Sunday, October 01, 2006

Like CSI....

As you know, Crime Scene Investigation (commonly referred to as CSI) is a popular, Emmy Award-winning CBS television series that trails the investigations of a team of forensic scientists as they veil the circumstances behind mysterious and unusual deaths and crimes committed. One classmate requested me to write like CSI, but it is almost impossible. It is certain that CSI is very interesting and well-organized show, but real investigation is more complicated, mysterious, and unexciting.

When I was a deputy chief of Criminal Investigation Section in a police station, three years ago, I regularly had to be the person responsible for public peace and order of the area at night. It was the chief of persons on watch and called as the night head of the police station. Of course, I had to take the whole responsibility for everything what happened in the area at night. It was the heavy duty for me, because I was not experienced and too young to be that position.

One night, I was the man after 6 o’clock p.m. I wished that nothing would happen at that night and we could welcome a calm dawn. But, troubles generally happen on such a day. One of my subordinate came and reported me that a man had watched something like a dead body of a girl at the seashore early in that morning. The man watched something like a dead body on the way to angling and he had been worried about that. After all, he reported us after his going back to his home at night. So, the members on watch were thrown into an uproar. That’s because there was one girl who disappeared two years before from the near area and the police were searching the girl with their full strength.

After reporting to the “chief” of the police station, we went to the seashore where is very far from the station and searched “something”. The sea was deep black, and the waves broke on shore and that sounds were like men’s screaming. Because of a lot of tetra pods, the foothold and the view were so bad that policemen couldn’t continue to search it. I decided the close of searching at that night. At that night, I couldn’t sleep at all.

Next morning, we began to search the dead body by 50 policemen. After 2 hours had passed, we found the dead body under a tetra pod. To our surprise, the dead body didn’t have its head and it was rotten. It looked like a man, not a girl. We tried to drag the dead body out of the clink of tetra pods. Some policemen dragged and some pushed from the bottom. I hold my arm to its armpit and dragged. The neck without head came close to my face and the stink was too harsh. After all, it took 2 hours to drag it.

We inspected the dead body at the police station. The dead body was a man. But, there was no document proving his identity. We were completely at a loss. Then, a veteran detective whose specialty is crime scene identification tried to skin its forefinger’s skin. Its fingers were also rotten. But, he did skillfully and he pulled on the tip of its skin to his forefinger like a fingerstall. After that, he succeeded to take its fingerprint. As you know, each person has his/her own unique pattern of fingerprints that remains unchanged throughout life. The National Police Agency in Japan developed an automated fingerprint identification system based on highly precise and computerized pattern recognition technologies. Japanese police has much database of fingerprints (we usually take suspects’ fingerprints and add to the database.). He inquired the fingerprint to the database and we could identify the man.

The truth was that the man was a member of Japanese mafia (the Japanese mafia is called as “Boryokudan”.). He was a suspect for an attempted murder, and the police were on his track. He was seemed to commit suicide jumping down from a bridge to the sea. He had drifted 30 miles and he plunged into the clink of tetra pods.

Even now, the head was not found and I can’t forget the shocking scene of the dead body without its head and the stink. It is impossible to forget it forever.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Many Thanks for CSI series. Your writing is great. I can picture the crime scene from your story. If you consider writing the investigation series, you will probably be famous like Akagawa Jiro!

Boom

4:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I couldn't respond for a while because I was a bit scared imagining the crime scene.

Japanese tax-payers are lucky. Cheers for the hard working police officer with strong sense of responsibility!

~ SJ

1:38 PM  

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