Free Web NovelChapter 382: Chapter 365 Murder Weapon_1
One could know without looking that Pan Jinghong had suffered long periods of torture before her death, and she was defiled in front of Wang Zhaocai.
Zhou Ning took a breath and felt somewhat satisfied with his team; after all, facing such a gruesome state, no one reacted excessively, which he considered not disgraceful.
His gaze moved up, and he now looked at the deceased’s head. Hair and flesh were mixed together, and half of the face was indistinguishable. On the remaining half, one could observe swelling upon close examination—certainly, the torture did not last a short time.
Zhou Ning glanced at Zhu Xingxing and noticed she was fixated on the deceased’s hands. His gaze followed suit, and he saw the right middle finger, twisted backward, hanging over the back of the hand without swelling.
"Stop looking for now and hurry with the scanning, let Mr. Xia get to work on the facial reconstruction so we can proceed with the external examination of the corpse."
Yang Xuetong and Sun Gaotie quickly arranged their equipment and got everything ready to start scanning. At this moment, Mr. Zhao sneaked a glance at Zhu Zuozhang and huffed after seeing him.
Zhou Ning kicked him, and Mr. Zhao rubbed his nose, put on his gloves, and gestured towards Zhu Xingxing.
"Once Zhou Xiaozhou is through, Doctor Zhu, it’s your turn to give a statement. We’ll begin the recording process."
Sun Gaotie raised his hand towards Xia Momo, who gave an OK sign, and then started on facial reconstruction. The significance of this reconstruction was different this time, Zhou Ning had explained to Xia Momo briefly, it wasn’t about piecing together the deceased’s appearance, but comparing the injuries to identify the type of weapon used, so it would take about ten minutes to finish.
Zhou Ning checked the body again; the earlier cursory injuries he saw could roughly increase by another 30%. He then waved towards Zhu Xingxing.
"Project the X-ray images onto the big screen. I want to compare the fractures’ positions with the injuries."
Zhu Xingxing acted swiftly, rushing to fulfill Zhou Ning’s orders. Sun Gaotie got up and walked towards the middle area between the two autopsy tables, where there were two large buttons on the wall—one green and one orange. Sun Gaotie pressed the orange one.
A sound came from above, workers at the other autopsy table stopped what they were doing and looked over. Sun Gaotie raised his hand apologetically and said:
"During the autopsy recording, let’s not disturb one another; it’s not conducive for compiling the autopsy report later. Doctor Zhu, I have shut this area off, there’s a separate door for entry and exit. The middle part is transparent, so we can still see each other’s situation."
Zhou Ning hadn’t expected Sun Gaotie to have such insight, and he wasn’t even aware of this device in the ceiling. As he watched the descending shutter door, astonishment was written all over his face.
"I say, did the dissection room originally have this thing?"
Everyone looked at Zhou Ning, then slowly nodded.
"Yeah, it’s a fire isolation strip, a mandatory setting required by the fire department. After all, there is a significant amount of oxygen tanks stored over there, which poses a certain risk. Also, in the event of a fire alarm, this side automatically activates, since the equipment is quite expensive."
Mr. Zhao’s explanation was brief, and Zhou Ning had a moment of realization. He walked over to where Xia Momo was; she had finished her work. The animation of the mechanical analysis was a bit crude but was already usable.
"Look here, although the fractures are severe, the bone fragments have barely moved. These are traces of three fractures similar to scaphoid fractures, with a clear sense of direction—deep in the middle and recessed on both sides. After simulating it with an animation, this injury seems to be caused by a cylindrical object with a diameter of about four centimeters."
Zhou Ning watched the bone fracture demonstration animation twice, then nodded and stood up.
"That’s enough, seeing this I have an idea. It should be a metal pipe, with a very uneven surface. I just found cement debris on the victim’s cheek. The fracture location on the victim’s face, where the top layer of skin is severely peeled off, might be iron pipes from scaffolding. You go ahead and eat in 302."
This time Xia Momo didn’t struggle, waved at them, and walked away quickly. Zhou Ning turned to Zhu Xingxing, quickly instructing:
"Right, I’ve reviewed the external, and the images are matched up, begin the recording."
Zhu Xingxing nodded, calmly introduced the victim’s identity, the general case details, as well as several key timestamps before nodding at Zhou Ning.
Zhou Ning gave a thumbs up, then turned towards the corpse and started to explain:
"The victim’s head was struck three times by a metal pipe similar to scaffolding steel tubes, causing scaphoid fractures, complete collapse of the right side of the face and temporal area. There is no obvious sign of vital reaction in this area, the blows were inflicted when the victim was in a dying state;
The fatal wound is a cervical spine fracture. The victim’s third and fourth cervical vertebrae were broken, there are more than 32 cigarette burns on the victim’s face, limbs, hands, feet, and torso, resulting in minor blisters on 16 areas, the rest of the burns are third-degree and reach the muscle layer;
Based on the level of exuded fluid from the burns, as well as the state of swelling, the time from the first burn to the end lasted four to five hours;
The victim’s humerus, ribs, tibia, and finger bones have a total of seven fractures, four of which were caused by a stick with edges, two fracture spots have remnants of shoe prints, and the fractures on the finger bones were post-mortem injuries, broken by an external force. There are 17 cuts deep enough to show bone, or could be described as barely holding skin to flesh;
As for the abdominal lacerations, there were only minor signs of life, indicating that the victim sustained head trauma while at the brink of death. Subsequently, her abdomen was sliced open in a Z-shaped pattern, with the incision running from the right breast to the lower edge of the left rib, extending to the right ilium, and finally to the front part of the pubic symphysis. Now, we are beginning the autopsy to investigate the damage to the victim’s internal organs." frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
Having said that, Zhou Ning began the formal autopsy. The extent of the victim’s injuries was such that Zhu Xingxing didn’t even know how to begin, let alone what tools to hand Zhou Ning.
Zhou Ning, of course, understood this and had to repeatedly call out for the specific items he needed.
He did not make a new incision but used the position of the Z-shaped cut to extend upward to the victim’s neck area to check for any fractures, and then proceeded to collect samples from the various internal organs.
When opening the victim’s stomach, Zhou Ning paused, and Zhu Xingxing quickly came over to see.
Zhu Xingxing almost threw up, seeing that the victim’s stomach contained a substantial amount of mucus-like substance and almost no digestive fluid or chyme. This condition suggested that the victim had been starving for some time, since it takes at least 4–6 hours for the stomach to completely empty.
The lack of digestive fluid residue, coupled with minor erosive erythema on the surface, indicated that the starvation had lasted for at least 20–24 hours.
Just as Zhou Ning was contemplating this, he slightly shook his head, Mr. Zhao hurried over, and Zhu Xingxing was anxious not to miss anything critical.
"What’s wrong?"
"I remember Zhu Zuozhang mentioned that the victim’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Wang, had said that her daughter-in-law was three months pregnant. She was worried that she wasn’t eating well, so she prepared breakfast for her. They could have had breakfast before going to work. I just forgot about this point.
With this in mind, the time of stomach emptying would have to be earlier because of the factor of morning sickness. Zhu Xingxing, make a note of this, and later we should ask Mrs. Wang if Pan Jinghong had any reactions to morning sickness."
Zhu Xingxing hastily made note of it, while Zhou Ning signaled to Sun Gaotie to collect samples. This time, Zhou Ning straightforwardly excised the entire stomach of the victim and handed it directly to Sun Gaotie. ƒгeewebnovёl.com
Next, Zhou Ning examined the victim’s thoracoabdominal area, and sure enough, her uterus was slightly enlarged. Surprisingly, the edge of the uterus featured a ring of bite marks.
Seeing this, everyone at the scene got goosebumps; the perpetrator was a monster, slicing open the victim’s abdomen and even biting her uterus.
No, it was wrong to call him a beast; he was worse than an animal.
Zhou Ning exhaled and examined the victim’s lower body, retrieving two cornstalks. Zhu Xingxing went to take samples; there were mucous membrane injuries in both locations, with evident swelling, and a large amount of rice seed kinetin liquid was extracted from inside.
Zhou Ning’s brow furrowed deeply; solving this case would actually be straightforward once the criminal suspect was found, but the most challenging part was finding clues leading to the suspect. It wasn’t feasible to test the DNA of every neighbor for comparison.
Seeing that the sample extraction was complete, Zhu Xingxing pointed at the victim’s head, but Zhou Ning slightly shook his head, understanding what she meant. She was asking if a cranial examination was necessary. Since the cause of death and the victim’s identity had already been determined, there was no need for this step. The cranial injury was very severe, and an autopsy would be meaningless.
"Zhu Xingxing, stitch up the body, turn off the autopsy recording, and be precise with the suturing, try to align the defect areas as best as possible."
Zhu Xingxing was most skilled at this, quickly selecting a small curved needle and efficiently stitching up. Before long, the victim’s abdomen was completely sutured, though the facial defects could not be repaired. Zhou Ning took a piece of gauze, dampened it with distilled water, and gently wiped the victim’s face. He also tidied her hair so that she looked somewhat better than when she had first arrived.
Sun Gaotie looked at the victim’s fingers and raised his hand.
"Chief, do the locations of bone fractures and deformities need to be reset?"
Zhou Ning shook his head.
"No need, just clean it up, then use a white cloth to wrap the victim’s upper arms and torso. Also, wrap the legs in turn to prevent secondary injuries during transportation. Inform someone to take the body away. Mr. Zhao, go see if Zhu Zuozhang and the others have finished. Zhu Xingxing, take care of the autopsy report, and Mr. Yang, send it off for testing."
After giving his instructions, everyone began to move. Sun Gaotie looked at Zhu Zuozhang and the others through the transparent section, gave Mr. Zhao a thumbs-up, and then rolled down the partition. Zhu Zuozhang appeared somewhat surprised.
His gaze fell on the autopsy table and, seeing that all wrap-up tasks had been completed on this side, his old face blushed, especially since they had started earlier and their task wasn’t as difficult compared to Pan Jinghong’s case, yet their speed was barely catching up.
"Director Zhou, your team is too fast. We’ve just started wrapping up."
Zhou Ning nodded.
"This isn’t a race. A thorough examination helps the case. I wanted to ask you if nothing else accompanied the body when it was transported here? Was the victim already in this condition when discovered, such as clothes, weapons, coverings, or anything like that?"
