Police officer Chen Shu

Chapter 544 Autopsy (Part 1)

Upon arriving at the funeral home, Chen Shu and Xiao Ming lifted the body onto the autopsy table.

Despite his young age, Xiao Ming moved the corpse with remarkable efficiency, showing no trace of feigned disgust on his face.

He was a promising young man. Chen Shu, who was nearly thirty and had been a policeman for almost ten years, unconsciously began to think about how the older generation of public security officers were scrutinizing the new comrades.

Wearing disposable latex gloves, Chen Shu helped move the body out of the body bag and place it on the bed.

Then they began to remove the clothes and pants from the corpse.

Now that he was closer, the shocking visual impact and the pungent, sour smell, along with the sticky sensation on his fingers, made him admire Xiaoming's composure.

Julie hung her coat by the door, grabbed a white robe and put it on. Wearing latex gloves, she said, "The adipocere hasn't formed, and the body parts haven't decomposed much. The time of death should be within a month."

Xiao Ming carefully collected the clothes and pants that the corpse had taken off and put them in a transparent evidence bag. Then he took out a folder from under the bed, with a stack of A4 papers in the form of tables clipped to it.

He lowered his head and began to take notes: "Director, I thought that losing the head was just like having a big hole in the corpse for ventilation, and that it wouldn't create the phenomenon of gigantism!"

This was a matter of professional knowledge, and Chen Shu didn't quite understand it either, so he pricked up his ears and looked at Julie.

Julie put on a second layer of latex gloves and calmly said, "Let alone such a large corpse, even individual limbs, torso, and head can create a gigantic appearance. This is because these body parts can create certain cavities due to decomposition, and the gas trapped in these cavities can cause the body parts to swell. From the outside, this appears as a gigantic appearance."

Because the body was missing its head, many obvious data points had to be obtained through other means. For example, height, which could normally be obtained simply by using a measuring tape, now had to be estimated by measuring the arms, calves, and feet, and even then, the calculation wasn't always accurate.

The autopsy took more than an hour, during which Ren Guoqing, the captain of the Criminal Investigation Brigade, arrived with Li Meng, Wen Zhao, and other police officers from the Major Crimes Unit.

Generally speaking, the head of the business unit will not participate in the specific case handling work. However, homicide cases are special cases. Not to mention the captain, sometimes even the deputy director in charge will be present to oversee and direct the work.

When Ren Guoqing entered the room and saw Chen Shu there, he was taken aback at first. Then, after thinking about it, he realized that it was the weekend and Chen Shu and Zhu Li were both dressed casually, and he began to understand what was going on.

He then looked meaningfully at the two people who were busy working on the dissection table.

Li Meng is the deputy captain in charge of major cases in the criminal investigation team. When she saw the body laid out on the bed for autopsy, she naturally understood that the body must be involved in a murder case.

An autopsy requires the consent of the family members, unless it involves a murder.

Li Meng, who had intended to put on airs as the deputy captain, noticed that his classmate Chen Shu, who always undermined him, and Zhu Wuchang from the team were both present. So he restrained himself and obediently stood aside to wait for the autopsy results.

After the autopsy, Julie gave a preliminary conclusion: "Male, around sixty years old, 1.7 meters tall, estimated weight before death to be around 140 jin (approximately 70 kg). There were seven penetrating wounds from sharp objects near the left chest, three of which were stab wounds to the heart."

Noisy!
It really was a murder!
Ren Guoqing and Li Meng's expressions suddenly stiffened. Although they were prepared, they still felt a little uneasy when they heard the definite result.

Xiao Ming, who was in charge of recording, looked up and asked, "Director, is the cause of death simply written as cardiac arrest caused by a sharp object piercing the left chest? And the method of killing was to dump the body in the river after the murder?"

Since the head was nowhere to be found, the cause of death could not be determined. Chen Shu, the only non-criminal police officer present, immediately thought of the suspicious points, but did not say anything.

Julie remained noncommittal, her left hand resting lightly on the edge of the dissection table as she walked clockwise around to the headless cervical vertebrae of the male corpse. She leaned down and said, "There are obvious sharp instrument marks on the cervical vertebrae of the corpse, which should have been caused by chopping with a knife or axe."

"Murder and dismemberment?" Ren Guoqing couldn't help but take a few steps forward, following Zhu Li's gaze to carefully examine the unidentified male corpse lying on the autopsy table.

Chen Shu raised an eyebrow: "Ren Da, have you ever seen a dismemberment where only the head is removed? Compared to this head that's been lost somewhere, I think these wounds deserve our attention more."

"Oh?"

Ren Guoqing, a veteran criminal investigator with many years of experience, was not offended by Chen Shu's scathing criticism and focused his attention on the numerous wounds on the left chest of the corpse.

After a moment's thought, Ren Guoqing stroked his chin and said, "You mean that all these stab wounds are concentrated in the heart area, which means the murderer hated the victim very deeply, so he kept stabbing him?" Seeing that her classmates from other units were showing off in front of her boss, especially in this way, Li Meng felt extremely uncomfortable and snorted coldly, "Chen Shu, even a three-year-old in our brigade knows this kind of thing. You don't need to bring it up and waste everyone's time."

Chen Shu ignored the hostility in Li Meng's words, braced himself with his hands on the left side of the corpse's chest, and stared intently at the corpse's chest.

It gradually decreased.

Then it got closer and closer.

Until,

"Chen Chen, your nose is throbbing!"

Xiao Ming, who had been mostly silent since the brigade leader arrived, finally couldn't help but run outside and gag while leaning against the doorframe when he saw Chen Shu's nose almost touching the corpse.

Unaware of what was happening, Chen Shu squinted and casually picked up a small scalpel from the side, using the tip to slightly open the wound a little.

With the new wound, he lowered his head even further.

Li Meng's face stiffened, and she complained, "Ren Da, he's not our Criminal Investigation Department's Ren Da, why are you sticking to him?"

Driven by curiosity, Ren Guoqing followed behind Chen Shu, holding his breath as he meticulously examined the wounds on the corpse.

"call!"

Holding his breath and focusing his gaze, Chen Shu straightened up and said firmly, "Ren Da, the edges of all the wounds are very smooth, and the inside is also very regular, which is very strange."

Detective Wen Zhao walked over to Xiao Ming, took the form he had filled out, and handed it to Li Meng.

Li Meng read it through from beginning to end, then snorted: "How many knife wounds have you seen at the police station? Now you're making it sound so sophisticated, but this is a murder case! Don't use your old tricks from handling minor cases, or you'll embarrass yourself."

That's a bit of an overstatement, but as Li Meng said, this case is a murder case, and we can't be careless in the slightest. Ren Guoqing also had doubts, but as the top leader, he knew he couldn't express his opinion too early, otherwise he would risk being embarrassed.

After all, he had suffered a great loss at Chen Shu's hands, and at the time he even had the illusion that he was willingly offering his face to him.

"Wait, don't say anything yet."

Chen Shu had some ideas in mind before, but Li Meng's constant chatter kept interrupting him, and he lost his way again. Now, no matter how hard he racked his brains, he just couldn't grasp the key point.

He frowned and thought for a moment, just as he was about to say something, Julie quickly walked to the cabinet by the wall, opened the cabinet door, rummaged through it and took out some small items, then walked to the dissection table.

Following her habit from the case she had been working on in NX recently, Julie had been thinking along Chen Shu's lines of thought. So when the other party raised doubts about the wound, she immediately realized what was going on, based on her years of forensic experience.

Although Julie didn't know what Chen Shu was thinking, she knew that her assistance this time would definitely help him.

Chen Shu only lacks forensic knowledge and criminal investigation experience, but in terms of investigative thinking, he must be the best among those present!

Julie was absolutely certain of this.

All eyes turned to Julie.

She calmly and steadily inserted the small metal pieces in her hand into the wound on the left side of the corpse's chest.

After the small metal piece comes to rest, it will be perpendicular to the corpse's chest.

(End of this chapter)