Chapter 5

1 MONTH LATER

"What happened to her?" worry was evident on the autopsier's face. This was one thing he hated about the job, carrying out autopsies on children.

Atleast adults were manageable, they had accomplished somethings in their life, but children? They were still full of life and hope.

"She was burned to death by her friend", "My God, motive?", "Still searching for one. According to Officer Hank, the boy who burned her has not spoken a word since he left the crime scene. He's still in shock of what happened",

"shock? I thought he burned her?", "Honestly I don't know if the kid is delusional or something. Well Hank said you should carryout an autopsy on her even though almost half of the evidence would have been gone by now. Any information you can garner should be related to him".

Connor left the autopsier after relaying the message he was sent. The autopsier turned on the surgery light directly above the body to begin his work.

This was the third teenage female body he had received in a space of weeks and the determination to find the serial killer kept his mind sharp and his adrenaline pumping.

The light reflected of his silvery name tag on his scrubs, Dr Joseph. Dr Joseph didn't see much evidence since the skin was burned to crisps.

Bisecting the body would be a waste of effort or time since the outsides looked like burned toast. Dr Joseph knew this at the back of his mind but he was persistent to go beyond the appearances.

He had found nothing but inscriptions on the foreheads of the previous bodies of Reina; an R and Emily; an E. As if remembering the killer's signature, he strained his eyes on the burnt forehead of the body; a relief form of 'V' was inscribed on her forehead although covered with scabs.

He picked up the report; Vivian Ignaro, 17year old female, brown eyes, Caucasian..." V, her initials was V. He didn't understand why the killer did that, inscribing the initials of his kill on their heads.

Due to the softness of the burned tissues, the autopsier used a scalpel to bisect the body in the form of a Y section. He rolled back the skin, like always , the rib cage was intact but charred around the edges.

The internal organs had been smoked. He examined every nook and cranny of her insides but no evidence suggestive of any other cause of death than being burned.

As he was about to conclude the internal search, he noticed something, tiny but evident. It was a Stark contrast of the smoky ribs, a tattoo.

"How's this possible?" Dr Joseph's mind wheels turned looking for possible answers. Reading from the left to the right, the tattoo read; IX XI like it was mirrored.

Dr Joseph took pictures of the strange findings. As he set the camera down, he moved backwards for the next part of the autopsy. Every standard autopsy on females required inspection for sexual activities prior to the death.

He spread her burned legs to inspect her genitals. He noticed something odd, there were holes on her vaginal lips like it had burst.

He took the scalpel and cut her abdomen, he noticed two enclosures. He tried to cut the first but the rigidity of the muscle prevented the scalpel from penetrating, he went for a drill.

He drilled through the enclosure and found residue. He took a test strip and took samples of the sticky residue suspecting it to be semen.

The heat had caused the soft tissues to contract causing the skin to tear and the fat to shrink. The muscles contracted creating an enclosure around the alleged semen residue keeping it intact.

Dr Joseph put a cotton swab in water and rubbed it on the test strip. It turned purple. It was semen. Dr Joseph quickly wrote down his findings. Going over to the second enclosure, it was firm but not as firm as the first.

He could cut it with the scalpel. He did. He opened the enclosure and his eyes went wide with different emotions. "My God, she was pregnant".