that had serviced the industry. The track bed of the railway was now a footpath. On one side it sloped down to a verge and the road where the police vehicles were parked. On the other, it was hemmed in by a profusion of planted hedging and wild plants that had colonised the area. Be
neath a young ash tree by the path edge, a small track led down the embankment into the clearing. Having donned my protective wear, I clambered down the short but steep slope to the level ground below.

  The clearing was about five metres across and surrounded by tall scrub and small trees, with vigorous beds of near dormant nettles and brambles beneath. It was early spring and most of the vegetation had not fully burst into regrowth. Looking upwards, I was surrounded by an arena of foliage, with no sign of the nearby houses. Not surprisingly, the clearing appeared to have been used by the homeless, as they probably felt safe here. There were signs of past habitation: old clothes, empty beer cans and cheap spirt bottles mixed in with the remains of food packaging. Around the margins of the clearing there were piles of domestic rubble and wood, which appeared to have been fly-tipped by the slothful and the selfish.

  Near the middle of the clearing, a large mound of wood-ash and partially burnt timber was surrounded by several people. One was Sophie’s boss, Helen, whom I’d not worked with before, but we’d spoken on the phone. With her was Toby, an expert in among other things, fire damage. There was also a CSM and a pathologist. I moved forward and joined the huddle.

  The dense surrounding vegetation provided shelter, but it was still rather nippy, about five degrees celsius. The chilly-white first blooms of that spring herald, blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), were just opening. I was glad of my thermals as well as the protective gear. As we looked down, I could see several strands of bramble tracking across parts of the fire pit; they were partially burnt but were also showing some signs of regrowth. Helen explained that it was not known for certain how long the remains had been there or to whom they belonged. The police had already been knocking on nearby doors asking if anyone had seen anything suspicious. Several householders said that they’d noticed smoke above the area a few weeks earlier. This was not unusual as the area was known for the accumulation of teenagers, as well as the homeless.

  The information about the smoke was considered important, and the police had already started to focus their intelligence-gathering efforts around that date. They were keen to know if our assessment of the site supported the idea that the person’s remains had been there for a relatively short time. After discussion about how to proceed, we each set to our task. I was particularly interested in the burn patterns on the bramble stems arching around and over the burn site. There were also signs of past scorching on the stems of the nearby shrubs. Both the brambles and the bushes had since regrown, and I was starting to get the impression that there had been multiple fires at the site and that the recent one was probably rather small compared to the earlier ones.

  Mindful that I was potentially encroaching onto another person’s area of expertise, I asked Toby to take a look at my observations and seek his advice. After all, he knew fires and I know plants. Thankfully, Toby was satisfied that my observations were sound.

  While we all have our specialisms, it is always good to have someone else to discuss ideas and observations with. It is all too easy to allow ideas with unconscious biases to run away with themselves. I returned to the bramble stems and redoubled my efforts to absorb the patterns of the fire damage once more. The fire that damaged these stems hadn’t occurred recently; the main shoots bore scorch marks along their length but the side branches coming out from them were free of damage. The plant must have regrown for several weeks after the fire. As I knelt shivering, looking at the blackthorn, it was clear that the growth must have occurred during the previous growing season which was the previous summer and early autumn. The main fire occurred at least six months ago. The police might have to change their intelligence-gathering strategy.

  After an hour or so of further note taking and photography, we walked back to the police vehicles for a quick coffee break. As usual, it was the instant, paper-cup variety. The smell of the coffee has an extra resonance for me. When I was a teenager, my school was a couple of miles away from a major instant-coffee manufacturing facility, and some days the cloying, sickly, burnt, chemicalised coffee smell was overpowering and left us reeling with headaches. Perhaps it’s that, rather than my membership of the bleeding-heart metropolitan elite, that makes me shudder at the sight of instant coffee. Being a well brought-up boy, I never complain, of course.

  As we warmed up, we discussed our observations and next steps. We then proceeded to start removing the debris that still shrouded the remains. This had to be done slowly and carefully, as each piece of wood, entangled bramble stem or tin can would need to be examined carefully before being placed to one side. As we gathered around the remains, Helen took the lead in removing the first pieces of wood. We all huddled around and peered into the ashy debris, trying to discern how the person’s body was positioned. Each piece of wood, brick or broken breezeblock that we removed exposed more of the remains. We located the lower limbs; the fire was so intense that any clothing that might once have been worn was gone, and the smaller bones had been reduced to ash and were irretrievable.

  The pathologist and Helen occasionally passed comment on aspects of the bones that I didn’t fully understand, but it was clear that the fire had caused so much damage it was unlikely that a cause of death would be easily established. We moved to the upper part of the body, arms and head, which was quite tricky. The skull was very brittle owing to the heat it had been exposed to, and it was caught up within a tangle of bramble stems, wire and small pieces of wood.

  Each one of us was working in close proximity, huddled up and doing our best not to disturb anything. I could feel myself starting to sweat, not from tension but because even in the cold the protective clothing we have to wear can be rather humid. Each of us shifted our weight every now and then to alleviate cramping. Finally, most of the arms and the skull were visible, and we were able to proceed with clearing the debris from the upper torso. Helen pulled back two or three sheets of plywood and moved them to one side. Beneath these was what looked like part of a door and, as this was lifted off, we all gasped in surprise.

  The cause of death was no longer a mystery. Lying flat across the centre of the chest was a carving knife. We all felt a ripple of excitement and for a few minutes we were slightly agog, even Helen, who is a vastly experienced forensic anthropologist. It was clear that the deceased had met their end at the furious hand of another.

  At the end of the day and after we had all recovered from our excitement at the discovery of the knife, I returned to London, report writing and my life as a museum curator. Report writing is essential but mundane and far from the thrill of a television drama or documentary. Like many other people, I have seen Silent Witness but only when it first started. I quite enjoyed it, but my interest soon petered out: no Christopher Meloni.

  A few months later I learned that a family member was charged with the murder and subsequently found guilty. At the trial, there was no need to present the botanical evidence that helped establish how long the body had been where it was found, and I wasn’t called as an expert witness. I’m confident the knife was discussed!

  It may surprise you to learn that botany has also been used in the courtroom for quite some time. Plant-based evidence has been used in courts for at least 90 years. The most celebrated early case is the kidnapping and murder of the infant son of the famous pioneer aviator, Charles Lindbergh. During the evening of 1 March 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was taken from his cot in an upstairs bedroom of the family home in Hopewell, New Jersey. On discovering the infant was gone the next morning, his father and the family’s staff found a ransom note and searched the house and grounds. The police were then called, and a makeshift, home-made ladder was soon found lying on the ground about 30 metres from the house. A little over four years later, Richard ‘Bruno’ Hauptmann, a German émigré, was executed for the child’s kidnap and murder.

  The Lindbergh case is one of the most infamous in modern American history; it also had far-reaching consequences and is still shrouded in controversy. I’m going to sidestep the controver
sy and concentrate on the botany. The home-made ladder was considered to be one of the most significant pieces of evidence in the case. The scientist who examined the ladder was Dr Arthur Koehler from Madison, Wisconsin. Koehler worked for the Forest Products Laboratory which is part of the United States Forest Service. He was an expert on wood anatomy and during his testimony he described himself as ‘the expert on the identification of wood for the Government.’.

  Prior to the arrest of Hauptman, Koehler had examined the ladder and had identified the wood as coming from North Carolina pine (Pinus taeda). Today, this pine is more commonly known as Loblolly pine. Using microscopy, he was also able to determine that the machine tooling on the surface of the wood was made by blades rotating at 2,700 revolutions per minute, cutting the wood at a rate of 258 feet per minute. To be honest, I don’t have a clue how he achieved this, but it is extremely clever! Koehler then sent enquiries to over 1,500 wood mills, and this list was then whittled down to 25. Each of the 25 mills were sent a request to produce a sample of planed wood for comparison with the ladder. Of these, the sample sent back by M.G. & J.J. Dorn Company from McCormick, South Carolina proved to be the best match. Further investigation of the company’s order book and shipment records lead to Koehler, identifying the National Lumber and Millwork Company in the Bronx as the retail source of the timber from the ladder.

  During this phase of his investigation, Koehler also advised the investigating team to seize any woodworking tools, especially planes, that might be in the possession of any arrested suspects. Months later, when Bruno Hauptmann was arrested, a carpenter’s tool kit was found in his possession and in the toolkit was a plane. It was also discovered that he’d worked for the National Lumber and Millwork Company and had purchased timber from there. Careful examination of irregularities in the blade of Hauptmann’s plane by Koehler demonstrated that it had been used to plane the wood of the ladder: the cut surface of the wood had irregularities matching the blade from Hauptmann’s plane. Also, a small chisel was missing from Hauptmann’s carpentry set, the same size and make as a chisel found at the crime scene.