Zachary, but all we can state is that they are ‘scientifically similar,’ but the same can be said with too large a percentage of the population to say ‘to a scientific certainty,’ which is the forensic standard. We also tried to extract marrow left in the bones, which can be used for blood typing as well as DNA testing, but again we were stymied by decomposition. We even attempted to extract pulp from one of her molars for the same purpose, but with the same result.”
Guma turned to his next question. “Dr. Swanburg, can you tell the court how long, within a time frame, the remains had been in the grave.”
“Objection,” Anderson called out. “Here is another point, Your Honor, at which the prosecution witness will be testifying about guesswork that has not been accepted as standard in the scientific community. In fact, any two scientists could debate these suppositions indefinitely without reaching an answer that satisfies the threshold of reasonable degree of scientific certainty.”
“Well, that’s what we’re doing here, Mr. Anderson,” the judge said. “I’m listening to this gentleman, and any other witnesses, to determine whether it will be allowed into evidence at trial. Now, I’d like to hear what Dr. Swanburg has to say. I’ll rule on it then.” He looked at Swanburg. “You may answer the question.”
“I can’t give you an exact day, but we have ways of getting pretty close,” Swanburg said. “For instance, we know that the body was buried for a number of years before cement was poured over the gravesite. We know this because when we exhumed the remains, my colleague in the back of the courtroom, Dr. Charlotte Gates, noted plant roots that had grown through the rib area. As it turns out, the roots were from a rosebush; however, the rosebushes formerly above the site had been removed when the cement was poured, at which point the roots stopped growing and died.”
Swanburg turned in the witness seat and looked over at the judge. “Are you with me still?”
Amused, the judge nodded. “So far, Dr. Swanburg, even if my wife accuses me of doddering senility.”
“Know what you mean, Your Honor,” Swanburg chuckled. “Anyway, we know from the growth rings of the rose roots-roots have rings just like a tree that indicate age-that they had pierced the wall of the grave and grew into the corpse for at least two years before the plant was removed. We also know that the cement for the patio was poured in 1994, according to records from Manhattan Concrete, Inc. So that would mean that the roots had been growing in the grave since at least 1992. And, of course, after the grave was dug, it would have taken one to three growing seasons-depending if the plant had been disturbed by the digging-to reach the wall of the grave. So that pushes our timetable back to the grave having been dug sometime between 1989 and 1992.”
Guma didn’t have much more for Swanburg and turned him over to Anderson. “Let’s start with the last issue first,” the attorney said. “Do you know within a scientific certainty that the roots in the grave are the roots of a plant removed when the cement was poured?”
“It’s the scenario that makes the most sense.”
“Is that a yes or no?”
“That would be a ‘no,’ not absolutely certain.”
“Then the roots in that grave could actually be much older than a plant killed by the pouring of cement in 1994?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“In fact, the grave could have been dug, and the victim interred at some point in the distant past before Mr. Stavros even purchased the home. Those roots could have ‘pierced the grave,’ as you put it, years before Mrs. Stavros left her home.”
“I suppose it is possible but we-”
“Is ‘I suppose,’ a ‘yes,’ Dr. Swanburg?”
“Yes, a qualified yes, but a yes.”
“More like a qualified guess, Dr. Swanburg.”
Swanburg looked somewhat bemused but let the aside go without comment.
“Let’s move on, Dr. Swanburg,” Anderson said. “Essentially, what you told Mr. Guma is that the standard accepted methods of human identification were not available to you.”
“Well, no, that’s not what I said at all,” Swanburg replied. “I testified that two methods-granted, the most common known to laypersons such as you-were not available to us. And I’ll concede that these other methods are less exact, but I believe that my colleague will be testifying that these other methods have been used in courts throughout the world for years now.”
When Swanburg stepped down, Karp called Charlotte Gates to the stand. After the exchange of pleasantries and establishing her expertise, he began by asking her for a short version of the excavation process. When she finished, he noted Swanburg’s testimony regarding the lack of fingerprint or DNA evidence. “Does that mean we have no other scientific means of identifying these remains?”
“Not at all,” Gates replied. “Those are just two.”
“Would you care to elaborate?”
“Sure. For one thing, even though we don’t have dental records, the deceased’s teeth can still give us clues to her identity.”
“How so?”
“Well, through a subspecialty of dentistry called forensic odontology, something I’ve studied in my practice as a forensic anthropologist. There are several reasons why the dentition is valuable for human identification. Tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the human body, which makes teeth capable of surviving conditions under which other human tissues, including bone, deteriorate. Dental work such as fillings, crowns, bridges, and root canal therapy are individually customized for each patient; plus, individuals lose or damage teeth, as well as the bone that holds them. It is these unique qualities that enable forensic odontologists to compare dental restoration work, through X-rays or even anecdotal evidence, with the remains to identify, or exclude, a possible missing individual with a very high level of probability. However, as you’ve heard in this case, there are no dental records for comparison.”
“And so?”
“And so we move on to a less exact but nevertheless valid means to ‘narrow the field,’ so to speak,” Dr. Gates said. “We all know that we lose our so-called baby teeth at certain points in our life-give or take a year or two. But actually, we can make determinations as to age well into adulthood because dental development is tightly controlled and protected against disturbances through a process known as canalization. The disadvantage of age estimates, based on dental development, is that most adults have completed the process by age twenty-five.”
“So from what you just said,” Karp asked, breaking up the sequence to make it more understandable, “what can we say about the remains found in the defendant’s backyard?”
“We can say the deceased was at least twenty-five years old,” Gates replied.
“Can you be any more exact?” Karp said.
“To a lesser but still scientifically valid degree I can,” Gates said. “As strong as they are, our teeth don’t last forever. We wear them down by eating hard foods and grinding them against each other. We also tend to lose some of the bone around the roots as we grow older, and we experience more gum diseases, some of which can be seen in the bone of the jaw as well as the teeth themselves.”
“Well, do all people wear out their teeth at the same rate?” Karp asked.
Gates shook her head. “No, and as a matter of fact that can vary greatly according to culture, socioeconomic status-i.e., such as the availability and frequency of dentist visits-and some physical cause, such as a tense person who grinds their teeth a lot. However, a fairly large body of evidence has been gathered comparing thousands of people-both living and deceased-in any one age, gender, social class, and area. The end result is the ability to say that the average person in a certain category can be expected to demonstrate particular aspects in regard to their dentition. For instance, the teeth of the average wealthy white male in the United States will look different at age fifty, than the teeth of the average impoverished Asian, fifty-year-old female in Cambodia.”
“So using this comparison system, can you estimate the age of the remains in question?” Karp asked.
“Yes, these comparison studies have been fed into computers, which I’ve accessed,” Gates replied. “The remains fall into the category of adult, Caucasian females of upper-middle to wealthy economic status with an age range of between thirty and forty-two years.”
“And do you recall the age of Teresa Stavros when she disappeared?”
“I’ve been told that she was thirty-five years old.”
“That’s correct,” Karp nodded. “Is there anything else that might indicate the age of the victim in this
