Leeches. I’ve been bitten by a few of them. They’ve never frightened me. Their bites don’t hurt; and a bit of spilt blood’s of no consequence. No leech has ever helped me; but they’ve been used in medicine for over 2,500 years when they were first used in ancient Egypt for bloodletting ‘to balance the humours’. In the 1980s leeches made a comeback for several medical uses including relieving congestion after microsurgery and other plastic surgery, and sucking pus from infections. Now here’s a new use for a leech: a source of forensic evidence to convict a criminal. In Tasmania last week, 54-year-old Peter Alec Cannon pleaded guilty to an aggravated armed robbery in 2001. Police found a blood-filled leech at the crime scene. Then in 2008, after Cannon was arrested on drug charges, a DNA sample taken from him matched the DNA in the 2001 crime scene leech. Due to this incontrovertible evidence, Cannon pleaded guilty. He was given a gaol sentence of two years of which six months was suspended. He’ll be eligible for parole after serving nine months. It’s a wonderful story. But not for Cannon, I guess. After movies about animal crime detection, e.g. K-9, I wonder if a film will be made about a crime-solving leech. I doubt people would believe such a film was true. Truth is stranger than fiction. You’d better believe it.
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