Using pollen to catch a killer
April 21, 2015 9:54 AM   Subscribe

Who Killed Mellory Manning? "Pollen detective" Dallas Mildenhall used obscure science to crack cases all over the world. Then a murder took place in his own backyard.
posted by gottabefunky (4 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Sorry, this article was self-linked yesterday and it's suspicious to see it here again so soon. -- LobsterMitten



 
Previously.

(I jest.) Seriously, though, before we go hailing this as the new infallible way of puncturing alibis and cracking cases, maybe a little empirical analysis on whether this really works? Vague assurances about how 'no two pollen signatures are alike' seem pretty suspect, given both the recent revelations about hair analysis and the simple consideration that we're talking about organic material that literally blows around with the breeze.
posted by fifthrider at 10:29 AM on April 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


See also:

Bite mark analysis
Fire investigations

It sounds like in the Manning case they were able to use a fair bit of other information in convicting a suspect but we should be wary of "obscure science" in investigations.
posted by ghharr at 10:38 AM on April 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Before reading the article, my guess is it was bees.
posted by Ashenmote at 10:51 AM on April 21, 2015


Instead of the typical procedure of using oranges to determine how far the body might have floated...
posted by XMLicious at 11:14 AM on April 21, 2015


« Older The Best of Black Punk Rock, in My Humble Opinion   |   red button metrics tracking failure Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments