THE work of a Kew botanist who identified plant fragments found in the intestine of the Thames torso boy, Adam, was revealed this week.
The Metropolitan Police say they are now closer than ever to bringing charges in the case, after the botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens identified a bean which is known to be used in witchcraft practices.
The discovery came after the Met Police forensic unit, investigating the murder of the boy Adam, sent Kew some scanning electron microscope photographs of tiny fragments found in the boy's intestine. It seems he was fed a potion of ingredients prior to his death and as some of these fragments are of seeds and leaves, Kew became involved.
Dr Hazel Wilkinson, senior research fellow in Kew’s Jodrell Laboratory, began work to try and identify the fragments. With thousands of possibilities, she concentrated on looking at plants with known poisonous properties, bearing in mind the background of the case. After a period of research she was able to obtain a close similarity between one of the police photographs and samples from Kew of the outer layers of the Calabar Bean (physostigma venenosum balf).
Calabar Bean is a woody climbing plant indigenous to west Africa and grows in the tropical forests especially near the mouths of the Old Calabar and Niger rivers. If ingested, about one half to a whole bean may kill a person if the beans are ripe. The effect of the chemicals in the bean is to cause a powerful sedative action on the spinal chord which brings on paralysis of the lower limbs and death by asphyxia, and in larger doses by paralysis of the heart. The use of the bean in ritual practices in west Africa has been known since the 1840s. People suspected of crimes were forced to eat the bean. If they vomited them up they were considered innocent, if they died -guilty, if wavering they were sold into slavery.
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