In 2009, a scandal was exposed at a cemetery just outside of Chicago. Workers at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, were accused of exhuming old graves, dumping the remains elsewhere on the cemetery grounds, and reselling ...
In a new study in the journal Forensic Sciences Research, researchers are sharing the first full scientific account of the case, detailing precisely how moss played a role in proving that a crime had taken place.
Matt von Konrat, the paper's lead author and the head of the botany collections at the Field Museum in Chicago, is a fan of detective shows on TV (the new paper is named after the BBC's "Silent Witness"), but he didn't imagine that his career studying moss would ever put him in the midst of a criminal investigation.
"One day in 2009, I answered the phone, and it was the FBI, asking if I could help them identify some plants," says von Konrat. The FBI came to the Field Museum and presented von Konrat with a bit of moss that had been found eight inches below the soil, along with the reburied human remains at the cemetery.
"The investigators wanted to know what kind of moss it was, and how long it had been buried in the soil," says von Konrat.
First, von Konrat and his colleagues examined the moss sample under a microscope and compared it with dried moss specimens in the museum's collections to determine that it was Fissidens taxifolius, also known as common pocket moss.
Lead author Matt von Konrat in his laboratory at the Field Museum on February 26, 2026, examining the tiny bits of moss found with the re-buried bodies at Burr Oak Cemetery in 2009. The computer screen shows the view of the moss specimen under the microscope. Credit: Field Museum.
Lead author Matt von Konrat in his laboratory at the Field Museum on February 26, 2026, with the moss specimens used in the Burr Oak case. In the background is a panel from the Field Museum's 2017 exhibition, Specimens, which highlighted the Burr Oak case as an example of how museum specimens are used. This panel contains a photograph of an FBI worker at the scene and the text "People lie, but moss does not." Credit: Field Museum.