Botanist identifies trees in killer's yard
Section: MAIN NEWS
July 9, 2001
Page: A8
Author: Mike Roarke Staff writer
Illustration: Photo
Caption: Frustrating evidence. Detective Rick Grabenstein and his partners found vegetation unlike any of the plants growing at 14th and Carnahan covering the body of Linda Maybin. They concluded that yard waste had been hauled in by the serial killer to conceal three bodies he dumped at the site. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review
Infobox: Mike Roarke can be reached at (509) 459-5442 or by e-mail at .
RICHARDOLD WANTED to nail the serial killer using just one clue: plants.
In May 1998, the botanist rode with sheriff's detective Rick Grabenstein to the killer's dumpsites, then spent two days picking through shriveled leaves, twigs and landscaping bark found on the bodies of three murder victims.
Most samples came from 14th and Carnahan, where Shawn McClenahan, Laurie Wason and Linda Maybin had been found hidden under piles of yard waste. It appeared the killer backed a pickup truck to the roadside ditch and tossed out the bodies and debris together, on one or more occasions.
Grabenstein thought the yard clippings would reveal what was growing on the killer's property, so he recruited Old, a botany consultant in Pullman.
In the evidence room of the Spokane Police Department, Old emptied 10 burlap sacks of leaves and branches on a table covered with brown butcher paper.
The debris that covered Maybin's body was dominated by leaves from Norway maple and honey locust trees. The leaves that concealed the bodies of Wason and McClenahan, found four months earlier than Maybin's and about 50 feet away, were mostly weeping birch.
But Old saw similarities. Both piles contained landscaping bark with diagonal cuts as if they had been run through a chipper. And there were common signs of lace leaf maple, Eastern white cedar, rose and Oregon grape.
What Old didn't find was significant, too. There were no pine needles, which is unusual for Spokane yards, and no grass clippings. He figured the debris from the two crime scenes had come from different parts of the same yard, and were probably raked in the fall of 1997.
"We ended up with a wonderful picture of what this yard looked like, but we didn't know what it meant," Old said. Maybe it was the killer's yard, although he could have been in the landscaping business and collected the leaves somewhere else.
Old was determined: "I wanted to find the yard and apprehend the guy."
He brainstormed ways to lead the task force to the property. Infrared pictures taken from an airplane would show where various plants grow including the combinations found covering the victims - but the potential cost was $1 million.
He also thought of enlisting garden club members to go door-to-door and "survey" their neighbors' plants. The idea was dismissed as too time-consuming.
But Old's profile of the killer's yard proved useful.
When investigators interviewed suspects at their homes, they looked for weeping birches and Norway maple trees. They also showed potential witnesses pictures of leaves and trees, hoping they would remember seeing them in someone's yard.
And two years after Old was enlisted to help in the case, he had the satisfaction of being right: His profile pegged the serial killer's yard perfectly.