American forensics, but the gourmet system

Chapter 76 The Unusual Corpse Number Six (Third Update, Please Read On!)

Under the midday sun, the snow in the mountains and forests shimmered with an icy luster.

On the hillside, bare oak, birch, and maple trees stand straight and stiff, pointing towards the sky. Tangled withered grass and shrubs are intertwined, like a wife and mistress tearing at each other's hair in front of their husband's company.

In the secluded valley, however, a completely different, vibrant scene unfolds.

A dozen or so burly men, dressed in neat uniforms and belonging to the FBI's Manhattan branch in New York, were bending over and rummaging through the garbage.

On the other side, Jesse and Diaz worked together to clear an open space, where they laid out a plastic sheet. The body number one, which had been found in the garbage dump, had been moved onto the plastic sheet.

"There's a body here!"

A burly man raised his hand and shouted.

Russell immediately walked over.

Beneath a paper cookie box, half a foot bone was visible.

"Clean this place up first," Russell began directing the burly men around him. "Try not to break the bones of the corpse—"

Seeing that their supervisor, Mannion, did not object, the burly men came over noisily to clean up the trash.

Russell picked up the cookie box covering the skeleton and found the cookie production date on it.

The garbage covering the bodies also shows that the garbage piles here were not brought in all at once, but rather the bodies were buried in batches and at different times.

The food packaging bags near the second body being exhumed have production dates concentrated between the end of December of the year before last and March of last year.

This means that the second body was not disposed of earlier than March of last year.

The garbage near the first body had an even more recent production date, including food packaging from about four months ago.

Because the first body died six months ago, and the cremation time was confirmed three months ago, his family members came from out of town to collect his ashes.

Of course, the ashes claimed by the relatives were not those of the original body, but those of a poor person from whom Simmons had harvested organs.

Russell felt a chill run down his spine as he recalled the skillful technique Simmons displayed in the autopsy video.

To ensure the viability of the organs, the victim should have been unconscious when the chest and abdominal cavities were opened.

This means they died on the autopsy table —

Soon, the second body was cleared out. Compared to the first body, the second body was much more skeletal, with almost no connective tissue attached to the surface of the bones.

Russell squatted down next to the plastic sheet and arranged the bones of the second corpse neatly from top to bottom.

"Body number two, white male, approximately 36 years old, 184 cm tall, with severe cervical kyphosis — presumably a sedentary office worker, overweight, with a pre-mortem weight consistently above 130 kg — time of death —"

The estimated age of death is 21 months. Cause of death—unknown, but based on the obese physique, it is speculated to be either a cerebral hemorrhage or sudden cardiac death.

[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name: 10 ...

"It seems they don't just target unknown tourists from out of town, right?" Russell turned to Captain Hansen and said, "By the way, don't family members accompany the bodies when they're taken to the crematorium here?"

"It might not be a good relationship with his family," Captain Hansen shrugged. "Normally, he should be accompanied by family members—or maybe they trust Simmons too much."

It seems this second corpse made two sums of money for both groups after its death.

One sum of money was for the family's workers' compensation, and the other was money earned by Simmons' gang through organ sales by impersonating someone else.

Russell thought to himself.

He wrote down the specific characteristics of the second corpse on a piece of paper and kept it under the skull.

Meanwhile, the mission progress jumped to 2/X.

Immediately afterwards, the third body, the fourth body—

Four bodies were dug out of the garbage heap by the FBI's burly men, and with the first body that Jesse dug out, the plastic sheet was quickly covered with white bones.

Underneath the skull of each skeleton was a piece of white paper, on which Russell had described the characteristics of the corpse and the identity of the corpse that Aina had found out.

Russell then instructed Jesse and Diaz to clear another area, lay down the plastic sheeting again, and make room for the bodies to be processed next.

As the burly men unearthed body number six, Supervisor Mannion received a phone call. After hanging up, he approached Russell and Captain Hansen: "Andy Elliott, a suspect in an organ trafficking ring, was apprehended by agents from the Albany branch at New York Stewart International Airport. They're on their way back to Ulster County—that guy has an Army background and is quite adept at counter-surveillance, so he won't be easy to catch."

"Furthermore, our colleagues are reviewing CCTV footage at the Kingston funeral home, where footage is only stored for one year. Therefore, the identities of the victims who impersonated bodies number two, four, and five and were cremated are currently unknown, but the identities of the victims who impersonated bodies one and three have been identified —"

"Hey, wasn't victim number three the one we identified?" Jesse looked up and questioned, "that girl named Rachel."

""

"Oh, right—" Mannion laughed awkwardly, "Rachel Francis—that means we've only identified the first victim."

"Inefficient."

Diaz offered a sharp and concise comment.

Mannion, feeling a bit embarrassed, went to instruct his subordinates to dig up the corpses.

Russell looked at the third body, which was laid flat on a plastic sheet. Her name in life was Jennifer Jackson, but now her skeleton was missing her right forearm.

It was the right forearm that was dragged away by the raccoon that led Russell to uncover such a chilling case.

Before this, no one knew that the respected forensic pathologist Simmons, described by his colleagues as a kind-hearted man, was actually a cold-blooded organ trafficker, executioner, and ripper behind the scenes.

Russell began piecing together the bones of corpse number six.

"Body number six, a Black woman, around 170 cm tall, was about 28 years old at the time of death. Her tongue was broken, and the cause of death was likely hanging—she had been dead for over 60 months—this is the longest time since her death."

Aina continued searching on the iPad.

Although Sheriff Monroe only gave Aina a list of accidental deaths within the past year, Aina had a death record of Ulster County for the past ten years.

Don't ask why, it probably just suddenly appeared on Aina's iPad.

Aina quickly found the corresponding body: "The deceased was named Ashley Brown—28 years old, found dead five years ago in August, the cause of death was—wait, the cause of death is different from your analysis, Russell. Are you sure she might have hanged herself?"

Russell re-examined the hyoid bone of corpse number six.

The fracture was old and corresponded perfectly to the time of death.

"I'm sure." Russell looked up at Aina.

Aina handed the iPad to Russell: "But the autopsy report shows drowning—"

Russell looked at the autopsy report signed by Simmons on the iPad and slowly frowned.