Cali Doe - Pollen Evidence

Pollen Evidence

In 2006, Paul Chambers, a recently-hired investigator in the Monroe County, New York medical examiner's office, asked for and received permission to send Caledonia Jane Doe's clothing to the Palynology Laboratory at Texas A&M University, where it was checked for plant pollen trace evidence. Among the types of pollen found on the clothing by the Texas A&M University researchers were grains from Casuarina (Australian pine, or "she oak"), Quercus (oak), Picea (spruce), and Betula (birch). The clothing pollen grains were compared to a control sample of pollen grains taken directly from the rural New York site where Caledonia Jane Doe's body had been found in 1979.

Oak grows widely all over the United States, and spruce and birch grow in New York, among many places in the United States. However, no oak, spruce, or birch pollen grains were found in the control sample, and neither spruce nor birch trees were found growing near the body dump site.

Australian pine, or Casuarina, is an invasive species that grows in a limited number of locations in North America: south Florida; south Texas; parts of Mexico; the campuses of the University of Arizona and Arizona State University; and three regions in California: the North Bay of San Francisco, the San Luis Obispo area, and the San Diego area. The best matches to the clothing Casuarina pollen grains were found to be grains from southern California and the San Diego region.

Based on the Casuarina match to southern California, the spruce and birch grains, and the girl's visible tan lines, forensic researchers suggested that Caledonia Jane Doe may have originally lived in the southwestern United States near San Diego, California, then traveled (perhaps by hitchhiking) through the Sierra Nevada mountains where spruce and birch grow to Reno, Nevada, and then traveled across the country to New York, where she was murdered.