DR LYNNE Milne calls it the “eureka” moment.
She can still recall the precise moment she matched pollen linking a murder suspect car to samples from where a strangled body had been found — and in doing so helped catch a killer.
The body of Samantha Bodsworth was found in August 1996 in a Noosa parkland by two tourists. Her former partner Michael Bodsworth was a prime suspect but he was able to account for where he had been the night she was killed. And there was nothing linking him to the Noosa burial scene.
Ms Bodsworth’s car was found outside a nightclub in Gympie, with a wattle flower inside. Investigators wondered if her own car was used to carry the body to Noosa — and whether they could match that flower and pollen found on Michael Bodsworth’s clothes to plants flowering where the body was found.
She was able to. In an extraordinary breakthrough, Dr Milne was able to confirm the flower in the car was from an acacia species where the body was found.
“Each plant species has pollen that’s very different to each other so you can say ‘this pollen is from this species and this from another ... I was able to do that,” she told news.com.au.
When police confronted Bodsworth he confessed, although he claimed to have argued with her and blacked out to find her dead.
But her body showed signs of strangulation and police believed he took drastic steps to cover his tracks. These included re-dressing her in clothes normally worn clubbing, putting her in the passenger seat of the car with a hat on and driving around with her supposedly alive next to him — Weekend at Bernie’s-style.
Malcolm Hall, Samantha’s father, told the ABC: “People saw him at half past seven driving round Gympie with her in the side and of course, that contradicted the people saying that she got murdered at 6.45.”
Dr Milne’s involvement was the first time forensic palynology had been used in a criminal case in Australia. But it wouldn’t be the last.
“It’s very scary actually. It can be quite unnerving, when you get results you think ‘oh my god I didn’t expect that. Then you think of the ramifications of it.”
Her involvement in the case was “just by accident” after a colleague couldn’t help police and put her name forward.
“So all of a sudden I was working on this murder case.”
But since then she has worked for police in her home state of Western Australia, as well as for NSW and Australian Federal Police, forging a niche for herself. Or in what she says “a boutique forensic scientist”.
“It’s often a scary thing ... Because someone’s life is sometimes hanging in the balance, on whether they go to jail or not, that can be quite onerous.”
Her last big case involved taking samples that eventually proved crucial in the acquittal in a high profile murder trial.
Lloyd Rayney was found not guilty of his wife Corryn’s 2012 murder and Dr Milne gave important evidence at the trial. Only this time for the defence.
“The police didn’t like it much but I didn’t care because I’m a scientist [and] I work for everybody.”
Her evidence cast serious doubt on the story prosecutors had presented to the court about where Mrs Rayney was killed.
“It was my evidence actually that said she was alive just before she was buried in a park ... unconscious but alive.”
That contradicted with what state prosecutors believed happened. Their account was the victim was killed in her home. But Dr Milne found pollen in Mrs Rayney’s nose that meant she’d breathed it in at the park her body was found in — the pollen was not found at her home in another Perth suburb.
The particles were so small they couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. “Unless you have it under microscope you don’t know it’s there.”
To get the samples she visited the park where Mrs Rayney’s body was found at the same time of year, in the sort of forensic super-sleuth made popular on TV dramas. But it’s as far removed as the quieter world of palynology as you can get.
“I feel very privileged to do what I do. Because I got into it by accident and still stumble along with it ... It’s not the kind of thing I ever thought I’d do.”
She started out as a physical education teacher so it still surprises her the twists her career has taken.
“I do a lot of inspirational speaking at schools and it’s one of those things I say, that you just have to follow your dreams of what you find interesting.”
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