Christopher Hardy

They know where the bullets are.

Now they want you to come in and look at the plant evidence.

And everyone's waiting for you.

So it is quite something.

Certainly, spores of mushrooms are small enough to traipse onto the shoes of a suspect.

Certain mosses can be used to determine the age of the body because they grow in regular intervals that correlate with years, just like the rings of a tree.

So that is the case.

However, you know, the mosses don't grow that fast.

You know, when you find moss that's grown on a body or let's say the remains of the clothing, it takes some years for that moss to start, you know, colonizing and growing.

Sure.

Well, I've never been personally to a body farm, but I'm familiar with the literature, and so I'm well-read in that regard.

But I will tell you that a lot of people think that a decomposing corpse could actually enrich the soil.

And on the long run, that might be the case.

But in the short term, the fluids that come beneath a decomposing body can actually stunt the growth of vegetation for a good while because it's pretty putrid and

And can have that effect on plants.

And so, for example, in this case in Pennsylvania, we were able to date those roots.

And there was a particular year that showed, you know, fairly narrow growth rings in those roots.

And so, you know, one cause for a narrow growth ring in the wood of a root would be a year without a lot of rain, maybe a drought year.

But that particular year and the years around it were actually abundantly producing rain.

And so you'd expect to have large rings around that.