Decipher the Death Code

By Yao Jun

Images of blood-splattered crime scenes,dead bodies in significant states of decay,chambers full of repulsive odors—these are some of the scenes that Rao Huiying has encountered numerous times during her 25 years of forensic science service.She is political director in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Public Security Bureau of Xinping Yi and Dai Autonomous County in Yunnan Province.

Rao is a 47-year-old criminal investigator with an amiable personality.Small in size,with her long hair tied up neatly with a string,she definitely has a pair of sharp eyes for her job.In performing tasks usually featured with extremely shocking sights,she applies herself to discovering every tiny elusive trace,deciphering marks of death,and revealing truths about the crime scene.

As a female forensic investigator,Rao is a rare presence in Yuxi Public Security Bureau's history.But she's been in this job for 25 straight years.Though engaged in tasks that are generally frowned upon for dead bodies as well as bloody,nasty,and stressful situations,she loves her job passionately and has devoted herself to it with utter determination.Since joining the police force,she has participated in more than 4,200 crime scene investigations of all kinds and extracted more than 5,000 pieces of trace evidence on the scene.She has taken part in more than 800 post mortem examinations and performed more than 100 autopsies on those who died of unnatural causes.Moreover,she has collected more than 22,000 fingerprints and recorded them in the police system,including more than 12,000 fingerprints collected from crime scenes.She has solved more than 700 crimes through forensic evidence examination,including more than 200 cases solved directly using trace evidence.What's more,in solving homicide cases and during the Campaign to Combat Organized Crime,she performed even better in cracking a large number of serious and major criminal cases using trace evidence and other physical evidence.

Cracking cases gives me the strongest sense of fulfillment

"Cracking cases is my duty.It gives me the strongest sense of fulfillment," said Rao at one of the nation's elite police speech tournaments.In her daily work,Rao is hardworking,always hungry for new knowledge and diligent in improving her professional skills.She sets the highest professional standards for herself,which do not pale in comparison with those for her male colleagues.Whether it is the case of extracting fingerprints at an indoor theft scene,or searching with her own hands in a septic tank for a piece of choppedup human body tissue,she never shies away from gruesome tasks.And she is always ready to traverse mountains with her colleagues,rolling up her sleeves and burying her head in the work until the mission is accomplished.

At the beginning of 2022,two people were reported missing consecutively in Xinping County.Rao voluntarily took the lead in the case and worked enthusiastically with her colleagues on search and investigation missions.After careful investigation and attentive verification,police concluded that the two missing people used to know each other.Furthermore,they vanished one after another near a rental house in the downtown area.Later,when the police dug deeper into the case,a suspect surnamed Zhang appeared on the task force's radar.However,crucial evidence was still missing to make him spill the beans.

Crimes were committed in such a densely populated community,and the bodies were still not found.The two questions were preying on her mind:Where did the two missing people go? Where was the primary crime scene?

Undaunted by the thorny situation,Rao brought her team members together.Again they showed up inside the suspect's rental house to start another round of thorough searching.The ceilings,the house sewers,and even cracks in the ceramic tiles on the floor were all swept for details.It was already three in the morning when Rao,showing no sign of discouragement,started to inspect the brown bathroom door for the third time.The door was tall;she had to adjust her positions,standing on her tiptoes one time and half squatting the next.

Suddenly,upon the door frame some distance above her head,she detected a tiny piece of dry substance in the shape of a dot,which was the same color as the door frame.Having witnessed car crash scenes with human body parts scattered everywhere,and explosion scenes where human bodies were blown into pieces,she was far too familiar with this kind of substance.It is a tiny piece of human soft tissue.Subsequently,the entire team focused on this direction and soon found another extremely small piece of human tissue nearby.The two samples were sent overnight to the Public Security Bureau's forensic science lab for further testing.The two substances proved to be pieces of human tissue belonging to two victims,respectively.

Faced with irrefutable evidence,the suspect eventually began to talk to police and gave a complete account of his crimes about killing and dismembering the two victims inside his rental house's bathroom.It transpired that the suspect chopped up the two victims' bodies with his own kitchen knife and flushed the remains down the sewer.Still,several days had already slipped away.The case came to a critical point :collecting and searching for further criminal evidence.

In order to make the available evidence as substantial as possible,they had to secure every possible piece of human tissue.To this end,Rao went down and crawled to the drain pipe under the toilet,probing with her hands.She worked with her team to dig up the septic tank cover and explore there with her hands too.They also located the waste truck;potential evidence was washed down from it and meticulously screened multiple times by them.They went down to rivers and crop fields in the countryside where human remains might still exist.They turned over the soil and broke it up to search for every possible trace of evidence.She even went to the landfills carrying a hoe and examined the garbage bit by bit,which had piled up like giant hills.The working environment was filthy,with unpleasant odors of advanced decomposition;meanwhile,human tissue could be as small as less than 1 square centimeter—all these were challenges that came to test the ultimate limit of human endurance.After several days of painstaking searching,1,354 pieces of human tissue were successfully found.The whole case proceeded smoothly to the next step.

Rao once said:"For us,the quickest way to complete any preliminary examination is all about touching and pinching with our own hands,observing and sniffing using our own eyes and noses.In those days,I had no idea how many times I had washed my hands or how many showers I had taken,worrying that my family might notice the smell that was left on my body."

In July 2003,Rao successfully solved a robbery turned homicide case on State Highway 213 with the help of an inconspicuous fingerprint.In May 2004,she cracked two major anesthesia-related robbery cases in a row with the discovery of a tiny but crucial piece of trace evidence.In November 2012,she worked continuously for nearly 12 hours to complete a field investigation mission despite hunger and cold until the valid physical evidence was finally extracted,including a piece of male DNA evidence from the deceased's body.With the help of DNA typing techniques,the suspect was identified,and a rape turned murder case was solved.In September 2016,a murder involving two deaths and one injury was committed in Mosha Town,and she rushed over and worked on it overnight so arduously that it was soon solved.

"No matter how cold a case might be,as long as there is a linkage between the evidence collected from crime scenes,the door to cracking a case will be opened as a matter of course." This is a common remark made by Rao.Nowadays,against the backdrop of rapid advancement of forensic science technology,and with her initiative to acquire more up-to-date physical evidence examination technologies,Rao has used her free time to integrate her work experience accumulated from years of first-hand forensic practice seamlessly into the newest theory and the advanced equipment.The study results were recorded in writing and are subject to further upgrading and modification for the years to come.Playing the role of a master caring for her apprentices,she and her colleagues dramatically improved their professional skills and enriched their first-hand experience.

Rao is always saying:"To me,nothing is better than being always assigned the job of tracking down criminals through the discovery of the least noticeable traces.I love this job very much." Under Rao's leadership,Xinping Public Security Bureau's forensic science laboratory achieved first place in assessment tests held countywide for three consecutive years.They also passed professional assessments and are qualified as the 1st class forensic science laboratory and Xinping Public Security Bureau's Judicial Appraisal Center,respectively.They received collective rewards many times for their outstanding performance.From 2018 to date,Xinping County Public Security Bureau's crime clearance rate remains above 80% for all eight categories of criminal offenses,while the homicide clearance rate stays at 100%.

Even before my daughter was born,we had both responded to murder scenes

"Even before my daughter was born,we had both responded to murder scenes." Rao used to make this joke when talking with her colleagues.It's an enormous challenge for a female officer to be a forensic science officer.And they have to overcome the difficulties and obstacles that most people would find hard to overcome.

Ever since Rao joined the police force,she has participated in solving almost all homicide cases in Xinping County.In July 2000,two murders were committed in her county.She was seven months pregnant then.But after getting their police gear in place,she and her colleagues rushed to the scene and started the investigation immediately.At the inspection site,she could not squat down easily because of the pregnancy,so she had to find a small stool and sit in an awkward,uncomfortable position.When she couldn't bear it anymore,she would stand up.The odor of the crime scene was so unpleasant that she had to return repeatedly to finish her work after rounds of vomiting.Rao said:"When looking back,I'm still a little scared that something might've happened to my baby.But at that point,I had put all these things out of my head.The only thing that mattered to me was to solve the case as early as possible."

Criminal investigation happens whenever a crime occurs,often depriving the investigators of their regular holidays or breaks.They must work day and night and race against the clock to get their job done once they are engaged.Once,Rao was asked by her little daughter:"Mom,even before I was born into this world,you had brought me to those scary places.Aren't you afraid that I might be scared?" In her daughter's eyes,it is a matter of routine already for her mother,as a police officer,either working shifts or working overtime.The workplace almost became a home to her,and she rarely spent a complete holiday with her family.Even on the day when her daughter was taking the college entrance examination,she did not ask for a day off to keep her company.She never complained,and kept fighting on the front line against crimes and illegal activities.

Her male colleagues speak highly of Rao:"She is one of the strong women who is tougher than many men.We encountered certain gruesome murder scenes that even her male partners found unbearable.But she remained unflappable and directed her team to investigate without distraction.At the time when she even started to feel uncomfortable herself at the scene,she could still manage to tough it out." Her female colleagues also made the following remarks:"Whenever we had difficulties in life,she always did her utmost to help us with her advice and suggestions.She is our role model."

In March 2013,Rao Huiying was awarded the"National May 1st Women's Model" by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions.In May 2017,she was awarded the honorary title of "National Excellent People's Police" by the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China.And in May 2021,she was awarded the "Individual with Outstanding Achievements in the Campaign to Combat Organized Crime".