Forensic Files: The Hunt for the Killer

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. When they die, their song is still unsung." — Henry David Thoreau, Walden The night was as dark as ink, heavy with impending storm, as gusts of wild wind swept through everywhere. The street lay silent and deserted; not a soul stirred, and even the faintest heartbeat seemed to echo in the stillness. A short-statured man took advantage of the dead quiet and the dimness of the night to sneak into a rundown theater in a shantytown, intending to steal any valuable items left behind. Shining his flashlight, he bent low and entered through a back door of the theater. After circling around, he suddenly noticed something lying weakly near the stage. Driven by curiosity, he cautiously approached—and his eyes fell upon a male corpse that had been dead for quite some time. The dead man’s eyes were fixed rigidly on his pupils, staring directly at him. The man couldn’t help but scream and turned to flee—but in his panic, he stumbled over a person lying at his feet! To his horror, he discovered another corpse—this time, a young woman’s body. Fear paralyzed him completely; his body convulsed uncontrollably, and beads of cold sweat poured down his forehead. Desperately, he tried to inch backward, but suddenly his back struck something hard—someone bent down and pressed close behind him. Before he could react, a handkerchief was firmly pressed over his mouth and nose, cutting off his breath… My name is Chen Gan. My father was a forensic pathologist. After graduating from university, I followed in his footsteps and joined the Fuming City Public Security Bureau as the chief medical examiner. My father once told me: "The heart of a Buddha, the mind of a ghost— To examine the dead and punish the guilty, To probe deeply and cleanse wrongful grievances, This life shall hold no regrets." This is the ancestral creed of the Chen family. Throughout my life, I have encountered countless bizarre and chilling cases: A twisted man with a macabre obsession, who preyed upon innocent fathers and daughters under the cloak of midnight; A disturbed soul who abducted children endlessly to satisfy his perverse desires; A corporate white-collar worker forced by greed and rivalry to leap from the highest point of the TV tower; A priest who, under the guise of cleansing his sins, lured women into working at a nightclub... Tonight, the moonlight thickened as the stage lights of the nearby theater flickered with a dim, mournful glow. Not far away, the flashing red and blue of police car lights reflected sharply, their warmth contrasting with the cold night. In a remote theater tucked away in a city slum, two bodies—one large, one small—were discovered, unraveling the beginning of a murder case. When I arrived at the scene, my colleague Su Yaxin was conducting the preliminary examination of the bodies. She is an experienced forensic pathologist—and also my junior from university. Her round, slightly chubby, egg-shaped face often made people want to reach out and pinch her cheeks. Her curly, coffee-colored hair gave her a doll-like charm, while her bright, star-like eyes could catch the tiniest detail on a corpse. Since graduation, she had been working alongside me and had become my trusted assistant. Her meticulous attention to detail once led her to discover trace amounts of evidence belonging to the suspect hidden in the corner of a victim’s eyeball. She often tied her smooth long hair up neatly and wore a crisp, white forensic suit that fit snugly and professionally. Some had suggested she cut her hair short for convenience, but she immediately raised her fists in playful protest. The male corpse was pinned as if nailed to a stage curtain, his lifeless eyes staring fixedly into a dim corner ahead. The female corpse lay beneath the stage, her body sprawled out, limbs limp against the uneven concrete floor. Beside her, a phone had just vibrated a few times. No one knew who had called the girl just before she died. The only thing known was that the phone model was quite old, resembling the once wildly popular Nokia 3310. Many of its buttons were worn down from prolonged use, and the screen was marked with numerous clear cracks. Most strikingly, the entire screen was completely covered in bright, vivid blood. As a member of the Major Crimes Unit, I cautiously stepped into the crime scene theater, approaching not far from the victims. A woman knelt weakly near the stage, her eyes swollen from crying, her body trembling uncontrollably. She looked like a typical rural woman. From the detective beside me, I learned that she was the one who reported the case. She said she was the wife of the deceased man, and the little girl was her daughter. The male victim wore a yellow-and-white striped shirt and blue jeans. He was strong and well-built, but his head was concealed behind the black curtain at the back of the stage. I lifted my leg to approach the curtain when Su Yaxin deliberately stopped me. “I think you’d better brace yourself mentally...” she said. “You work diligently enough, but your courage still needs some improvement, Yaxin,” I replied sternly. “Hmph! Senior, just watch! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Ignoring her, I pulled back the curtain with one hand. On the man’s forehead, a clean knife wound stretched from his brow bone down to his jawline. The edges were neat, and the wound showed no signs of skin peeling—clearly inflicted by a sharp-edged weapon. Judging from the splattered bloodstains, the killer must have attacked from behind him, since there was no blood left blank in front of the body. I examined the victim’s limbs and noticed signs that he had been moved after death. Su Yaxin, squatting beside me, saw how calm and detached I appeared and quickly realized she had underestimated the situation. She immediately focused and pulled out a rectal thermometer from the victim’s perineal area. “Senior,” she said, “the body shows faint livor mortis, and the corneas are only mildly cloudy. Considering the rectal temperature and the fact that it’s winter, with a cooling rate of about one degree per hour, the estimated time of death is between 4 and 5 a.m. The cause of death is massive arterial hemorrhage from the open wound on the forehead.” "It's a bit too early to draw a definitive conclusion about the cause of death," I said. "The estimated time of death is likely accurate, but we’ll need to run tests back at the lab to confirm everything." “Mm, let’s handle it together,” she replied. Just then, I felt my balance shift slightly—turns out Su Yaxin had moved away unexpectedly, and I hadn’t realized I had been leaning against her. Back in university, there had been rumors about us, but they were nothing more than baseless gossip. I stepped aside to collect some gastric contents when she said, “The victim showed signs of vomiting. I gathered this sample from a corner of the stage. It likely came from the male victim.” I turned to examine the female corpse again. She was wearing khaki cream-colored lace-trimmed pants and a pale pink sweater with puffed sleeves. On the chest of the sweater, a cute little panda was embroidered—an endearing detail that caught the eye. But her skirt had been lifted, and her peach-pink underwear had been pulled down to her ankles. I turned to Su Yaxin and asked, “Have you tested the swabs from the genital area?” “I have. No positive results.” “But there were signs of molestation—just not what we’d classify as a full assault, right?” I asked. “Yes,” she confirmed. Beside the female victim, on the concrete floor, lay a phone that appeared to have been stomped on until the screen shattered. Though the display was destroyed, the internal chip was likely still intact. I carefully picked it up and examined it, extracting a sample of blood from the screen with a test card before wiping it clean. I couldn’t help but think—this kind of phone must be obsolete by now. Considering the girl's age and clothing, why would she be using something like this? The phone might not have belonged to the girl after all. It was clear we needed to conduct a detailed investigation into its origin. With that in mind, I placed the phone into an evidence bag. Then I examined the female victim more closely and analyzed, “The lower body of the girl is damp, indicating she experienced incontinence before death. Her body lies face down on the ground, eyes open, mouth slightly parted, arms extended naturally, and there’s residual froth at the corners of her lips.” “There are scrape marks on her right cheek and hand, suggesting she might have struggled before death…” Su Yaxin speculated, but I shook my head and corrected her. “No. If those were struggle marks, we’d expect signs of coercion or defensive wounds. This looks more like convulsions.” Convulsions, incontinence, frothing at the mouth—signs consistent with asphyxiation. However, there were no visible marks on the neck indicating strangulation, and no obvious trauma around the mouth or nose. I used a pupillary reflex detector to examine the victim’s eyelids, then moved her limbs and pressed gently on her skin. When I touched her ankles and wrists and found no residual warmth, I concluded, “Rigor mortis has spread to the major joints, and the livor mortis does not fade under pressure. Given the poor air circulation in here and the current cold weather, time of death is estimated to be around 5 to 6 hours ago—no more than 30 minutes apart from the male victim.” A forensic examiner can determine whether a victim’s internal organs have completely shut down by checking for residual warmth in the ankles and wrists. If both are cold, death is confirmed. Based on the phone’s location, it seemed likely that the girl had still been holding it when she was attacked, only releasing her grip at the moment of death. The damage to the phone must have been caused by the killer. But then, why didn’t the killer just take the phone with them? As I pondered this, I suddenly noticed something strange near the victim’s lower body—an area had been torn open, revealing what appeared to be a small, malformed fetus. At that moment, one term from forensic pathology flashed through my mind: postmortem fetal extrusion—commonly known as coffin birth.