In the event, Miller didn’t bother with Sutherland’s slides. He took samples directly from the shirt. Thin slices were mounted on glass slides, and embedded in wax, or paraffin blocks. The slides were stained with two dyes: hematoxylin and eosin. Miller examined the slides under a microscope. They suggested the presence of central nervous system tissue. Next, he applied the exquisite science of his immunostains, which provided ‘conclusive evidence’, as he said in the 2002 trial, of human brain. Case closed.
Except that Levick’s dogged investigations long after the trial led him to other experts in the field who totally rejected Miller’s findings. Miller, in turn, scorned their views. A bitter war of words — Miller had a flair for name-calling, later describing one eminent chemist as ‘blowing smoke from his arse’ — was recorded in their affidavits placed with the Privy Council in 2013. The stage was set for a showdown at the retrial. Miller versus his critics, who would tear into the validity of his immunostains and denounce the Texan as inept, wrong-headed, a bum.
Except it didn’t work out that way. I said to Hislop while we were waiting for the verdict, ‘Miller — he’s been vindicated in this trial, hasn’t he?’
He said, ‘He has, to be honest.’
I filched a photocopy from Levick’s den to take with me to Wellington. I felt it was necessary to have on hand. It was an enlarged image of C3003/3 — that microscopic stain on Lundy’s shirt, magnified many times. It was purple with hematoxylin and eosin dyes, and looked vaguely artistic, like an interesting abstract. The image was shaped something like the North Island. Miller wrote in a report, ‘Cell nuclei were clearly visible, and the morphologic appearance was compatible with brain tissue . . . A subsequent battery of immunostains showed that this tissue reacted positively with GFAP, S100 protein, neurofilament, and synaptophysin. This pattern of immunoreactivity is that of tissue originating from the central nervous system (brain or deep spinal cord) . . . It provided unequivocal evidence that Mark Lundy had brain tissue on his shirt from an area that also contained Christine Lundy’s DNA.’
Miller appeared at the second trial by videolink from his home in Dallas. There wasn’t much of a cross-examination. Hislop challenged him on the cleanliness of his laboratory, and questioned him about the possibility of contamination. In his evidence to Morgan, Miller revealed that he had made new immunostains on Lundy’s shirt with the same result: clear evidence of central nervous system tissue. He also carried out the same tests on a fresh brain. They made for an interesting — and revealing — comparison with the stuff on Lundy’s shirt. The Lundy samples were taken from the paraffin blocks. ‘They will remain stable for decades, if not hundreds of years,’ Miller said. No one contested that; the issue with his immunostains had always been that the stain on Lundy’s shirt would have been so degraded that it was ‘impossible’ to determine the nature of the cells. They had simply been on the shirt for too long — 159 days had passed before Miller cut away the fabric, and tested the stains. Nonsense, Miller countered, and came up with a brilliant argument in the shape of his testing on a fresh brain. He took tissue from it and smeared it on fabric. He left it to dry in a cupboard. He tested it with his immunostains after 28 days, and his markers showed positive for central nervous system tissue. He tested it after 159 days, matching his forensic examination of Lundy’s shirt, and his markers showed positive for central nervous system tissue. He tested it after 365 days, and his markers showed positive for central nervous system tissue.
Case closed, in essence; despite Levick’s furious arguments to the contrary, Hislop felt there was no longer any evidential basis to challenge Miller in court. Their own expert agreed with Miller. Dr Colin Smith, a small, chubby neuropathologist from the University of Edinburgh, was called to the stand. Och, the poor wee man had a terrible cold. He snuffled and wheezed, and his nose glowed red. Did he agree that the tests on Lundy’s shirt revealed the presence of central nervous system tissue? He held a paper tissue to his dripping snoot, and dredged up his devastating answer through piles of phlegm: ‘There’s no question that’s what it is.’
I’d caught up with Levick the previous week at a foodhall in west Auckland. He was receiving regular updates from Lundy, and felt confident of Lundy’s chances of acquittal. He said: ‘They haven’t landed a punch yet.’ I texted him when prosecution witness Daniel du Plessis gave evidence: ‘They’ve landed a punch.’
Du Plessis, a forensic neuropathologist at the University of Edinburgh, regretted to say he’d had plenty of opportunity to study the brains of homicide victims in his native South Africa: ‘We are awash in crime.’ Gillian Leak had made mention of her work on the Yorkshire Ripper investigation. Du Plessis made mention of his work on the tragedy of the 96 people killed at the Hillsborough football stadium.
The New Zealand police had contacted him in 2013 to look
