National Forensic Doctor-Chapter 69 - 68 The Blue-Black Bus

In reality, forensic doctors facing a corpse within 12 hours, or at most 24 hours, can still give a relatively accurate time of death, such as 4 to 8, or 6 to 12 hours.

However, for bodies that have been dead for over a day, determining an accurate time of death requires many favorable conditions.

And making mistakes is not uncommon.

An extreme example is the case from 1977 at the University of Kansas, where Professor Bass examined a corpse with a gunshot wound to the head.

Because the muscles were well-preserved and had a healthy pink color, Bass concluded the time of death was within a year.

However, the corpse turned out to belong to Colonel William Shy, who died during the Civil War, with the body preserved in a sealed lead coffin.

It was a body from 1864, 113 years different from Professor Bass’s estimated time of death.

As a result, Bass founded the famous “Body Farm,” but even that did not entirely solve the problem of determining the time of death.

Many forensic doctors make mistakes when determining the time of death, yet the accuracy of this determination greatly impacts the progress of an investigation.

Jiang Yuan giving a time frame of 2 to 5 days seemed quite reasonable to Wu Jun.

After noting Wu Jun’s confirmed answer in his notebook, Jiang Yuan stood erect and examined the corpse on the autopsy table.

Ordinary autopsies, which Jiang Yuan had performed several times before, usually involved opening three cavities.

And normally, by the time all three cavities were opened, the cause of death should have been found.

Occasionally, one hears of negative cases, which in layman’s terms means that no cause of death was found in the body.

Further examination of the limbs and other areas, however, often provides answers.

However, the half-corpse Jiang Yuan faced today didn’t have a single cavity left.

It meant that none of the usual places for a normal autopsy had been preserved on this body.

To be honest, as Wu Jun handed the scalpel to Jiang Yuan, he also found himself slightly at a loss about where to begin.

In his view, there weren’t many particulars left to consider in the autopsy of such a body.

“I’ll start with the pelvic cavity,” Jiang Yuan said softly after he had positioned the body correctly.

Wu Jun grunted his acknowledgment.

Inside the pelvic cavity of a normal male corpse, there would be a bladder, testicles, prostate, vas deferens, and urethra, among other things.

However, today’s corpse had a chaotic mess between the legs— not only was there bloating and rot, but it was likely that fish from the river had nibbled on it, or that it was dragged out along with the internal organs of the abdominal cavity.

In short, the usual organs were not preserved.

Still following the normal procedure, Jiang Yuan separated the soft tissue outside the peritoneum from behind the pubic bone and then cut open the peritoneum to observe the condition inside the pelvic cavity.

He found nothing.

Without a word, Jiang Yuan continued with the process of localized dissection, smoothly cutting along.

Performing a forensic autopsy sometimes resembles solving a puzzle.

The person solving the puzzle is looking for a result, but the thought process isn’t there from the start.

At that time, you can only list all the conditions and then think according to the conditions.

This is also a big difference between a forensic doctor and a medical doctor.

For medical doctors, they often have to plan before surgery; there is no saying of opening the abdominal cavity and thinking while searching.

But forensic doctors don’t have as many examination conditions as medical doctors do.

Forensic doctors often adopt the simplest and most direct approach—flip it open and look.

They have to see a clue before they can follow it and further draw conclusions.

Jiang Yuan and Wu Jun were busy cooperating with each other, their eyes unblinking as they stared at the autopsy table.

What they were hoping to see were certain features, such as surgical scars indicating bladder surgery or varicose vein surgery, which could further narrow down the scope.

Or perhaps, the victim had suffered a sports injury, such as scars on the ankle, which would also be a good entry point.

Of course, the best scenario would be to find a prosthetic, like an artificial foot with a serial number.

By contacting the relevant company, they could immediately get information such as the name and age.

“The color here doesn’t look right,” Jiang Yuan suddenly stopped cutting and set the knife aside.

Wu Jun, who was slightly farsighted, frowned and looked over.

“Here…

the lymph nodes have turned black,” Jiang Yuan flipped the skin of the corpse open, then moved the muscles that interfered with judgment, exposing the lymphatic vessels in the thigh.

The lymph, which should be white or milky yellow, now appeared dark green and black.

Wu Jun drew closer to inspect and involuntarily nodded, “Indeed, it has turned black.

Take a sample.”

“Okay,” Jiang Yuan clipped a bit into the specimen bag and then flipped the skin on the outside, saying, “It shouldn’t be cancer.

There’s no obvious swelling, nor the characteristics of cancer cells.”

“Hmm, for someone in their twenties, the risk of cancer is lower,” Wu Jun pressed on the location of the lymph nodes, frowning, “It really doesn’t look like a lesion…”

Jiang Yuandao, “Could it be a tattoo?”

“A tattoo?” Wu Jun’s mind was a bit slow to process.

Reminded by Jiang Yuan, he started nodding, “Tattooing piercing through the dermis is possible…

but there’s no tattoo on the outside.”

“The tattoo was removed, but the color in the lymph nodes remains,” Jiang Yuan pulled some more of the deceased’s skin over, saying, “If you look carefully, you can actually see some traces.

They’ve been heavily blistered.”

Wu Jun listened and slowly nodded.

To forensic doctors, tattoos themselves were a very good identifying feature.

The legendary United States Marines all have tattoos for the very purpose of making it easier for forensic doctors to identify bodies…

However, Wu Jun was not very familiar with tattoo removal, asking, “Can they now be removed so cleanly?”

“Laser tattoo removal has a certain probability,” Jiang Yuan pointed to the corpse’s thigh and said, “The area of his tattoo wasn’t large.

Looking now, you can see a few marks.

It’s been removed quite cleanly and there are no scars.

It must have been done in a hospital; there might be records.”

“This line of thought is good.

I’ll call Captain Huang.

There shouldn’t be many cases of laser tattoo removal on the thigh in hospitals,” Wu Jun said as he took off his gloves, washed his hands briefly, and began to make a phone call.

As soon as the call connected, Wu Jun shouted into the other end of the phone, “…

It’s at Fengshi Point, the position where when you naturally let your hands hang down, your fingertips touch on the thigh, move a little bit toward the side of the leg, a tattoo about the size of three coins, preliminary estimate.”

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