The Natural History of Crime

'I love puzzles, and finding answers is the only truly enjoyable part of what I do.'

This is because Professor Patricia Wiltshire is a forensic ecologist, her days spent at crime scenes collecting samples, standing over dead bodies in a mortuary, or looking down her microscope for evidence. Nature has given us a messy, imperfect world, but her job is to help make sense of it when we need it to most.

A pioneer of forensic ecology—using the natural world to help solve crimes—Patricia has been involved in some of the most high-profile murder cases. Not only does she help the police solve crimes and give answers to the most bemusing circumstances, she can help to exonerate the innocent and enable confessions from the guilty.

Working at the interface of where the criminal and natural world interact, Patricia will show us how she finds the answers to some of the worst crimes imaginable. Through a study of her most infamous cases, we join Patricia in putting the puzzle together, teasing the evidence out of her cases—'a garden came out of his hair'—and showing us all how life and death have always been, and always will be, intertwined.

But how do you find justice for a mother who has lost her daughter in the most horrific of circumstances? How does she face the very worst of humanity's crimes, and the weight of responsibility to the victims and those they leave behind?