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In March 2021, the body of 28-year-old Mengqi Ji was discovered by a hiker. She was buried under a juniper tree at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park in Missouri. And it was not the killer's but the tree’s DNA that would ultimately solve her murder.

This seems to be the only known case where the DNA of a tree led to a murder conviction.

The husband was immediately suspected

Mengqi Ji Elledge was reported missing on October 10, 2019, by her husband Joseph Elledge. He called the local police station in Columbia, Missouri. He claimed he believed his wife had left him. And she only took her purse when she ran away.

Authorities were soon concerned that she had left behind her passport, cell phone, house keys, and her car. And abandoned her beloved 1-year-old daughter.

Investigators never found any credit card activity, uber rides, or other evidence that the woman ran away. From the start, they believed her husband may have been responsible.

Her mother, Ke Ren, already knew that something had gone very wrong. Mengqi Ji called her mother in China every day. And on October 9 she did not receive a phone call from her daughter. 

Elledge was first arrested for child abuse

Mengqi Ji had also been documenting her husband’s verbal abuse and recent physical abuse of their 1-year-old daughter. She shared hours of tapes with a close friend and sent photos of bruises on her child to her mother, as well.

Within weeks, long before a body was found, Elledge was named as the sole suspect in her disappearance.

Dan Knight the District Attorney for Boone County got involved in the investigation early on. The missing person case always looked like foul play to the police.

Joe Elledge was arrested 16 days after his wife vanished. And was charged with child abuse of his daughter. The photographs that Mengqi Ji took of bruises on the child seemed to be clear evidence of abuse.

At the time of Elledge's child abuse arrest, officers searched his apartment. And collected muddy boots from the apartment.

Juniper tree needles evidence

 The boots would later prove to be vital evidence in the case.

After the body was found Knight started researching cases that had used soil evidence to place people at the scene of a crime. The boots also had juniper tree needles stuck in the mud.

Geneticist Christine Edwards of the Missouri Botanical Garden worked with Knight and coworker, Alex Linan to do the DNA testing of the juniper tree needles.

"Plants have DNA just like people?" 48 hours asked Edwards. 

"Absolutely," she answered, "Every living organism in the planet has DNA."

Linan, climbed several juniper trees surrounding Meng Ji's grave. He meticulously numbered each tree and took samples. "This involved a ladder and a 10, 15-foot-long pole pruner so that we could make sure that the needles that we were getting came from the exact tree."

Edwards compared the juniper needles to those found on the muddy boots. And it was a match. 

The tree DNA proved that the woman was buried by her husband while he wore the boots.

Trial notes

When confronted with the unique DNA evidence Elledge confessed to burying his wife and misleading authorities about her disappearance. And claimed that it was an accident. She had both right and left broken ribs and a fatal head injury.  

In December 2022 a jury found Elledge guilty of second-degree murder. And he was acquitted of murder in the first-degree murder charge which carried the death penalty.

He was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

A custody battle continues between Elledge's parents and Meng Ji’s mother and dad.

Her remains are still in the U.S. and will be returned to China when Knight releases them.

There is also a separate case dealing with Ji's finances. She had a bank account with a “significant” sum of money at the time of her death. 

About Mengqi Ji

Ji was born in Xi'an, China in 1991. She earned her bachelor's degree in engineering from the China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai. And achieved her master’s degree in engineering in the United States at the University of Missouri.

She met her husband when she was working as his supervisor. And they married in 2017.