Crime Scene
Botanicals
How Plants are used in
Forensics
Basic Information
• Forensic Botany is the science of using plant or plant-like materials in
solving crimes
• The discovery that plants can be used in forensics is a somewhat new
one, beginning to be used in depth in 1992, and much experimentation is
yet to be completed: first known case, however, was in 1935
• Palynology is an inner division of botany that is used within forensic
botany to help with the main points of helping to solve a crime
• Spores, as well as small plant parts such as pollen, seeds, wood chips,
leaves, and small twigs, can easily attach to a human’s clothing or can be
breathed in and transported to the lungs
• Dendrochronology is a process within forensic botany where the rings of
a root are counted to see how many years ago the soil was disturbed
and, therefore, how long ago the body was buried: only gives us a vague
idea however, often within five years
How can it help?
• The science of Forensic Botany can be used to help in a crime in a variety of ways:
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Geographical Location
Season or time
Whether or not a body has been moved
How long a body has been buried
Whether a specific suspect was present at the crime
How the person died
Can be used to confirm or disprove a witness’s statements
Can be used as evidence in court
Plant materials can easily be traced on a suspect’s clothing, possessions, or even, with a simple stomach x-ray, within a
suspect’s lungs and abdominal area
What type of cases use it?
• Pollen and many other plant-like materials can be
used in many types of court cases:
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Forgery
Producing of illegal drugs (and distribution)
Robbery
Homicide and genocide
Terrorism
Hit and run crimes
Creation of counterfeit money
Forged documents
Forged paintings
Removal of artifacts from historic sites
Illegal pouching of animals and fish
Fake antiques
UPSIDES
• Can help to find all the points listed on the previous page
• Can easily be found and obtained by examining a suspects clothing, car,
house, hair, and skin
• Removes some of the work from the plate of a forensic investigator as
they may have more help and more evidence provided by forensic
botanists
DOWNSIDES
• Forensic Botanist must be “dead-on” as evidence can easily be mixed up.
• Pollen rain can cover important evidence at the burial site
• In the use of Dendrochronology, false and incomplete rings can occur: these extra rings can
greatly affect the investigation
• An older, more developed plant can take over another newer one at the burial site. This can
give investigators a false idea that this first plant they see, though actually older than the body,
has only been there since the body was buried and can be used as evidence if a sample of the
plant is found on the suspect
Dendrochronology
Does it really work?
• Examples of cases using this:
– The kidnapping and death of Charles
Lindenburgh’s son: the ladder at the crime scene
was matched to a block of wood in the criminal’s
attic
– Recently in New Zealand, a woman was pulled
into an alleyway and killed: the criminal had dirt
in his car, claiming it was from working in the
fields- dirt was matched to the dirt from a
shrubbery found near the body of the woman
Advantages to Forensic Botany in a
Court Case
• Palynology and forensic botany are becoming
more accepted in the court room
• Botanical evidence can be found at almost
every crime scene
• Like DNA, botanical evidence is all different,
each plant with its own characteristics
• As it is new and amazing, botanical evidence is
very influential in a court room
POLLEN IN A COURTROOM
• Having pollen as evidence in a courtroom can have major
disadvantages:
– Pollen is still not fully accepted as competent in a courtroom as it is
incredibly common and there are not very individual characteristics
but more group characteristics
– Pollen is more used in forensic botany as a tool to point investigators
in the right direction toward the solving of a crime, not to solve and
accuse a murderer
– Pollen is in the air and therefore, many people attending the court
may have this same type of pollen on their clothing or in their hair
making it unsteady evidence that can be easily proved as incompetent
Forensic Botany in the
Future
• Scientists are currently searching for
techniques to find whether plants of the
same species have different fingerprints
• This discovery could act as an
unparalleled tool in solving crimes and
swaying court cases