Be Good or the Plants will get You

From Lindbergh to CSI
What's botany got to do with it?
Dr-J

On a cold Jersey day, January, 1935,
Many a soul is still alive
Who remembers that famous day and year
That botany saved the day, it's clear.

My mother is one such New Jerseyite
That knows the trial was quite a sight,
That knows the tale that we behold
That knows what got newspapers sold.

That cold day, Arthur Koehler, dealt with the structure of wood,
An expert on its anatomy and identification: Did the best he could
And, found the courthouse amid the crowds of Flemington,
There at the courthouse trial, "'bout the kidnappun."

He was there to testify,
Regarding Bruno Hauptmann. Why?
Kidnapping a son, a très young lad
Charles and Anne Lindbergh's son. So sad.

One of the most important trials of the century:
Wooden evidence, had little precidents.
Would it even be allowed?
Would they get it? Who? The crowd.

Scientific expert witnesses were not the rule.
Botanical evidence wasn't, "cool."
Not like fingerprinting or ballistics
Probably not enough statistics.

A scientist! Why, different indeed!
What is it the jurors need?
The judge responded, “I [...deem...] this witness [...] qualified...”
Then, in awe, they likely sighed.

An historical moment for forensic plant science that was,
In fact it created quite the buzz:
Koehler demonstrated how the wood,
Beyond any doubt, showed Hauptmann could

Do that crime.
The ladder was a unique design:
Homemade, and in 3 parts.
Hauptmann had to do the time.

Koehler identified the wood used,
Physical marks left on the wood by tools
And, compared of the wood structure.
Got the picture?

Four kinds of wood in the ladder:
Ponderosa and Yellow Pine, Douglas fir
And, birch for the connecting dowels...
Time Hauptman threw in the towel(s).

Characteristic presence in pine of very thin epithelial cells
Lining the resin canals. In douglas fir:characteristic thick-walled cells
Lining the canals and faint spiral markings along the length of the tracheids
What was it that mouthful said?

The wood of the top left rail had clearly been used before.
Sawn away from a bigger piece. And, nail holes sure,
From old-fashioned square-head nails,
Now found there place in 20th century tales.

Koehler: "Look for a missing board in any place
Connected with a future suspect's face."
Planer markings let Koehler trace the pine
Back to its mill source in McCormick, South Caroline.

Then forward to the National Lumber and Millwork Co. in the Bronx
Only blocks from Hauptmann’s home....home in, "da Bronx"

Prior to arrest for passing a bill from the ransom money
Botany had found this criminal honey.
What Koehler showed the jury
Got them in a fury:

One of the floor boards in Hauptmann’s attic was missing
An exact match of annual rings , like it was kissing
The attic board and the ladder rail
Had once been a single board which made the jury wail.

Annual rings are so unique that no other random board
Would have exactly that same cord

Like with fingerprints or DNA, the criminals won't get their way
If the botanists have their say.
Anatomical evidence from the wood
Was so unshakably good.
Pieces of evidence that led to Hauptmann’s conviction
And eventual electrocution for the kidnappin' (Graham, S. 1997).

"Forensic botany," became the term
For using plant remains to catch the worm
That commits a crime. If you see the pollen or the seed
Drop a dime. Do a good deed.

Those plant parts or DNA
Won't let criminals have their way.
Since that famous day and year,
Arthur Koehler made it clear:

Botany gives valid scientific evidence to the courts.
Even TV watchers of sorts
Who watch crime shows like CSI, Law and Order,
Cold Case, and many "other,"

Real life detective work proceeds,
Using plant "stuff" like seeds.
Botany is playing an increasing role
But these shows aren't always droll:

A TV episode of “Bones”, has a bitten-off ear with ear wax
In which pollen was embedded, just the (fictional) facts...
Was ID'd from the grass Eragrostis.
Say there what's this?

Eragrostis grass pollen in ear wax of that story
Lacks a spectacular pollen morphology,
Since it’s like a tiny ping-pong ball,
We cant tell it’s the Eragrostis at all.

So, with plant DNA we find
We can tell the grasses kind
And the location where abouts
That causes juries cries and shouts.

A species which grows only in South Africa. Who's just been there?
A suspect has one more bit of evidence now bare.
Plants or parts of plants can provide the clue...
Significant supporting evidence that can catch you.

Plant remains ubiquitous,
Sources of evidence for us,
Macroscopic, and microscopic as pieces
Wood, seeds, fruits, leaves, twigs, pollen spores, and algae

Sometimes we don’t think plants are exciting
But their morphological diversity is inviting
And can provide identification, season and location
Even if the crime took place while we’re on vacation.

Also, somehow plants can tell us
That a body has been moved or buried. Let us
See how long it’s buried,
And whether a suspect was crime-scene present even if away s/he hurried.

Pollen and spore exines: ideas for nomenclature…
Pollen and spores, widespread in nature,
Breathed into our lungs, up through our nose
And even, we find, stick to our clothes.

Amazingly diverse, even to the species
Even as the temperature increases
Seasonal and geographical restrictions point
To a crime committed in this or that joint

Slow to decay pollen is
Microscopic, silent witnesses
Unlike fingerprints, they’re hard to smear.
Criminals can’t make them disappear.

New Zealand pollen solves a crime
A woman raped along an Artemisia line.
Mediterranean species not New Zealander
That rare pollen at the suspect’s home did not occur.

Assailant described but no DNA
He only, “stopped to ask … if she was OK.”
Dirt-stains on his clothes placed him where?
I wasn’t at the crime scene yet pollen placed him there.

Non-native Artemisia dominant on his coat
Wormwood near the suspect’s home, missed the boat
Statistical chances of finding large amounts there were too slim
So, pollen evidence, presented at the trial, convicted him.

Comparative pollen evidence yielded conviction in Australia
(Milne 2005), but each case’s not the same.
Pollen is also seen negating a plane crash claim (Graham, A. 1997).

Seeds, with special features, like hooks, barbs, wings, and, fruit or berry
Two children found in the a local cemetery
Stepfather became a suspect.
Some seeds proved him a society reject.

Claimed seeds came from his small farmyard,
But neither seed occurred in his weedy yard,
Nor would they have been expected there.

Both species were found at the gravesite.
The seed evidence linked the suspect to a wooded area like the gravesite

Seed evidence introduced at the trial
Convicted Kevin Neal
Two murders and two life sentences
Ohio and Kevin Neal not on the fences…

Seed evidence from crime scenes
Is all they need to spill the beans.
Botanical trace evidence from plant cells,
For the jury, rings the bells.

Cellulose-and-lignin-walled specialized cells,
And crime confusion seems to quell,
When plant parts are found in the belly.
Unless they dissolve in an acidic jelly.

Such materials digest little or none
Stomach contents or feces have some
Able to be identified
To determine victim’s last meal when s/he died.

To the forensic botanist this is swell
Because setting or timing of death we can tell.

In a particularly tragic London case,
2001. It seems, the base:
Partially digested plants gave clues
Of the victim’s homeland and to what death was due.

Torso, minus limbs and head,
of a young boy now dead,
Was found in the Thames River–
A human sacrifice to make you shiver.

A palynologist and a plant anatomist looked to see whatever evidence there might be
To give them a lead in the case.

DNA suggested the child was West African
The digestive tract revealed alder pollen.
The Alnus tree native to northern Europe, so days before this child died
The sights of Europe he had spied.

An assortment of clay pellets embedded with gold
And the remains of some type of bean seed, I’m told


And seeds of beans and mustards and the tomatoes
Or, perhaps of potatoes…
Matched by a plant anatomist from Kew
To a poisonous legume, West African, too.

Calabar beans mixed into a potion
Nigerian witchcraft of olden days, not a lotion
The boy had been had been a sacrifice.
Something today we don’t think thrice…

That it could even happen, still,
But let’s hope it never again will.
Further tests: boy and bean both from Benin vicinity,
Where sacrifice is or was part of their divinity

Thus far, no one has been blamed for that murder
Maybe Mum prayed and someone heard her
‘Cause child-trafficking from Africa to Great Britain and Germany has been arrested,
And “Witchcraft Murder is so detested.

Now the fastest botanical knowledge is growth molecular.
This plant trace evidence is naught but spectacular.
Plant DNA became admissible evidence in 1992,
Arizona versus Bogan, where DNA was the clue.

A young woman was murdered
and dumped, and deserted
In the desert no less, boo-hoo,
Yet, we now know by "who."

Hero, Charles Norton, at the scene of the crime,
Must have made the killer whine,
Seed pods he gathered from palo verde trees (Parkinsonia microphylla Torr.)
The same kind of pods were later found in the suspect’s truck bed floor.

Norton, knowing that DNA could identify human individuals, made a giant leap
Speculated that the pods could be linked by their DNA to the tree of the creep
Who created the crime scene.
That was using his bean.

His friend, Tim Helentjaris,
Using RAPDs, yes,
Was able to match the seed pod DNA
From the crime-scene tree to the truck that drove away.

Jurors agreed with Helentjaris’s botany:
Found Bogan guilty- murder in the first degree.
Now, plant research botanists (Ward et al. 2004) of theAustralian National University
In Canberra, Australia, can ID grasses via molecular taxonomic key.

Grass pollen not so helpful in forensics,
But, abundant grass seeds and stem bits
Provide DNA and mitochondrial genome
That help to bring the case home.

Botanical trace evidence integrated into
Crime scene analyses, as they often do
Help solve the crimes.
(We’re almost through.)

Pollen, a forensic tool: Only 1/15, for a total of two
(Bryant and Mildenhall 1990), they knew.
So, what do plants and their study, botany,
Have to do with Lindbergh and CSI?

Beat the drum, A rum, tum, tum.
This question is well-answered with excerpts from
Shirley Graham's Plant Talking Point
Read it and then split the joint...

Looking for seeds or pollen grains
Takes some study and some brains.
If you find some, you might have the clue
You might make criminals pretty blue.

I hope you like this poem, you see,
And, want to study botany
So here we go, we'll switch to prose
Because Shirley Graham her botany knows:

"...Failure to incorporate botanical evidence in investigations is due to lack of knowledge about plants by personnel who study crime scenes and so fail to collect it. The FBI’s 2003 Handbook of Forensic Services (www.fbi.gov) mentions the usefulness of wood and cotton fibers and explains how these should be submitted for examination, but refers to no other kind of supporting plant evidence...
Assessment of plant evidence requires well-trained specialists and frequently also access to extensive reference collections. Today, specialists in plant systematics, plant anatomy and morphology, and palynology are relatively few in number, and aging, and younger replacements are increasingly rare... Justice can now only be more fully served when law enforcement agencies and other relevant groups recognize and take full advantage of its utility and open employment opportunities for botanically trained investigators."

The morals of the story:

1. Be good or the plants will get you.
2. We need more botanists.

Sources:

BSA (Click on "Read more.")
(Click on "Read more.")
Trenchard 1935 as cited by Shirley Graham (Click on "Read more.").

Read more: "Plant Talking Point" supplied by Dr. Shirley Graham, Missouri Botanical Garden, and is BSA APPROVED (Includes an additional list of reading materials on topicslisted below).

* Plant Food Cells in Gastric Contents for Use in Forensic Investigations
* Palynological analyses of Australian surface soils and their potential in forensic science
* Forensic palynology: current status of a rarely used technique in the United States of America
* Forensic palynology in the United States of America
* Forensic palynology and the Ruidoso, New Mexico plane crash – the pollen evidence
* Palynology and tribal classification in the Caesalpinioideae
* Anatomy of the Lindbergh kidnapping
* Use of animal-dispersed seeds and fruits in forensic botany
* Just a few specks of dust and you are caught.
* A Grain of Truth: How Pollen Brought a Murderer to Justice
* Jail for torso case people smuggler
* Pollen morphology and the relationship of the Plumbaginaceae, Polygonaceae, and Primulaceae to the order Centrospermae
* Pollen characters in relation to the delimitation of Myrtales.
* State of New Jersey vs. Bruno Richard Hauptmann
* Pollen analysis reveals murder season..
* State of New Jersey vs. Bruno Richard Hauptmann, Trial transcript
* A molecular identification system for grasses: a novel technology for forensic botany
* Botanical witness for the prosecution

©2007 JSS. Used by Read-about-it and by TIBU with the permission of the author.