The soil sleuth unearthing killers

SOIL sleuth Lorna Dawson is juggling commitments when we meet. It’s early evening, she’s had a frantic day and is now taking a call from her husband who wonders what time she’ll be home from the lab.

“He says I work all the time,” she reveals, hanging up with a grin that more than hints at admission.

As head of the James Hut ton Institute’ sS oil Forensics Unit, Professor Dawson has worked on more than 100 crimes – teasing out clues that have helped to solve notorious cold cases and put some of the UK’s most evil killers behind bars.

But the 59-year-old Aberdeen mum- of- three is showing no signs of slowing up

Forensic geoscience is gaining great ground worldwide, due in no small part to her. Soil evidence regularly provides a vital piece of the puzzle needed to convict the guilty.

And it all started on a farm near Forfar. The woman who comes from a long line of farmers on both her mother and father’s side remembers: “My dad grew potatoes and I used to go tattie picking in the holidays.

“With tatties you learned that different areas of the farm had different soil, some drained more easily while others were boggy and you had to watch what you grew.”

The former For far Academy pupils adds: “I was fortunate to grow up in the country. It was lovely and safe. I’d ride my bike everywhere, go sailing on Forfar Loch.

“I used to love to read Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, Agatha Christie crime novels and The Sunday Post. We got it every week.”

She laughs: “My brother and I used to fight over who would get The Broons pages. He is a farmer now too.”

The young Lorna gave up her idyllic life for the big city, studying geography and geology at the University of Edinburgh. And it was there that she had her first brush with crime.

On a Saturday night in October 1977 she was in the Halls of Residence when 17-year-old pals