National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 426 - 426 393 Continuation

426: Chapter 393 Continuation 426: Chapter 393 Continuation The sun was high in the sky.

The breeze was warm, but the mood of the people at the recovery scene varied.

Jiang Yuan and Mei Fang were together, picking up bones with rotting flesh into a plastic barrel, while the remaining decaying flesh in the snakeskin bag mixed with body fluids, soil, maggots, and other matter, creating a nauseating soup.

The bottom of the snakeskin bag had broken open, but it was unclear whether it had been punctured or bored through by insects.

Jiang Yuan suppressed his emotions as much as possible.

At this moment, there was no place for cheers, sighs of regret were pointless, and even speculating about the case was meaningless.

The scene was filled with astute officers pondering and contemplating, and even more experienced detectives who understood the case better than Jiang Yuan understood mutton.

They were also waiting for Jiang Yuan to provide more clues to combine with the information they already had to make judgments.

Even Liu Jinghui wouldn’t rashly make a decisive judgment at this time.

“The deceased is female, about 30 years old,” Jiang Yuan said after he had fished out the bones, stretching his back and legs to give the team a basic piece of information.

Then, Mei Fang measured the length of the right femur on the spot and discussed with Jiang Yuan to arrive at a range for height and weight.

Jiang Yuandao declared, “Height 168, weight 110.”

When it comes to technical work, that’s just how it is.

No matter whether you can handle things on your own or not, when working together, there always needs to be a decision-maker.

Especially in forensic science, where ethnicity-based regression equations are ubiquitous, which to use and which not to use, each specialist has their own judgment.

Like Mei Fang, who had summarized some commonly used regression equations that were slightly more accurate than general ones.

As for Jiang Yuan, he would actually first determine the decedent’s origin—more accurately, the regional characteristics of their ethnicity—then choose which regression equation to use based on people from different regions.

This determination was based on the differences between various bones.

For instance, people from certain regions with long femurs nonetheless have different foot bone lengths.

For example, women in the south tend to be shorter and have larger feet compared to women in the north.

Looking at the length of the foot bones was within Mei Fang’s scope of expertise, although he would not normally be so detailed, needing to look up the specific regression equation, but he would usually be aware of them.

For someone at Jiang Yuan’s level, however, the proportions of the talus, metatarsals, and phalanges on the foot were all different.

The widths of different people’s feet, as well as the heights of their arches, were clearly controlled by genetics.

A more obvious example would be that Northern Europeans tend to have longer feet with less subcutaneous fat, resulting in thinner and slimmer feet, while Asians generally have higher insteps and wider feet, and South Americans have narrow, slender feet.

Hence, when trying on shoes in Adidas or Nike stores, it’s common to feel the shoes run small, but in reality, it’s often because the width and height are inadequate.

Beyond that, for most people, toe separation might be more conspicuous.

There are typically Egyptian feet, Roman feet, and Greek feet based on the lengths of the toes, sometimes adding a square foot into the mix.

The Greek foot, also known as the “beautiful foot” because the second toe is the longest, usually indicates a person with slender limbs and an elegant foot shape.

Many ancient Greek and Roman sculptures also opted for the Greek foot.

In China, there was a vulgar saying about the Greek foot: “A longer second toe means you won’t take care of your parents.”

Similarly, when trying on shoes, people who choose pointed leather shoes or pointed high heels often feel uncomfortable.

That discomfort is correct because the pointed shoes are designed for those with Greek feet.

Conversely, the five-toe socks popular in Japan are quite unfriendly to Greek feet, as an overly long second toe can easily poke through the sock, suggesting that the proportion of Japanese people with Greek feet is very low.

In fact, most Asians have Egyptian feet, where the toe lengths descend in a slope from the big toe.

Footprints alone, in fact, are connected to podiatry, and when you delve into different bones, they all relate to genetics.

For example, Asian squatting is incredibly simple for a forensic doctor to explain, as it’s due to the proportions of the leg bones being different between Asians and people from other regions.

The femur and the tibia of Asians are basically the same length, allowing them to squat in the manner known as the Asian squat.

In immigrant nations like the United States, there is more extensive research into the relationship between ethnicity and the body because of the diversity of the population.

China has a relatively homogeneous population with less obvious regional differences, so there is less research in comparison.

However, for forensic doctors, subtle differences often become the focal point for breakthroughs.

“Stop using the shovel, call a couple more people over, and dig out the rest of the body with your hands.” Jiang Yuan gathered the large bones and, seeing that the remaining body had already blended into the soil, simply called for people to use their hands to dig.

Under the watchful eyes of a group of leaders, several young police officers were brought in.

They excavated another basin full of decomposed flesh, soil, and insect carcasses.

“Are we done?” An officer, exhausted and wiping sweat, only caught the stench after wiping his brow, turning his whole face green with nausea.

“Go throw up further away, no throwing up within 15 meters,” Jiang Yuan dismissed the officer and then added, “Call a few more people over, and take all the soil within a 10-meter radius of the body bag back too.”

Insects with a taste for corpses don’t just eat, sleep, and breed on the body, they also spread around the vicinity of the corpse, and the number within a 10-meter radius can be quite substantial.

Jiang Yuan, himself, didn’t understand forensic entomology, but there were experts in the province, whom he could consult when the time came.

For a big case like Case 805, it wasn’t like a small case where one could find the cheapest route in, crack the case, and leave; it demanded more.

The correct approach was to proceed on multiple fronts.

If multiple paths were viable, then all should be taken.

This would also be more advantageous during the trial stage.

In the vicinity of the body, what the forensic doctor says goes.

Mei Fang quickly called over more people, bag by bag, they shoveled the soil.

After excavating a large hole around the area, Xu Taining’s pickup truck, prepared in advance, was also filled up.

Jiang Yuan then pulled off his gloves and said to Liu Jinghui, “I’m going back to perform the autopsy; you guys keep busy.”

“Okay,” Liu Jinghui agreed and reminded him, “Keep in touch at all times.”

Jiang Yuan hoisted the body and equipment onto another vehicle and, when he turned to speak to Xu Taining, the latter was on the phone again.

By the time Xu Taining hung up, Jiang Yuan had roughly guessed the outcome.

“Another body has been discovered,” Xu Taining sighed heavily.

A body was not just a single person’s tragedy, but the sorrow of a whole family.

And based on Xu Taining’s experience, the fact that bodies were being found so quickly at the very start of the search phase was definitely not a good sign.

“I’ll go take a look now, have someone drive the bodies from here,” Jiang Yuan said as he handed the keys to a person nearby.