Forensic linguistics, legal linguistics, or language and the law, is the application of linguistic knowledge, methods, and insights to the forensic context of law, language, crime investigation, trial, and judicial procedure. It is a branch of applied linguistics.
Sarah Evelyn Isobel Payne was the victim of a high-profile abduction and murder in West Sussex, England in July 2000.
Alison May Campbell Parrott was an 11-year-old girl who was lured out of her home by a male phone caller in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her remains were found two days later in a densely wooded area of Kings Mill Park.
The murder of Jodi Jones is a Scottish murder case from June 2003 in which a 14-year-old schoolgirl was murdered in woodland in Dalkeith, Scotland by her 14-year-old boyfriend Luke Mitchell. She was found murdered with a knife behind a wall on a path where she would invariably meet her boyfriend, having set out to meet him that afternoon.
Danielle van Dam was an American girl from the Sabre Springs neighborhood of San Diego, California, who disappeared from her bedroom during the night of February 1–2, 2002. Her body was found by searchers on February 27 in a remote area. Police suspected a neighbor, David Alan Westerfield, of the killing. He was arrested, tried, and convicted of kidnapping and first-degree murder. Westerfield was sentenced to death and is currently incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.
On 21 April 2001, Hannah Williams, a 14-year-old English schoolgirl was murdered after going missing during a shopping trip in Dartford, Kent. Williams's body was discovered on 15 March 2002 at a cement works in an industrial area of Northfleet.
On 21 March 2002, Amanda Jane "Milly" Dowler, a 13-year-old English schoolgirl, was reported missing by her parents after failing to return home from school and not being seen since walking along Station Avenue in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, that afternoon. Following an extensive search, her remains were discovered in Yateley Heath Woods in Yateley, Hampshire, on 18 September.
It is possible to convict someone of murder without the purported victim's body in evidence. However, cases of this type have historically been hard to prove, often forcing the prosecution to rely on circumstantial evidence, and in England there was for centuries a mistaken view that in the absence of a body a killer could not be tried for murder. Developments in forensic science in recent decades have made it more likely that a murder conviction can be obtained even if a body has not been found.
Colette Aram was a 16-year-old British trainee hairdresser who was abducted, raped and strangled as she walked from her home to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, on 30 October 1983. The murder was the first case to be featured on the BBC television series Crimewatch when it began in June 1984. However, despite receiving over 400 calls as a result of the programme, Nottinghamshire Police were unable to catch the killer, and it was not until 2008 and following advances in forensic technology that police were able to develop a DNA profile of the suspect. Paul Stewart Hutchinson was finally charged with the murder in April 2009. He initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea to guilty on 21 December 2009 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 2010. Following his sentencing, Crimewatch ran a recap of the murder and investigation on BBC TV on 27 January 2010 exposing several inaccuracies reported in the press about his background, notably a lie about being a psychology graduate.
Robert Black was a Scottish serial killer and paedophile who was convicted of the kidnap, rape and murder of four girls aged between 5 and 11 in a series of crimes committed between 1981 and 1986 in the United Kingdom.
The Soham murders were a double child murder committed in Soham, Cambridgeshire, England on 4 August 2002. The victims were two 10-year-old girls, Holly Marie Wells and Jessica Amiee Chapman, who were lured into the home of a local resident and school caretaker, Ian Kevin Huntley, who subsequently murdered the children—likely via asphyxiation—before disposing of their bodies in an irrigation ditch close to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. The girls' bodies were discovered on 17 August 2002.
Peter Britton Tobin was a Scottish convicted serial killer and sex offender who served a whole life order at HM Prison Edinburgh for three murders committed between 1991 and 2006. Police also investigated Tobin over the deaths and disappearances of other young women and girls.
The murder of Leanne Tiernan was a high-profile English child murder involving a 16-year-old schoolgirl who was abducted less than one mile from her home on 26 November 2000 while returning from a Christmas shopping trip in Leeds, West Yorkshire, and subsequently murdered. The missing person inquiry which followed was one of the largest in the history of West Yorkshire Police, involving the search of around 1,750 buildings, underwater searches of thirty-two drainage wells, the draining of a two-mile section of a canal and the halting of household waste collections.
Morgan Dana Harrington was a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student who disappeared from the John Paul Jones Arena while attending a Metallica concert at the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Sian Emma O'Callaghan was a 22-year-old British woman who disappeared from Swindon, Wiltshire, England, having last been seen at a nightclub in the town in the early hours of 19 March 2011. Her body was found on 24 March near Uffington in Oxfordshire. On 19 October 2012, at Bristol Crown Court, Christopher Halliwell, 48, of Nythe, Swindon pleaded guilty to O'Callaghan's murder.
The murder of Tia Sharp was a high-profile case of child murder in the United Kingdom. The victim was a 12-year-old girl, Tia Sharp, who was reported missing from and later found dead in the home of her grandmother in New Addington, London, in August 2012. After her body was discovered, police arrested her grandmother, Christine Bicknell, and Bicknell's then-boyfriend, Stuart Hazell, on suspicion of murder. Hazell was charged with Tia Sharp's murder on 12 August.
April Sue-Lyn Jones was a Welsh child from Machynlleth, Powys, who disappeared on 1 October 2012, after being sighted getting into a vehicle near her home. The disappearance of April Jones, aged five, generated a large amount of national and international press coverage. Mark Bridger was subsequently convicted of murder.
Rebecca Marie Watts was a British student from Bristol who was murdered in 2015 at the age of 16. In November 2015, her step-brother, Nathan Matthews, was found guilty of her murder and was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 33 years. His girlfriend, Shauna Hoare, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 17 years in prison, although Hoare had insisted to police that she had nothing to do with the killing, or dismembering Watts' body and hiding the parts. Both Matthews and Hoare were also convicted of conspiracy to kidnap, preventing the lawful burial of a body, perverting the course of justice and possession of two stun guns.
Jenny Nicholl was a woman who disappeared sometime on or after 30 June 2005 from the Richmond area, North Yorkshire, England. In February 2008, David Hodgson was convicted of her murder despite the lack of a body, crime scene or body deposition site. Hodgson was jailed for life, with a recommendation that he serve at least 18 years, after being convicted on DNA and fake text messaging evidence which involved his travelling many miles so as to appear that Nicholl was still alive and camping some distance away from her home town.
On 2 July 2018, six-year-old Scottish girl Alesha Sarah MacPhail was abducted from her bed and murdered by 16-year-old Aaron Campbell. Alesha, from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, was three days into a stay with her grandparents on the Isle of Bute when Campbell entered their unlocked home at approximately 02:00 AM. The teenager had previously bought cannabis from Alesha's father Robert, who lived in the house, and initially went to steal the drug. Upon finding the child asleep, Campbell picked her up, carried her to the grounds of a demolished hotel, then raped and killed her by applying pressure to her face and neck. Alesha was reported missing at 06:23 GMT; her body was discovered by a member of the public at 08:54 GMT.
