Soil in Emma accused van a ‘99% match’
Mud linked to woods where body found Murder trial hears experts’ analysis
Soil taken from the forest where Emma Caldwell’s body was found “corresponded” with those discovered in the van of the man accused of her murder, a court has heard.
Iain Packer, 50, is on trial at the High Court in Glasgow accused of murdering the sex worker, 27, in 2005, and faces 46 charges involving a number of women including rape as well as abduction and assault. He denies all the charges.
Giving evidence yesterday, Dr Stefan Uitdehaag, from the Netherlands Forensic Institute, said he wrote a report commissioned by Police Scotland.
He calculated “ecological distances” between six samples from around Limefield Woods, in Biggar, Lanarkshire, where Emma’s naked body was found on May 8, 2005, and in a sample found in the footwell of Packer’s van, examining pollen composition.
The six samples from the site included those from a molehill on a route to the body site, two from ditches where Emma was found, from under spruce needles, from an area where footprints were found a few metres from the body, and from under moss.
He said the results showed the soil was “much more likely” to have come from the same location as the sample in van and ranked as “odds 100 times to 10,000 times more likely”, or a “99.99 per cent” chance, that they came from the same spot than another random site.
Jurors later heard from pathologist Dr Marjorie Turner who compiled Emma’s post-mortem report.
Advocate depute Richard Goddard KC put it to her: “There was one clearly identifiable cause of death which was compression of the neck?” Dr Turner replied: “Yes.” The court heard there had been a plastic cord or line visible at the back of the neck. There was also bruising of the neck muscles, mainly on the right hand side with one on the left, which Dr Turner said it was a pattern “very typical of manual strangulation”.
The jury was also told that Emma had “clearly been dead for some time” and possibly from shortly after she was last seen alive on April 5, 2005.
Packer’s KC, Ronnie Renucci, later put it to her that was it possible death could have occurred “elsewhere”. She agreed it could be possible. The trial continues.