Forensic Doctor 2003: I Became a Legend on the Front Lines of Criminal Investigation

After a moment of surprise, Wang Hui composed himself and then picked up his camera to take another picture of the lividity on the deceased's back.

In the process of forensic autopsy, photography is divided into two types: general overview photography and detailed photography.

As the name suggests, overview photography is taking pictures of the overall structure, mainly reflecting the situation of the entire area.

Detail photography reflects local features and highlights details; a scale bar is often placed in the area being photographed.

Right now, Wang Hui is snapping photos with his camera, and a black scale has appeared in the camera's field of view.

The purpose of placing a scale is to reflect the size of livor mortis.

After all, the forensic autopsy report will serve as an important piece of evidence in court.

The location of livor mortis and the extent of fusion must all be marked.

After the examination of the body was completed, Jiang Chen bent down and picked up the scalpel next to him.

At that moment, Wang Hui turned his head and looked around. It was pitch black, and the mottled shadows of the trees in the distance looked a little eerie.

Then he said, "Are we really going to do it?"

"I feel like this complete darkness might be disrespectful to the corpse?"

Hearing this, Jiang Chen turned to look at him and said, "Brother Hui, you look so manly, why are you suddenly so hesitant?"

As he spoke, he located the center of the deceased's neck, made a vertical incision, and then made a straight cut from the jaw down the chest and abdomen, finally reaching above the groin.

In fact, according to the surgical procedure of open-chest autopsy in forensic medicine, for corpses with strangulation, a Y-shaped incision is made to completely preserve all the ligature grooves in the neck.

However, this time Jiang Chen did not follow the usual procedure.

The main reason for this was that he had determined that the body was hanging after death, rather than being hanged before death.

In this situation, preserving the ligature marks on the deceased's neck would be of little significance.

The reason why the strangulation groove is preserved for a body that was hanged before death is because there will be bleeding changes next to and near the groove.

Although no subcutaneous features of the neck were observed, Jiang Chen could roughly deduce, based on the analysis of the changes in the corpse, that there was no bleeding under the ligature groove.

After the scalpel was pulled from the neck to above the perineum of the deceased, Jiang Chen picked up the tweezers next to him and used his index finger and thumb to pry open and clamp the skin.

Next, holding a scalpel in one hand and forceps in the other, he made a vertical incision to separate the skin from the muscles between the ribs while maintaining some tension in the skin.

This step of separating human skin and muscles is crucial. Jiang Chen used to be just a veterinarian, and he was separating skin with fur attached.

However, after yesterday's autopsy, he was now much more adept at separating the skin.

Just like the deadly technique in ancient costume dramas, wherever the tip of his knife moves, the connection between the skin and muscle is completely separated.

Soon, the victim's skin separated completely from below the collarbone to the abdomen, fully exposing the victim's ribs.

Then, he got up and walked to the other side of the corpse and squatted down.

The same method, the same angle of entry, and the same force used for peeling.

After completing the skin removal on the left side, Jiang Chen stood up and muttered to himself, "Squatting here doing autopsies is really taking its toll. I'll probably be exhausted after six or seven hours straight."

Wang Hui said, "Well, there's nothing we can do. Our region is relatively underdeveloped, and the economy hasn't picked up yet."

"Otherwise, our Qingshan County would just build a high-end forensic autopsy room, so we wouldn't have to spend the night with the dead."

As soon as he finished speaking, Jiang Chen turned his head and looked around, saying, "This place is quite quiet, I think it's nice."

"No one will gather around, and I'm not worried about anyone taking photos or videos and uploading them online, causing unnecessary public opinion."

Wang Hui looked around, still shaken, and said, "I'd rather have the examination done in the forensic autopsy room, even if it smells bad, it's still much more pleasant than being here in the dark."

After separating the skin, Jiang Chen picked up the rib cutters and "snip, snip" cut the deceased's ribs.

Next, he used a scalpel to separate the sternoclavicular joint between the clavicle and the sternum.

In principle, this joint can be cut with scissors. However, there is a subclavian artery below the clavicle. If you forcibly cut it with scissors, it is very likely to damage the subclavian artery, leading to blood staining of the local muscle tissue and fascia.

It's important to know that for forensic pathologists, the most important thing is to observe the physical characteristics of the body.

When the skin and muscles are heavily stained with blood, forensic doctors are unable to conduct objective observations or make judgments about local features.

People often say that forensic doctors are like butchers, cutting into blood vessels and muscles without any care.

That shows he's an amateur and doesn't have a deep understanding of forensic medicine.

A knowledgeable forensic pathologist believes that certain key blood vessels and muscles must be preserved.

Immediately afterwards, Jiang Chen separated the ribs, exposing the chest cavity.

He turned to Wang and said, "Senior Brother Wang, please take photos of the chest cavity to fix it in place. I'll pull out the deceased's lungs later to examine them and see if there are any bleeding points."

Soon, the sound of camera shutters clicking filled the air.

Jiang Chen reached out and removed the deceased's lungs. The entire lungs were enlarged and showed signs of congestion.

He opened up the left and right lobes of the lungs and examined them carefully. He did not see any pinpoint bleeding, indicating that the deceased's internal organs did not show signs of mechanical asphyxiation.

Because during the process of asphyxiation, leakage bleeding from the blood vessels of both lungs is also a hallmark feature.

This perfectly matches the characteristics of the corpse's surface, indicating that he did not die by hanging or suffocation.

Next, Jiang Chen examined the deceased's heart, lungs, pancreas, liver, and intestines, but found no specific damage or specific signs of death.

Finally, he lifted the deceased's stomach to weigh it and said, "The contents of the deceased's stomach were approximately 800 grams."

Immediately afterwards, Jiang Chen picked up a scalpel and made a horizontal incision in the body of the stomach, revealing the entire contents of the stomach.

He recounted, "The food in my stomach was in a chyme-like state, and in some places I could see something that looked like porridge."

These crucial figures must be presented in the forensic autopsy report as evidence.

As Wang Hui took notes, he said, "With such a large quantity, wouldn't they die shortly after eating it?"

Jiang Chen nodded and said, "Based on the current situation, the time between his death and his last meal was no more than four hours."

Wang Hui nodded, muttering to himself, "At least they'll be full before they set off..."

While they were conducting the autopsy, Li Jian was in the interrogation room beginning to interrogate the two suspects.