The Forensic Doctor Better Than a Detective

Director Hou’s heart couldn’t help but stir. He thought to himself: Jiang An chose to speak now, he must have a very solid reason to support himself.

If he wasn’t confident, with his usual calm personality, he would never have rashly presented his views at this juncture.

This confidence might precisely come from the frequent and deep collaboration and communication between them over the past one or two weeks during the case investigation.

Director Hou immediately raised his head, looked around the room, and said: "Mr. Jiang, this case hasn’t been concluded yet; it’s far from reaching the final point."

"You have every right, and responsibility, to speak freely and express any views you have."

He paused slightly, letting the weight of his words fully convey, then continued: "Moreover, the core task of our supervisory team sent by the provincial office is to ensure that the case investigation is solid and thorough, leaving no shred of doubt."

"If we return with questions, we cannot account to the organization, and it’s a dereliction of the law and duty."

Director Hou’s words were harsh, and his intentions were extremely clear.

Firstly, he emphasized the supervisory function he represented;

Secondly, he stated the mandatory requirement that the case must be thoroughly resolved and cleared of doubts;

Thirdly, he clearly pointed out that the case is still in the process of investigation, and as one of the on-site commanders, Captain Jiang An’s opinion at this time is not only reasonable but necessary.

Indeed, Director Hou’s clear and powerful stance immediately stabilized the discussion in the room and granted Jiang An full authoritative space to speak.

A few young officers behind Mr. Chen, who originally seemed to want to voice different opinions, saw this and held back, maintaining silence under Director Hou’s decisive gesture.

Instantly, all eyes were again focused on Jiang An.

Jiang An felt everyone’s gaze but wasn’t in a rush to speak.

He first turned his head to the side, looking out at the mechanical arm mentioned in the simulated scene, which, although not seen firsthand at this moment, exists in description, as if materializing a key piece of evidence in his mind.

Then he turned back, beginning to elaborate: "Just now Mr. Chen had already introduced to me the process of initial scene reconstruction in detail.

My understanding is that one end of the rope is fixed to the mechanical arm, the other end tied with a towel, forming a loop. The deceased placed the back of their neck into this loop, leaned forward, forming an acute angle with the ground, thus achieving the effect of neck traction."

While speaking, Jiang An used gestures to assist his explanation, leaning slightly forward to simulate that specific angle, making the description more intuitive.

Next, he shifted his tone into deeper analysis: "This method of producing traction force via one’s body weight is similar in principle to the cervical traction therapy we commonly see clinically. However,"

Jiang An paused here, sweeping his gaze over everyone present, posed a sharp question: "I would like each of you to think and recall: have you heard of any clear medical case or accident directly resulting in death because of adopting this type of traction method?"

The question hung in brief silence.

Everyone looked at each other, trying to search their memories or experience but finding it difficult to locate a corresponding example.

Jiang An further supplemented his explanation: "Of course, the possibility I proposed is not completely impossible, just under the information we currently hold, we haven’t heard of similar cases."

"The main reason is, death caused by neck compression, the key isn’t the external force compressing the back of the neck, but whether the blood vessels, nerves, and trachea at the front of the neck are subjected to continuous and forceful compression."

"For instance, when we sleep on a pillow, even if this pillow gradually narrows from a wide rectangle to a thin long shape, as long as we remain supine, facing upward, no matter how narrow the pillow gets, it usually won’t cause lethal danger."

"Because the core cause of death isn’t muscle pulling, but compression of the key organs maintaining human respiratory and circulatory functions—like the arterial, venous, and airway in the neck."

"However, in the posterior neck region, these vital organs essential for life are not distributed; the back of the neck mainly comprises muscular tissue, cervical vertebrae structure, and spinal nerves, which needs to be clearly understood."

Jiang An paused briefly to continue his in-depth elaboration: "I emphasize this mainly to introduce a key issue: according to the actions details described by the informant Wang Can during the incident, it is actually difficult to cause the victim’s death because those actions aren’t likely to compress the vital part at the front of the neck."

"However, what we actually face is a death case, which forms an obvious contradiction."

"Therefore, we highly suspect that within the roughly five minutes when Wang Can left the scene to use the toilet, someone must have taken some action towards the scene or the victim."

"Don’t underestimate these few minutes—during this period, if the victim was manipulated in some way from a lying to a vertical or near-vertical position, it could completely cause compression at the front of the neck, thereby leading to death."

He lastly reminded: "Additionally, there’s an essential piece of evidence supporting this inference: in the original scene photos, I noticed the deceased had traces of saliva residue on the anterior neck region."

"This detail perhaps further indicates that the deceased’s neck was in an unusually forced or specific position before and after death, worth us digging deeper during follow-up investigation."

Such saliva traces, which I had elaborated on previously, were due to external force traction and compression on the neck, leading to temporary blockage of the submandibular gland duct, thus causing an abnormal salivation state at the corners of the mouth.

It’s noteworthy that this salivation state is commonly seen on hanged bodies due to neck compression, but it must meet two key conditions: firstly, the traces must be formed during life, and not postmortem due to postural or decay process;

Secondly, the body must maintain a vertical or at least head forward position when the trace is formed.

Because if the body is lying flat, even if fluid leaks from the mouth due to gravity, it should flow towards the sides of the head or behind the ears, not concentrated to drip vertically down from the front of the mouth corners.

Hence, from a forensic and scene reconstruction angle, the current corpse phenomena we see significantly contradict the position where informant Wang Can initially discovered the body—that is, lying flat facing up in the corner.

The drooling trace on the anterior neck of the corpse strongly suggests the deceased was in a vertical or forward leaning posture before death, and with continuous neck compression.

However, the discovery site was in a supine position, this conflict essentially points to two core issues: one, what is the real cause of death of the deceased?

Two, was there a change in position from when the deceased was dying to being discovered?

If these two points of contradiction can’t be reasonably explained, the entire scene holds significant suspicion of being artificially manipulated or fabricated.

Precisely for this reason, I think we are possibly hiding crucial storylines we are yet to know—perhaps someone moved the body, or perhaps the scene was already artificially altered before we arrived."

Upon hearing Jiang An’s logically rigorous and step-by-step analysis, Mr. Chen couldn’t help but nod.

Undeniably, Jiang An’s reasoning, with both medical basis and aligning with scene traces, indeed has strong persuasive power.

Director Hou after listening also showed a satisfied expression, slightly nodding, affirmatively saying: "I entirely agree with Mr. Jiang’s analysis, the contradictions within require in-depth investigation."

"I trust you, there is definitely an issue with this case, we must thoroughly investigate."

At this point, Mr. Chen’s expression became increasingly solemn, his brows tightly knit, his face seemingly more wrinkled than a tightened chrysanthemum.

And the young officers behind him wore exceptionally unpleasant expressions.

Gradually, everyone realized, this case was no longer a simple abnormal death, but very likely a case requiring criminal investigation.

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