1.
Time of Incident: October 2012
Case Summary: An old man herding cattle discovered a nameless skeleton in the woods by the river.
Deceased: ?
Body Examination Analysis:
The upper body is completely skeletal, with some shriveled muscle and skin remaining on the feet and lower legs.
The skull shows no injuries, and there are no fractures in the pelvis or limbs, which basically rules out the possibility of a traffic accident followed by body disposal. The nails are short and clean, the soles of the feet are not completely decomposed, and there are no calluses, indicating the person was not a vagrant. The cervical vertebrae show three parallel cut marks, suggesting a knife attack?
A normal adult has a total of 206 bones in their body, which may not look like much when piled together and isn't heavy to carry, but if laid out flat, they wouldn't fit on a dissection table measuring 2.45 meters long and 1.1 meters wide.
This is a new discovery brought to me by a skeleton.
The afternoon before, an old man herding cattle found this skeleton in a small grove by the river. When we arrived at the riverbank road, a police officer and an auxiliary officer who had received the report were sitting in their car by the roadside, enjoying the air conditioning.
"You guys should hurry up and move the body; it's too hot in this weather."
The location where the bones were found is about 50 meters from the riverbank road. The police officer led us into the grove, and after navigating several turns along a bumpy path, we finally reached the scene.
At that time, the skeleton was just "lying" there, the T-shirt on the upper body was completely unrecognizable, and there was nothing to prove the identity of the deceased.
Another "unknown person."
This type of corpse is almost a "unique product" that runs through the entire summer in Guangdong. With temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius, in the remote woods by a small river, some people commit suicide, others die from drug overdoses, and of course, the most common are homeless individuals who die from illness.
These corpses often have no family, no onlookers, and no one inquires about them; on average, I receive three or four each month. After handling so many, everyone has become desensitized.
The colleague taking photos seems to think these bones aren't worth much effort, saying to me, "Just arrange them casually and take a few pictures, right?"
I glanced at my phone; it was already time to get off work. My white shirt was completely soaked, and I regretted sending my police uniform to the laundry at noon. It had been stinking from a floating corpse I had seen that morning, so I had no choice but to wear my own clothes to the scene. I planned to hurry back and toss my shirt in the washing machine with extra disinfectant.
That thought occupied my mind.
"Quick and decisive."
Hearing my urging, the colleague taking photos stuffed the evidence number tags back into the bag and we hurriedly gathered the scattered bones.
Back in the autopsy room, I unzipped the black body bag. Large pieces, small pieces, and long strips of bones were jumbled together, resembling a disassembled toy set.
The autopsy table couldn't accommodate this pile of bones, so I spread a white sheet on the floor and began to "assemble the puzzle."
First was the skull; I carefully lifted it out of the body bag with both hands. It was an extremely beautiful skull: hairless, complete, and clean, giving me a fleeting illusion of holding a skeletal specimen rather than performing an autopsy.
First, there is the pelvis, followed by the limbs, vertebrae, and ribs. His upper body has completely turned to bone, with only a few shriveled muscles and skin remaining on his feet and calves, reminiscent of the skeletal remains of cattle and sheep hanging at a butcher's stall. A "human bone puzzle" is gradually unfolding before my eyes, yet I know nothing about him.
A skeleton is the most secretive type of corpse, and it is also the most difficult for forensic experts to identify. Because the body has mostly decomposed, there is very little valuable information left for the forensic pathologist. The more complete the puzzle, the more confused I become. The skull is uninjured, and the pelvis and limbs show no fractures, which basically rules out the possibility of a traffic accident followed by the body being dumped here.
I picked up the nails that had fallen off due to decomposition and looked at the soles of the corpse's feet. The nails are very short and clean, and the soles have not completely decomposed, nor are there any calluses formed from long-term barefoot walking. The deceased was likely not a homeless person.
Was he a suicide victim or a drug user? I desperately tried to recall the scene from yesterday; had I overlooked something? The sky was gradually darkening at that time, and I took one last look at the indentation left where the body had been removed, which was filled with layers of gray-brown pupal shells.
What was wrong? Just as I was trying to remember what had gone wrong yesterday, a stain on the cervical vertebrae of the skeleton on the autopsy table caught my eye. The scene from yesterday and the skeleton on the autopsy table began to overlap in my mind.
Wait! There were no needles, no ropes, no cutting tools. There were neither drug paraphernalia nor suicide tools at the scene! How did this person die?
I picked up the bone and suddenly stood up. Perhaps I had been squatting for too long, and for a moment, my vision went dark. After a brief pause, I walked to the sink and carefully washed the stain off the bone.
The water continuously flowed over it, and the stain gradually faded, revealing three parallel cut marks! My heart raced for a moment, but I couldn't be sure.
The lighting in the autopsy room was dim, so I quickly walked outside, holding the bone up to the sun. In the sunlight, the cut marks on the bone became clearly visible.
Someone had viciously slashed the victim's neck with a knife; this was a homicide!
What I feared most was a scene that had not initially been identified as a homicide. Because I didn't even know when or where I might have inadvertently compromised the scene.
I began to feel frustrated. Who was the victim? And who had been so ruthless?
The nature of the case changed dramatically because of these three inconspicuous cut marks, and we had already wasted a lot of time.
In the autopsy room, everyone looked grim. The approach and methods for investigating a murder case are worlds apart from those for a simple sudden death case. I had to return to the scene to find out who the remains belonged to and to locate the murderer.
When I arrived at the scene for the second time, my mood was far from as relaxed as it had been the day before.
The perimeter of the forest has been cordoned off with police tape, and six or seven police cars are parked by the riverbank. Last time, there were only three technical personnel, including myself; this time, we dispatched two teams with six people.
I greeted the external investigation brothers who are specifically responsible for homicide investigations from a distance and walked towards the original location of the body.
The path leading deeper into the woods is still difficult to navigate. The scorching sun, combined with the heightened tension, left me drenched in sweat once again.
Given the remote location, it can be basically confirmed that this is not a case of body dumping, as the distance from the road to the riverbank is shorter than to the woods. Carrying a body such a long distance would be physically challenging, and moving the body into the woods is less discreet than simply tossing it into the river, which would be harder to detect.
In the center of the scene, the shallow mud pit is what remains after the body was removed. The pit has long been soaked with decaying fluids, and with a small pile of trash nearby, a strange mix of putrid odors lingers in the hot air around us.
I sifted through layers of garbage, numbering and photographing the pile of "rubbish" that may or may not be useful, from number 1 to 30, not even sparing the surrounding trees. I ran out of evidence number tags, so I simply wrote the numbers on sticky notes to temporarily serve as tags.
Wang Mas approached me wearing a mask. He immediately pressed me for information: "How long has the person been dead?"
I used long-handled tongs to confirm once again that there was nothing else at the original location of the body, then removed one layer of gloves, leaving only the innermost layer. I picked up a fly pupa shell from the mud pit and gently rolled it between my fingertips.
The gray-brown pupal shell had completely dried out and turned to powder without any effort. Considering the time and weather, it can be roughly estimated that the body had been in this small grove for over two months.
When I was in school, I always found it fascinating how teachers inferred the time of death, but after becoming a forensic doctor, I realized it was just a "century-old mystery" with no one able to provide an accurate answer.
I dropped the pupal shell in my hand and gave Wang Mas a conservative answer: "The time of death is over two months, but not more than a year."
Wang Mas immediately protested, shouting, "How can we check that? The time span is too large!" He squatted down next to me and gently nudged me with his shoulder, as if he was sure I had bolder "private suggestions" than what was in the textbooks.
I felt quite helpless about the weather in Guangdong, as if the heavens were adding extra difficulty to my work. Even if the sun only shines for two days in winter, the temperature can soar to twenty-six or twenty-seven degrees Celsius, so it's not unusual to see people wearing T-shirts in winter here.
"Let's first check after April this year; it was still quite cold at the beginning of the year, so T-shirts shouldn't have been worn."
This narrowed the time frame by half, and Wang Mas left satisfied, leaving me to worry about several boxes of evidence marked with numbers and emitting a foul odor.
After returning from the scene for the second time, I began to carefully clean the T-shirt found on the skeleton. The T-shirt had already started to decay and become brittle, so I dared not scrub it too hard or twist it forcefully; I could only rinse it under running water.
Since graduating from university, I haven't really hand-washed clothes much. I carefully scrubbed this "corpse shirt" twice, but the T-shirt remained a dark mass. I pulled it up, turned it inside out, and found some pupal shells inside, along with more indistinguishable decayed tissue.
Among the several boxes of trash salvaged from the scene, this was my most "treasured" item. Although the shirt had been soaked in decaying flesh and had turned into a dark lump due to wind and rain, the two large uppercase letters faintly visible on the front made me unable to contain my excitement. With clear markings, the shirt was highly recognizable; perhaps the family could identify it!
I took out a plastic sheet and laid the T-shirt flat on it, carefully removing the pupal shells one by one. Then, I gently scraped off the unidentified tissue attached to it with a blade, and applied laundry detergent bit by bit to the areas with obvious stains, treating one spot at a time.
Finally, the water soaking the T-shirt was no longer murky. I took off my gloves and sent a photo of my one-and-a-half-hour labor to Wang Mas. The gray T-shirt was spread out, and the two large letters were clearly visible in the center—"FE."
The first collaborative investigation notice for the unidentified skeletal remains was finally sent out, and we were all waiting for someone who could recognize this T-shirt. Wang Mas checked nearly a year's worth of missing person reports in the jurisdiction, but the three or four families that came to identify the body did not match. The search for the source of the remains expanded from the local jurisdiction to neighboring cities.
The advantage of a skeletonized body is that the pubic symphysis is particularly easy to work with, and this process can help me accurately determine the age of the deceased. However, the downside is also quite obvious—facing a pile of bones, even a mother would find it difficult to recognize the deceased.
A week later, no one had come to claim the remains. I anticipated that this case would become a tough nut to crack; after all, the longer the time since death, the fewer physical evidence and clues left at the scene.
Aside from the current methods, the only option left is "facial reconstruction." This is a technique that uses the shape of the skull, combined with the thickness of the remaining body fat, to recreate the deceased's appearance. However, because it is difficult to accurately restore facial features and hairstyles, the deviation can be quite large, and I really didn't want to resort to this method.
The T-shirt that I had cleaned to the limit was still there, and the messy rips and wrinkles on the shirt made me increasingly irritated the more I looked at it. At this moment, the T-shirt was the most likely item to confirm the identity of the skeleton, and I suddenly came up with an idea for a "groundbreaking" attempt.
The next day, when I carried a male plastic mannequin through the entrance of the police station, all my colleagues looked at me in surprise. The security guard came over with a smile and stopped me, asking, "Is your sister-in-law planning to open a clothing store?" I shook my head.
None of the young guys in the police team had ever handled such a thing, and everyone was excited. Those without work rushed to the rooftop to help, and together we assembled the "person" with great enthusiasm. I carefully put the deceased's T-shirt on the plastic mannequin. Everyone gathered around the mannequin, circling it to take a look, all finding it novel. The photos turned out surprisingly well.
With the photos taken, the next step was to edit them. The tear on the T-shirt and the heavily stained color blocks needed to be fixed. I had dabbled in photography before, so this time I searched for photo editing tutorials online while slowly working on it myself. That night, I spent two hours and finally finished editing the newly taken T-shirt photos and sent them to Wang Mas.
Wang Mas immediately issued a second notice for collaboration. After taking the photos, I stored the plastic mannequin in the temporary evidence storage room on the fifth floor. In my opinion, that room was the most suitable in the entire building; it was spacious and rarely visited.
I placed it in the corner of the room, thinking it wouldn't be in the way. Unexpectedly, during the first two days that the plastic mannequin "moved in," more than one colleague was startled and screamed when they encountered this "person" standing in the corner while going to the evidence room at night.
These people usually acted fearless, relishing stories about gruesome crime scenes and midnight graveyards, yet a plastic mannequin revealed their true colors. I told Wang Mas about this, and he said he wanted to check out the evidence room at night, but he never brought it up again afterward.
As November rolled in, one morning, Wang Mas received a call from a strange woman: "I recognize that piece of clothing!" The plastic mannequin finally showed its significance a month after the case was reported. Wang Mas met the woman at the police station. She was around 30 years old, crying sadly on a bench, one hand clutching her glasses and the other holding a tissue to wipe her tears.
She said that the shirt mentioned in the report was a birthday gift she personally bought for her brother Lin Yu. One day in early July, Lin Yu wore this T-shirt and went out riding his motorcycle, but he never came back.
At first, she wasn't particularly worried because her brother had a gambling problem, and it was common for him to be gone for three or four days when he was gambling. But a week passed, and he still hadn't returned. When she tried to call him, the phone was always unreachable, and she and her family began to feel anxious, so they started asking around.
It wasn't until Wang Mas posted the missing person notice on the street where she lived that she realized her brother might have been murdered.
The woman also provided a clue: a gambling friend of Lin Yu's said that Lin Yu had borrowed 3,000 yuan the day before he went missing.
Details about Lin Yu's murder gradually began to emerge. Wang Mas felt that he should really go to the evidence room to take a look at the plastic mannequin standing in the corner, which, although a bit scary, had played a significant role in the case.
That night, the DNA comparison confirmed that the deceased was indeed Lin Yu. By this time, it had been over four months since he went missing, and we could finally give a name to this skeleton.
Wang Mas immediately retrieved Lin Yu's phone records from before he went missing, and the last number caught his attention. That call was from Lin Yu's classmate and fellow townsman, Wu Yong.
Wu Yong was a young man with small eyes and thick lips, looking honest and straightforward. He had been to the Lin family for dinner, and the family knew this fellow townsman. According to Lin Yu's sister, Wu Yong didn't talk much and always followed Lin Yu's lead, almost like a sidekick to her brother.
Lin Yu's father asked Wu Yong about Lin Yu's whereabouts twice after his son went missing, but Wu Yong claimed he didn't know. However, the call records show that they spoke on the phone on the day Lin Yu disappeared, and he was the last person to talk to Lin Yu, yet he never mentioned this to Lin Yu's family.
But just relying on a call record isn't enough to alarm the other party.
We immediately sought out road surveillance footage. However, the retention period for the footage is only three months, and there are no cameras on the road by the riverbank; the nearest camera is several kilometers away.
From a forensic perspective, too much time has passed, and the scene is complex. Even if there are any physical evidence left behind, the chances of discovering and extracting it are slim. If the murderer still has the clothes and shoes worn during the crime, there might be a way to find evidence, provided he honestly admits which clothes he was wearing at the time of the crime.
Four months is enough time for him to concoct a complete set of explanations that fit his logic, but whether there are any loopholes in his story, we can verify.
I had a lot of ideas and thought of a risky method: a lie detector test. This felt like a gamble with the suspect.
That day, Wang Mas brought Wu Yong to the police station under the pretext of questioning a witness. He was just about to pack his bags to return to his hometown.
In the office, Wang Mas routinely asked Wu Yong if he knew anything about Lin Yu's death, to which Wu Yong relaxedly replied, "I don't know."
When Wang Mas asked if he had called Lin Yu on the day he went missing, Wu Yong's gaze began to wander. Clearly, he was unaware of the investigative methods and had not considered this detail at all.
When Wu Yong saw the machine on the table that looked strikingly like an electrocardiogram machine, he began to feel a bit nervous, and his fingers started to fidget unconsciously. I had him sit in the chair next to the polygraph and then told him that we were going to conduct a lie detector test. His previously downcast gaze instinctively lifted.
When the polygraph was first introduced in the country, frontline investigators thought it was incredibly effective, until the "Du Peiwu murder case" was determined to be a wrongful conviction, after which no one regarded the results of lie detector tests as evidence anymore. This time, we planned to use the polygraph for a different purpose.
We didn't start the lie detection immediately; instead, we deliberately delayed. A long wait would make the person being questioned increasingly anxious, thus revealing inconsistencies.
I applied alcohol to Wu Yong's hands and attached the electrodes, clearly sensing that his hands had become stiff. I took out a prepared deck of playing cards and unexpectedly handed him an Ace of Spades, which he accepted with surprise.
"Excuse me, is what I gave you the Ace of Spades? You only need to answer yes or no."
"Yes." Wu Yong replied, confused.
I then handed him a Three of Diamonds.
The purpose of these preset questions was to test his level of cooperation and to make him believe that we could determine whether he was lying through this machine.
"Excuse me, is what I gave you the Ace of Diamonds? Please say that you received the Ace of Diamonds."
"I received the Ace of Diamonds."
The curve on the instrument showed a slight change, which was triggered by Wu Yong's biological instinct after lying and was temporarily uncontrollable.
Making him 'believe' is just the first step, whether it can be achieved or not, the next step is the highlight.
Wang Mas and I skipped the first key question "Did you kill someone?" and instead directly threw the following two related questions - "Did you throw the knife near the scene after killing someone?" "Did you bring the clothes you wore when killing someone back home"
Wu Yong seemed to have been hit by an arrow in the crack of his armor in an instant. He was almost unprepared for these two questions and looked up with a bewildered expression, saying, "I don't know what you're asking, I don't want to answer this question"
Whether you answer or not, we can know the result, and silence means yes
The second step of lie detection is to make him "panic".
Wu Yong began a series of denials, and the curve on the instrument fluctuated violently up and down.
The lie detector has clearly detected that you are lying, and denying it is meaningless"
Wu Yong's psychological defense line completely collapsed. Quickly, in front of the camera we had prepared, he admitted to killing Lin Yu: 'I killed the person, and Wu Bing helped me.'"
According to the clues provided by Wu Yong, Wang Mas captured the Wu soldiers that day.
Both of them confessed, and the process went exceptionally smoothly.
What surprised me was that at this moment, the case and I were pushed to the edge of a cliff, on the verge of collapse. Because there is no physical evidence.
The most crucial physical evidence in the case is the weapon used to cut the neck, as well as the clothes worn by the Wu brothers at the time of the incident. If I can find Lin Yu's bloodstains on these things, I can connect the complete chain of evidence and the murderer will receive the punishment they deserve.
But now I don't have any of these, it's really a case of 'no match for death'!