The Forensic Doctor Better Than a Detective

Zhang Yean also looked surprised.

However, she was full of curiosity about Jiang An's subsequent analysis.

Jiang An began, "Suppose the deceased's head was missing before the fire started, then the burning on the upper trachea would be more severe than that in the lungs."

"Because lung tissue is enclosed, and separation at the neck would expose the upper trachea."

As he spoke, Jiang An pointed to the upper trachea of the deceased woman. "Look, the burn on the upper trachea of this deceased woman is very mild."

"In my view, this level of burning is quite similar to the burn level in the lung tissue inside the chest cavity."

"This allows us to draw a very important inference."

"What inference?"

Zhang Yean asked eagerly.

"The exposure time of the woman's upper trachea to the fire is very similar to that of the lung tissue inside the chest cavity."

"Very similar?"

Hearing this term, the four people looked at Jiang An with a mix of understanding and confusion.

Jiang An explained, "What I mean is that the time when this deceased's head separated from the body coincides with the burning and charring of the skin and muscle on the chest."

Finally, Jiang An concluded, "So, when the deceased woman died, her head must have still been on her body."

Hearing Jiang An's analysis, everyone nodded in agreement.

Zhang Yean thought for a moment, then said, "Could someone have cut off her head in the fire?"

As soon as she spoke, Wan said, "Sis, your imagination is wild!"

"Why does it remind me of pulling a chestnut from the fire!"

Li Jian frowned and said, "Is it that exaggerated?"

Jiang An turned to look at the four people and said, "I think that possibility is very low."

"During the fire, no one would dare to commit such an act."

"Crucially, I didn't see any signs of cutting or hacking at the trachea and head separation point."

"The separation at the deceased's upper neck is very rough, the ends are irregular, with no signs of sharp cutting."

After Jiang An finished, the others fell into deep thought.

"Could it have been severed by the fire?"

Zhang Yean asked curiously.

Jiang An nodded, "That possibility is very high."

"I don't know if you noticed, but the neck of this deceased is completely burnt and carbonized, and compared to the surrounding muscles and blood vessels, the neck has been burned to a greater extent."

"Moreover, the human neck is cylindrical and has a small diameter, so it would quickly fracture in the fire scene."

After a moment, Li Jian said, "If the neck was really severed by fire, where did her head go?"

Be advised, the human head is covered only by a layer of scalp, with most of it being bone.

How could it just disappear?

Yet, no head structure was found at the scene.

This is a question in everyone's mind.

After a long time, Mr. Ma said, "Jiang An, if we set aside discussing the skull, can we determine that the deceased was killed before being set ablaze?"

Jiang An nodded slightly.

"What was the cause of death for the female deceased?"

As soon as the question was raised, the room once again fell into silence.

Jiang An said in a deep voice, "When examining the bones earlier, I found that the female deceased had a partial fracture on the right major horn of her hyoid bone."

"Additionally, when I cut open the lungs with a scalpel, I found obvious edema and congestion in the lungs of the deceased."

"I suspect the cause of death for this female deceased is mechanical asphyxiation from neck compression."

"Mechanical asphyxiation from neck compression?"

Could it be that the causes of death for these two deceased are different?

And with such a big discrepancy?

Mr. Ma and Li Jian's expressions grew more somber.

Zhang Yean curiously asked, "Could it be that the male deceased killed and then committed suicide by arson?"

"Sister, I think that's possible!"

After some thought, Li Jian said, "An excellent local entrepreneur killing and then committing suicide?"

"That's exceptionally unusual!"

After a moment, Mr. Ma said gravely, "In any death case, we can't make subjective assumptions early on; we must have strong evidence."

"Especially in cases where both parties have died, we must be extra careful."

"Even if such a possibility exists, we must rule out third-party involvement."

"After all, in this situation, there are no witnesses to the deaths, making it impossible to form a closed loop of inference."

Upon hearing this, Li Jian immediately expressed his opinion.

"Of course! In such cases without testimony, we must seal off every possibility, leaving no loopholes."

Jiang An did not immediately express his opinion on this possibility.

He had his thoughts.

Suddenly, as Jiang An picked up the tweezers, his peripheral vision scanned the remaining chest tissue of the deceased.

A small piece of bone fragments caught his attention.

Jiang An bent over again, using the tweezers to pick up that bone fragment.

Li Jian asked, "Is there an issue?"

Jiang An nodded, "This bone fragment is quite special."

"Special?"

"What's special about it?"

In an instant, the curiosity of the four people was piqued once again.

Jiang An raised a hand to point at the inner surface of the bone fragment.

"Mr. Ma, Mr. Li, look!"

"This bone has two surfaces, one smooth and one rough."

"The rough surface has a honeycomb appearance, which is a characteristic of the inner plate of the skull."

After Jiang An spoke, the others looked confused.

"What does that mean?"

"Inner plate of the skull?"

"Do you mean this piece of bone comes from the skull?"

Zhang Yean looked down at the corpse on the dissection table, confused, "But this female corpse has no head?"

"How could there be fragments of the inner plate of the skull?"

Then, Jiang An spoke slowly and clearly, "I deduce it's because the skull exploded into fragments under the intense heat of the fire!"

In an instant, everyone's gaze shifted from the bone fragment to Jiang An.

Did intense heat from fire cause the skull to explode?

Zhang Yean and Wan widened their eyes, looking puzzled.

Not to mention them, even Mr. Ma and Li Jian, who had worked on the front line of criminal investigation for years, had never heard of it.

In the past, Mr. Ma encountered a case where a head was cut and then burned in a fire.

In that case, the head was eventually found on the suspect's identification.

But what Jiang An just suggested was that this head exploded into fragments on the spot.

Is that possible?

Is that reasonable?

Mr. Ma turned to look at Jiang An, his eyes carrying a hint of scrutiny.

Could it be that after solving several cases in succession, this young man was beginning to get carried away?

For such a case of on-field head explosion, Mr. Ma had never heard of or seen it.

After a moment, Mr. Ma said, "We can't force an explanation for the skull just because we can't find the head."

"Otherwise, our case direction will face tremendous problems."

Li Jian also said, "Exactly!"

"Jiang An, this matter is not something to joke about. Shouldn't we first search the perimeter to determine the possibility of the head exploding later?"

Mr. Ma and Li Jian spoke very gently.

However, Jiang An was still confident.

He said firmly, "Mr. Ma, Mr. Li, I'm very familiar with the 206 bones of human anatomy."

"Each of those 206 bones has its own characteristics."

"The skull bones, in particular, have very distinct features."

"In human skulls, there's an internal and external layer structure, with a trabecular structure in between, resembling a honeycomb pattern."

"In the human body, this is the only bone possessing a trabecular structure."

"Moreover, when the skull is exposed to intense high temperature, due to the expansion and contraction of materials caused by temperature changes, the spherical skull would explode because of the high-temperature brain tissue inside!"

Zhang Yean had always admired Jiang An's analysis extraordinarily.

Each time, she believed it without hesitation.

But this time, she was a bit skeptical.

"Objects in high temperatures do expand and contract, but causing a skull to explode is rare."

Zhang Yean said, "If the cranial structure exploded due to high temperature, why do we only see this tiny fragment?"

"An adult's head is not small in volume."

At this point, Li Jian also asked, "What sister Zhang Yean just said makes a lot of sense. If the skull exploded at the scene, then where are the other skull fragments?"

"I remember seeing the floor under the iron bed, but there were no skull fragments on it."

Jiang An looked at the skull fragment in the tweezers, speaking in a heavy voice, "At the time, we didn't notice possibly because the skull fragments were too small to catch our attention."

He then said, "Mr. Ma, Mr. Li, I suggest we return to the fire scene again to look for more skull fragments!"

Hearing Jiang An's firm statement, Li Jian turned to look at Mr. Ma.

In the gaze exchange between the two, Mr. Ma nodded slightly.

Li Jian said in a deep voice, "Let's return to the fire scene again to search for other skull fragments."