The furious murderer strangled her by the throat and perhaps shook and struck her head at the same time. She struggled with all her might, but the disparity in strength, the lack of oxygen intensified, and death came soon.
To determine further whether it was mechanical asphyxia, the possibility of poisoning had to be considered.
The silvery tip continued to descend, leaving less than fifty grams of food residue in the stomach and duodenum. I scooped into a small, white, round box bit by bit with a spoon for inspection.
The murderer should have stopped his actions when he noticed that she was not moving. What should be done with such a corpse standing in front of him?
If you run away directly, the body will soon be discovered and can be found by following the information of the residence. No. But there are people and surveillance cameras everywhere outside. Dragging such a large person out is too conspicuous and won't do.
The sound of a car speeding past outside the window, the sound of a neighbor watching TV, the sound of people opening and closing the corridor, even a cough, a sneeze, the slightest sound could make the nervous murderer shudder.
A 24-inch suitcase can't fit a whole person. The murderer probably thought of dismembering at this point.
He hunched over, dragged the body to the kitchen or bathroom, and picked up the most handy kitchen knife, or perhaps the only one. He slashed fiercely.
Typical unprepared dismemberment. Did someone close to you commit the crime?
The murderer soon discovered that dismemberment was not an easy task either. Because the wounds on the limbs and neck of the female corpse were full of knife marks, and none of them fell on the joints, the incisions were shallow, and in some places they were not chopped directly but broken violently.
He was so tired that he slowed down his movements to cut the skin and muscles, and the tangled tissues disturbed him. At the last point, he broke the bones with brute force.
The thighs should have been cut off first, but the upper body still couldn't fit into the suitcase. He cut off her hands and randomly cut up the sleeves that couldn't be taken off.
In the end, the torso was stuffed into the suitcase, the remaining limbs and head were placed in one or more bags, and the fragments of the clothes were casually thrown into the suitcase.
The murderer pulled the suitcase containing the body out of the cramped rental room in the latter half of the night. Frightened all the way, he finally breathed a sigh of relief when he watched the suitcase disappear under the water.
The corpse had been soaked in water for several days, and most of the biological evidence had been completely destroyed by the current.
I took out the uterus from the pelvic cavity of the headless female corpse and used a cotton swab to extract a swab. The river water couldn't wash into the uterus, and if there were any sperm that reached the uterus, they would remain there.
I put all the organs back in place and began suturing.
She seemed to have told me everything she could.
On my way back to the police station after the bridge trolley test, I received the DNA test results of the female corpse. The last few uterine swabs I collected came in handy.
A male type was detected and matched with the female deceased's type in a single-parent genetic relationship - in layman's terms, there was a forming fetus in the womb of the deceased girl!
One body, two lives.
Who is the father of the fetus? Could the girl be killed because of the fetus?
Even more strangely, the pregnant girl has been missing for more than half a month and no boyfriend or relatives have reported it.
"Do you think it's possible that the deceased had no family or friends except for knowing the murderer?" Looking at the hurried faces, I couldn't help muttering to my colleagues.
"Who knows? Maybe no one cares about her." The colleague looked helpless.
Sometimes I imagine this girl's face. If it weren't for this, she would be running through the evening rush hour just like these pedestrians.
The girl's death and dismemberment were so quiet that it was somewhat terrifying. The police DNA database did not match the identity of the deceased, nor was there any clue about the father of the fetus. Neither of them had a criminal record.
A glimmer of hope for solving the case was fleeting. The girl on the dissection table is waiting, and I am waiting.
Sorry, I'm just a forensic doctor.
When I was in college, not many people knew about this major. Of the 29 students in the class, including me, 28 were transferred. Before entering the profession, I thought it was a meaningful thing that forensic experts could see through the appearance of death and reveal the truth about the deceased. But after more than a decade, less than a third of my classmates are still on the job, and I myself have sorted out fifty unsolved murder cases.
Among them, there are cases where physical evidence is complete but no one can be caught, and there are cases where the identity of the murderer is known but no one can be found.
The longer you work, the more serious cases you have.
Each one is a mental hurdle.
Only by getting over these hurdles can one take on new cases. But once you get over it, you'll feel guilty. Who can give an account to those who have died? Especially this kind of girl who is unknown and cared about?
Sometimes solving a case is just a matter of an opportunity, but I have no idea whether it will come tomorrow or never.
This is the destiny of this profession.
This winter is halfway through.
On the last day of the New Year, the police force organized a simple New Year's Eve dinner.
Not only has the case of the headless female corpse not been solved, but a second case has emerged not long ago, just as headless and as no relatives have reported it. But the second case is a completely different modus operandi from the previous one and should not be the same murderer.
I know there's more pressure on the investigation side. Several guys have been working overtime for a month in a row, leaving early and returning late every day. Everyone knew that the dismemberment case needed to find the source of the body, but both cases got stuck at this point: no family members reported the disappearance, and no factory reported the disappearance of an employee.
Tomorrow is the New Year. Could it be that the families of the two girls didn't find out and disappeared?
The bone-chilling cold air hit the window glass, creating a layer of white vapor. Inside the room, there was a commotion of voices, and everyone raised their glasses one after another.
The captain toasted from table to table. When it was my turn, I picked up the coke.
"Hey, you're on duty again today?" The captain was a little surprised.
"I still have work to do when I get back." I gulped it down.
"Let's talk about it after the New Year." The captain looked up and the cup was empty.
Under the pretext of being on duty, I slipped back to the office.
The computer was still on, with pictures of the dismemberment scene and the headless female corpse still on the screen.
I can't count how many times I've opened these pictures. With my eyes closed, I can even clearly restore the size, depth and direction of each wound.
I created a new folder and put all the files related to the girl's dismemberment case in it.
"Unsolved cases" - I renamed the folder. There's one more unsolved case.
Over the course of my 16 years of work, I've come across families of the deceased who don't want to shake hands with me, and acquaintances who don't want to eat with me at the same table.
Over the past 16 years, I've been in all kinds of bloody scenes where I couldn't get my feet down, so I paved a path with my footboard.
Over the past 16 years, I have also encountered many floating corpses where the skin has turned pale and fallen off. I put on the skin of his fingers and fingerprinted him as if wearing gloves.
Also for 16 years, at the scene of highly decomposed corpses I had to stomp my feet constantly to drive away the annoying maggots. And I had to be careful that they got into my trouser legs.
We are the forensic experts, only facing silent corpses, desperately talking, desperately cracking the codes they left behind.
The moment I turned off the computer, I seemed to see a girl slowly sinking to the bottom of the water.
But every night when I couldn't sleep, I would open this headless female corpse case folder, browse through it and close it - this habit, I can't change.
The case sank, but my heart kept floating there.