Birch seeds, the stomach contents of maggots, a pet’s hair, the ground under a shoe sole, single-celled algae from a ditch. In Green Witnessesa special from The Knowledge of Now (NTR), a world opened up for those who grew up between concrete and asphalt. In criminal cases it is sometimes the non-human biological traces that help prove that one human killed another.
We see two forensic investigators get out of a white van. Together they wrestle a fake corpse in the position in which they found John Smidt (86) in 2012, left behind in a ditch along a road in Zeeland. “The situation was overgrown,” says one. By which he means there was a berm with vegetation on it and a forest next to it. The other tells how they approached the crime scene “illogically” at the time, via a detour through the forest so as not to destroy traces on and around the body. Smart of them. Samples from the soil at the site could thus be compared in the laboratory with the ‘mixed sample’ that had been taken from the soles of a suspect.
This was better than CSI and more engaging than a crime series. A forensic plant researcher, a forensic biophysicist and a forensic biologist explain how in real cases the smallest traces led to the perpetrator. The birch seeds. Found on a shovel. Each birch has its own DNA profile. Each seed found can only fall from one tree. The tree stood at a self-dug grave, in which lay a corpse. The owner of the shovel had at least something to explain. The body of Savannah from Bunschoten was found in a ditch in 2017. The single-celled algae on a suspect’s (washed) t-shirt proved that in any case his t-shirt had also been in that ditch.
Forensic biologist Mark Benecke can discover a lot more after rain has erased the traces of a found body. He can tell from the stomach contents of the maggots whether the victim has been raped – maggots eat sperm. He shows a photo of a body that was found half in the ditch. He was able to show how long it had been there on the basis of the longest-lived insects on the body. He knew where to look for them. Bugs like “warm, moist and dark” and in the victim’s underpants there was enough “decomposing tissue” for them to survive. Wonderful type, this man. He knows himself. At parties he says he is a biologist because what he really does is “too boring, too dirty and too socially inappropriate” to tell.
Smothered human world
On Monday evening you could say that grass is actually also a kind of ‘non-human biological evidence’. And of a human world that is being smothered. In the 2Doc The end of the lawn (Human) patrols the water police in a car through a Los Angeles residential area in search of green lawns. Water waste in Nevada, the driest state in the US, can be fined up to $1,200. The culprits are the sprinklers and sprinklers that have to be on permanently to make the lawns look leafy. Eighty percent of the spray water evaporates immediately and the stock of water dries up quickly. The water level of the reservoir in the Rocky Mountains has dropped 55 meters, as evidenced by the worn bathtub ring in the rocks around the lake. Newly built houses are no longer allowed to have a front garden, and a backyard will soon be banned as well.
Landscape architect Kurtis Hyde is tasked with removing all “non-functional” grass in his town. Grass that is only there for decoration must be gone everywhere by 2026. As a consolation, he plants tropical palms and drought-resistant plants in its place. Nice how the 2Doc makers demonstrate a great drama in fifteen minutes with something as small as a blade of grass.