Prof Patricia Wiltshire discusses her career on Desert Island Discs

A forensic scientist involved in investigating some of Britain’s most notorious murders has told how the unsolved murder of a mother-of-three 22 years ago affected her.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that the death of “poor” Michelle Bettles in 2002 was one of the crimes that stayed with her.

Her body was found in Scarning, near Dereham, Norfolk, on Easter Sunday 2002. She had been strangled.

“When you think of the misery and suffering of that girl,” Professor Wiltshire told host Lauren Laverne.

Prof. Wiltshire is a forensic ecologist and botanist and an expert in palynology – the study of pollen.

She helped police solve cases including the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both 10, in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 2002, and Sarah Payne, eight, near Worthing, West Sussex. in 2000.

Sarah, from Hersham, Surrey, went missing while playing near her grandparents’ home.

Ian Huntley was convicted of the murders of Holly and Jessica.

Roy Whiting was convicted of Sarah’s murder.

Speaking about the case of Mrs Bettles, a sex worker who was last seen in Norwich on the night of March 28, 2002, Professor Wiltshire said: “Poor Michelle has affected me.

“He had a drug habit. He was supporting a pimp. Those kids he didn’t want to give up.”

Professor Wiltshire said Ms Bettles’ body was found in “very beautiful woodland”.

But she said there was an “incredible” forensic profile for the “other site” – a site that “involved a pond and a large honeysuckle”.

She said police found a site with a “big pond” and a “huge honeysuckle” several kilometers away.

Professor Wiltshire said the pond had been dredged.

She added: “I think they (the killer) must have left her on the dredgers and then they took her and dumped her.”

No one has been convicted of Ms Bettles’ murder.

Police began a forensic analysis of the case in March 2022 – the 20th anniversary of her death.

Detectives said they collected a “full male DNA profile” from her clothes.

Officers said the inquest used advances in forensic technology “not possible” in 2002 to re-examine DNA found on Ms Bettles’ clothes.

Professor Wiltshire told Desert Island Discs: “If we had the right artefacts, the right shoes, the right car, I could have put it in there, maybe.”

Professor Wiltshire, who detailed her involvement in a number of investigations in a book, The Natural History of Crime, earlier this year, also discussed her work on the Soham case.

She said the police asked her to find the path the killer had taken to the ditch where Holly and Jessica’s bodies were discovered.

Professor Wiltshire said through experiments and observations in her garden, she estimated that the nettles near the ditch had been trampled just under two weeks earlier – which matched the day the girls disappeared.