National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 693 - 636: Mummy

Chapter 693: Chapter 636: Mummy

"Get the crime scene team and the trace evidence team here, and call in the forensic doctor too. Take pictures. And check out the situation with this renovation company, call the family..."

Qian Tongyi issued commands swiftly, his excitement at seeing the body all pouring out.

He had been working on this case for a month now, and with a substantial breakthrough finally at hand, Qian Tongyi was almost too preoccupied to pay attention to Jiang Yuan and the others.

Jiang Yuan didn’t mind, though; these were routine arrangements, and if there were any issues, he would have raised them.

Putting his ’three-piece suit’ back on, Jiang Yuan approached once more, observing the body inside from a distance and through a crowd.

Several detectives went downstairs to buy crowbars, hammers, drill bits, and the like from a nearby hardware store and started chipping away at the walls with clanging and banging.

"They made it pretty solid," Mu Zhiyang complained as he worked. "It’s just like a prison wall they built for themselves. If the workers made my house renovation this solid, that would’ve been something."

"Want to be buried in it?" chuckled a police officer standing next to him.

Thinking about it, Mu Zhiyang said, "Burying the owner in the wall, that’s pretty ruthless. If we hadn’t found it this time, who knows when the body would be discovered. Would it be when the smell spread to the neighbors?"

"It might not necessarily smell worse," Jiang Yuan noted from afar, pointing with his hand and saying, "The murderer poured more than two bags of quicklime into this wall, and it seems like cement was mixed in with the lime. It should at least absorb moisture without a problem. As for the smell, without any fluids from decomposition, it wouldn’t be very strong. The body’s decay would progress slowly, and if someone hasn’t smelt a decomposing body before, they might not be able to identify it."

Quicklime is commonly used as a desiccant in food products and is also one of the common construction materials.

When many people enter a freshly renovated house, the first thing they usually smell is a whiff of lime.

For a body, decay is the primary cause of the odor of decomposition; if it’s a dried-out corpse or in a mummy-like state, then the smell of decomposition is minimal.

However, looking at it from another angle, the sense of smell varies from person to person. Some people, after suffering from a cold, take a long time to recover their sense of smell and can’t smell anything, whereas pregnant women often experience a significant increase in their sense of smell, turning odors they normally wouldn’t notice into a big annoyance during pregnancy. The general population’s sensitivity to the smell of decomposed bodies also varies, and although many stories involve neighbors who smell the stench of decomposition and call the police, there are neighbors who wouldn’t notice that smell.

Additionally, the state of the body and the weather environment can also affect the production of odors. For instance, a person with more body fat in their abdomen and visceral areas, logically speaking, should decay to a greater extent upon death. Similarly, in humid weather and high temperatures, meat spoils faster, which is well known by regular people.

"Stack the bricks on the plastic sheet."

Seeing whole bricks being taken down, Jiang Yuan specifically mentioned this. There could potentially be fingerprints on the bricks, so while the chances were slim, it was still worth checking.

Mu Zhiyang obediently complied and turned back to look at the TV wall, saying, "I’m thinking, if we hadn’t come this time, would the people behind us ever have discovered this?"

"Not necessarily, they might have found it, or maybe the next people would have renovated it all over again," Jiang Yuandao said.

"If it hadn’t been found, and the next person buying the house happens to love watching TV, does that mean they would be facing a corpse every day?" Imagining the scene, Mu Zhiyang couldn’t help but shake his head.

"If there’s no smell, it shouldn’t really affect anything," Jiang Yuan spoke with a forensic doctor’s tone, his voice reassuring, "It’s like how some people hang a deer head or bear head on their walls. It’s the same with mounted fish specimens."

Mu Zhiyang focused on his work, "I get it; even if I become a fisherman in the future, I won’t make specimens anymore."

As Qian Tongyi’s excitement subsided a bit, he chuckled and said, "Given our vacation days and salary, we wouldn’t be able to afford being fishermen, let alone making specimens."

All the police officers in the room nodded in agreement:

"That’s comforting."

"Better than being a corpse."

"Actually, some people can make money and not be corpses at the same time."

Backup police forces arrived as quickly as possible.

With more people and equipment, they quickly dismantled one side of the eastern wall.

The body flowed out along with the quicklime and cement.

"The back of the head was hit with a hammer," Jiang Yuan skipped over the jargon and gave Qian Tongyi and the others the cause of death first to facilitate their further investigation.

Qian Tongyi nodded in understanding, "Blunt force!"

"Mhm, most likely a hammer, about the size of a pig’s brain," Jiang Yuan gestured for emphasis.

Qian Tongyi relayed the information, and the search for the Xin Xin Construction and Decoration Company was already being prepared within the city. During this time, hammers and other types of blunt instruments were certainly among the key items to search for.

Jiang Yuan continued to examine the body with utmost seriousness.

It was incredibly difficult to spot a body like this; there was an element of luck involved. If it hadn’t been for the discovery in a house undergoing renovation, this case would still be at zero clues.

Thinking of this, Jiang Yuan specifically looked at the limbs of the body and then said, "This should be the primary crime scene. Look for any bloodstains to see if there are any. Also, the killer likely drove away from here. Check the nearby surveillance to see if narrowing down the search area yields any findings. Wait while I check the time of death... It should be the night she disappeared."

"The time of death can be determined that accurately?" Liu Cheng, who had been standing in the room like part of the backdrop, couldn’t help but ask aloud.

Jiang Yuan hummed in affirmation and said, "The quicklime has a dehydrating effect, which has preserved the condition of the limbs quite well. We can inquire with the decoration company about when this wall was built, which should pretty much confirm it."

Without mentioning the forensic doctor’s judgment on the time of death, the time the wall was built should be a very stable base point for determining the time of death.

Qian Tongyi immediately expressed his agreement, then went out to make a phone call.

Yu Wenshu had already mobilized the entire Criminal Police Brigade, sending two teams to raid the decorator company’s premises, while others began to review surveillance footage for video evidence.

In no time at all, the owner and project manager of the decorator company, as well as a dazzling array of designers at various levels, were all brought under control.

Qian Tongyi immediately received the news and reported, "The time of death is indeed the day she went missing. The wall was built by a worker hired by the decoration company. The worker took on the job individually, settled accounts after finishing the work, and was paid in cash. The project manager from the decoration company only kept the worker’s mobile number; he didn’t even see an ID. People have been sent to look for him."

"Trace the mobile number as well," Jiang Yuan reminded him.

Qian Tongyi acknowledged with an "okay" and continued busily responding to various messages.

As the case broke open, there were many more people interested in it.

After they finished speaking, Liu Cheng moved closer to the body and whispered to Jiang Yuan, "Captain Jiang, your estimate of the time of death is incredibly precise."

"That’s how it is when you’ve been doing this for a long time," Jiang Yuan responded, lightly fiddling with a few chunks of quicklime while looking at the body.

"The old forensic doctors at the Beijing Bureau have been doing it even longer," Liu Cheng said with a smile. "Actually, in some cases, accurately determining the time of death might just crack the case."

Jiang Yuan didn’t beat around the bush and said offhand, "If you have a case you want to look at, send it directly to Director Huang. If he confirms everything is fine here, I’m always willing to help."

"Really?" Liu Cheng hadn’t expected Jiang Yuan to be so "easy-going."

Jiang Yuan nodded, "In fact, you could have sent cases directly to me before, but now the complexity of cases is increasing. We need to be sure of the specifics."

"That’s only right," the unspoken topic did not need explaining.

While they were talking, Qian Tongyi returned and said, "The mobile number of the wall-building worker was purchased. This guy is very suspicious!"

Jiang Yuan wasn’t surprised. He stood up and stretched his waist before saying, "The method of murder is very clean, and moreover..."

He paused for a long time.

Unable to resist, Qian Tongyi asked, "Moreover, what?"

"Remember we said before that he knows how to deal with vehicles, that he’s a repeat offender?"

"I remember."

"He opened up the victim’s abdominal cavity and took out all the internal organs from inside," Jiang Yuan said, looking up at Qian Tongyi.

"This..." Qian Tongyi was bewildered and repelled, even as a policeman, by this step.

Mu Zhiyang, who was standing nearby, frowned deeply, "Wouldn’t that leave a big mess?"

Jiang Yuan said, "He probably laid quicklime on the floor, conducted the operation there, and then buried the quicklime inside the wall."

Jiang Yuan, while speaking, pointed to the clumps of quicklime before him and said, "These are the extracted organs. Additionally, the victim’s abdominal cavity was likely filled with quicklime, too."

"That’s a bit like making a mummy," Liu Cheng exclaimed in amazement.

Jiang Yuan nodded, "A crude version, but it should have worked. However, because the body is mostly decomposed, it’s still not easy to determine his exact method of operation, but anyhow, I don’t think this is his first time doing this."