Qin Hui, Wu Qiming, Wang Ruiqing, and others from the Qinzhou City Criminal Investigation Team didn't sleep the entire night.
On the edge of the ruins of the Minghe Bridge, Li Donglin supervised the battle all night.
With leaders from the provincial departnt overseeing the work, all resources were delivered to the scene imdiately.
Ergency lighting vehicles lit the entire site as if it were dayti.
More than thirty firefighters worked in shifts, using small handheld demolition hamrs, chiseling away at the bridge pier's concrete. After nearly twenty hours, at dawn the next day, they finally cleared out all the skeletal remains.
However, no one felt the excitent of completing the work; instead, everyone's heart sank to the bottom.
In the first pier, four sets of skeletal remains were excavated.
In the second pier, three sets of skeletal remains were uncovered.
A bridge over a hundred ters long, with thirteen piers, yielded seven sets of skeletal remains!
The early spring air was still cold, chilling everyone to the bone.
"Seal off the scene, and send the bones back to the team."
Qinzhou City Criminal Investigation Team, Forensic Laboratory.
Lu Chuan and others had a bit of sleep last night and now felt relatively refreshed.
However, faced with seven sets of skeletal remains, their expressions were unsightly.
Not to ntion who these people were, or how they died, just the fact that there were seven of them!
How could there have been no news back then?
How is that possible?
The skeletons were fully excavated, and the most important task now was to confirm their identities.
First, the cause of death needed to be determined.
"Skeleton number one, the fourth left rib has a laceration from a sharp object; the cause of death is preliminarily judged to be a sharp object piercing the heart…"
"No cent residue was found in the cranial cavity of skeleton number one, indicating it was poured into the cent pier posthumously."
"Skeleton number two, right leg has a comminuted fracture; left arm has a dislocated fracture; the third and fourth ribs on the left side are fractured, and the seventh rib on the right shows fracture traces."
"Hyoid bone fracture, death by asphyxiation…"
"Skeleton number three has a skull fracture; neck is broken; the sixth left rib has a cracked fracture, and the left leg's tibia has a dislocated fracture."
"Skeleton number four has a percussion fracture mark on the right arm…"
The students following Zhang Yuanchao may be called students, but their forensic capability surpassed that of many grassroots units' forensic doctors.
The theoretical knowledge for complex skeleton identification analysis was there, though practical experience was sowhat lacking.
However, in terms of ordinary skeletal injury identification, these individuals had no issues.
Each set of remains exhibited injuries, from which the cause of death could largely be directly inferred.
For instance, a fracture of the hyoid bone typically becos a separate entity once a body is skeletonized.
Without external destruction, fractures are unlikely.
Thus, generally speaking, discovering a fractured hyoid bone among skeletal remains is a strong indicator of asphyxiation death.
The other bodies also showed clear skeletal injuries.
The seven bodies could be clearly determined from the skeletal injuries to have suffered varying degrees of abuse or harm before death.
This largely ruled out accidental death and the possibility of concealing a body.
Additionally, in three cases, the cent was poured around them while they were still alive.
The other four were only entombed in cent after their vital signs ceased.
The most important task for the forensic doctors and cri scene investigators is now to use technical ans to determine the victims' identities.
The cause of death is basically confird. DNA extraction from the bones is handled by Zhang Yuanchao's student, while Lu Chuan is responsible for determining the precise ti of death for the seven bodies.
The ti it takes for a body to skeletonize varies greatly depending on environntal conditions.
In high-temperature, high-humidity natural environnts, without external factors like animal scavenging, skeletalization can occur in as little as half a month.
For example, in tropical rainforests, after a person dies, decomposition begins within a day before rigor mortis has fully subsided.
After three days, complete bloating occurs.
After a week, the muscles decay and dissolve, leaving only the skin covering the body.
By ten to fifteen days, maggots digest the body completely, leaving only grey-black bones.
During weathering, the grey-black bones gradually turn snow-white.
Generally, the whiter the bones, the longer the ti of death.
But relying on color alone to determine the ti of skeletalization is inaccurate.
Lu Chuan needed to conduct so experints.
The concrete used for bridge piers differs from regular concrete.
Concrete has many grades, applied to different settings based on project nature.
Cent grading refers to its strength index, asuring solidification strength after mixing and hardening.
Many factors influence cent strength, such as mineral components in the cent, particle size, and the temperature and humidity during hardening.
The cent for the Minghe Bridge piers was low-temperature Portland cent, which offers better resistance to water compared to regular Portland cent.
The bodies were sealed during the cent pouring process.
Fifteen years later, inside, the bodies have completed skeletalization, but determining specific ti of death remains challenging, especially for the four already deceased when sealed.
The experint is quite simple: Lu Chuan wrapped a chicken leg in cloth, using cent identical to that back then for sealing.
Then by adding certain chemicals, he simulated the changes of fifteen years.
This simulation relies entirely on experience, including what substances to add and in what quantities to mimic fifteen years' passage accurately.
While the cri scene team was busy, frontline detectives from the Qinzhou City Criminal Investigation Team remained occupied.
The company that won the construction bid for the Minghe Bridge was the First Bridge Construction Group of Qinzhou City; its subordinate highway bridge construction company was the contractor.
The Minghe Bridge was then a key project in Qinzhou City, with comprehensive related docuntation.
Fifteen years is a long ti, but not enough for everything to change.
Those responsible for the project back then were arrested one by one.
Workers who handled the concrete pouring were also being sought, especially the focus was on them.
After completing the concrete pouring, vibration is required, especially for bridge pier construction, which demands no construction flaws.
After care, professional quality inspection is required.
So how did they pass inspection when bodies were encased in the piers?
Was the worker responsible for vibrating one of the culprits?
It's considered one of the culprits because there were seven victims, and pouring the pier's concrete couldn't be interrupted.
This ans the four bodies in one pier and the three in another were at least poured simultaneously.
This would be impossible for one person to achieve.
As the construction continued, multiple job types needed to collaborate.
Arrest and interrogation processes proceeded simultaneously.
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