Soil expert discusses dirt found on Elledge boots
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A Missouri State Highway Patrol criminalist said soil found on Joseph Elledge's boots closely matched soil found at the site where his wife was buried.
Prosecutors led the sixth day of the Joseph Elledge murder trial with testimony from Will Randle, the patrol's lead trace evidence analyst. Randle said he inspected a dozen samples taken from Rock Bridge State Park to see if any matched soil found on Elledge's boots.
Prosecutor Dan Knight is trying to convince a jury that Elledge deliberately killed his wife, Mengqi Ji, in October 2019 and buried her body in the park. Defense attorneys claim Elledge accidentally killed her when he pushed her and she hit her head.
Randle said two samples taken directly from the site where a hiker found Ji's remains in March 2021 closely matched soil found on his boots. Randle said the samples matched in color and through mineralogical studies done on them. Gravel found in the boots also similarly matched gravel taken from Rock Quarry Road near the site seen through calcite compounds.
Defense attorney Matei Stroescu repeated his line of questioning from a pre-trial hearing seeking to exclude Randle's testimony as an expert witness. He pointed out that no scientists have not studied the possible error rate for soil analysis, such as false positive matches. Randle said results of his analysis are based partly on his subjective decisions on color matches of soil samples.
Storescu similarly asked Drs. Aaron Floden and Alex Linan of the Missouri Botanical Garden about their possible error rates on work they did for the case. Floden, a botanist, identified the juniper needles stuck in Elledge's boots with those around Ji's grave site. He said those needles were one of about ten other plant species found on the boots that he also saw at the grave site during an August 2021 visit. He said it was unlikely that spread of species would be elsewhere in Missouri.
Storescu asked him if any botanist had ever calculated his error rate for identification.
"I don't know any botanist that does [check their error rate]," Floden replied.
Linan testified that a pair of pine needles in Elledge's boots matched the DNA of juniper trees near the grave site.
Storescu pointed out that the Missouri Botanical Garden's lab does not investigate crimes. Both admitted they had never testified in a criminal case before this one.
