Two years ago, entomologist Richard Merritt from Michigan State University pulled an all-nighter in a Toronto hotel room to prepare for seven hours of testimony about a court case so controversial it precipitated the abolition of Canada's death penalty. As part of his testimony, Merritt had to review the size, age, and species of a handful of maggots photographed and described from a crime scene 47 years earlier; his conclusions could redeem the reputation of a man who has contested the guilty verdict ever since. "I've testified in about 25 trials," says Merritt, "and this was the most intense."
Last year, Merritt's testimony helped overturn the guilty verdict for Stephen Truscott, convicted in September 1959, at age 14, of murdering his 12-year old classmate, Lynne Harper, and sentenced to hang.
Truscott was a popular boy in Clinton, Ontario, and, by all counts, Harper was fond of him: She was last ...
