On 8 October 2019, 23-year-old American Joe Elledge woke up to a strangely quiet flat on Eastwood Drive in Columbia, Missouri. His wife, 28-year-old Mengqi Ji, had gone to bed the night before – but in the morning was nowhere to be found. Mengqi Ji’s car was parked in the driveway, and the couple’s one-year-old daughter was asleep in her bed.
“Whatever happened, I just hope she is okay,” Joe Elledge told a local news station shortly after her disappearance.
A year and a half later, the terrible truth came out. Some 10km from their home, a body was found on the forest floor. It was Mengqi Ji.
Unfortunately, the body bore no clues to help identify the killer. But police and researchers found another crucial clue in the forest – a type of evidence that would have been ignored just a few years ago.
Such new skills emphasise how hard
