Chapter 156 Section 5

"The boys are all back, and my brother Bill will be here soon. But...but I really can't talk to the Hunters about this, so please tell Steven." "Boy The "children" refers to the two sons of the Peterson family, Clayton and Ted, and the "Hunter family" refers to Catherine's natal family. Steven Hunter's reaction to this incident was almost exactly the same as that of his niece Caitlin Evert: "No way! She couldn't have fallen down some stairs." Steven shouted into the microphone, "It must be Mike did it." Steven flew back to the United States the next day.

Cynthia Hunter lived up to Mr. Peterson's entrustment, and passed the sad news to her mother-in-law in Florida, Catherine's mother, Mrs. Veronica Hunter, and Catherine's two younger sisters in Virginia. Candice Zamblini and Laurie Campbell. On Sunday afternoon, the autopsy report came out. Dr. Deborah Radish, chief medical examiner of the Durham Police Station who presided over the autopsy, wrote in the report: "...the deceased weighed 58 kilograms and was 1.61 meters tall...There were three bruises on the right eye and the right side of the bridge of the nose. There was swelling and three bruises, which could not have been caused by a fall down the stairs as the area was protected by the surrounding bone."

Later, Dr. Radish explained in response to a reporter's question that if he rolled down the stairs, the injured part of the face should be where the bones are more prominent, such as the nose, cheekbones and chin. The report continued: "A skin break and slight bruise on the forehead, as well as bruises on the pinnae and nose, possibly from a fall down the stairs ... There are also several scratches or bruises on the face that were apparently caused by fingernails or Scratches... no injuries in the mouth, except for a small chip in one of the teeth, but it cannot be determined whether it was recent."

Dr. Radish shaved Catherine's hair: "...the fatal injuries were on the top of the head and the back of the head. There were seven major wounds in total, most of which went deep from the scalp to the skull... One of the wounds was rolled up, and the skull below it was shockingly visible... Suspected to be metal or hardwood, rod or club shaped murder weapon." Dr. Radish uncovered the scalp: "...the skull has no fractures," and then sawed off the top of the head: "sporadic congestion in the brain, no trauma...Take a sample of brain tissue for further testing."

The forensic doctor turned to Catherine's hands: "There is a little hair on the hands, there are dried blood clots in the nails, but no flesh flakes... There is a bruise on the back of the right hand, two wounds and several bruises on the left hand, and many wounds on the wrist and elbow. A bruise...a self-defense wound inflicted when defending against an attack." "...the rest of the exterior of the body was unremarkably injured." "After dissection...no visceral lesions...no blood entering the respiratory tract or being sucked into the lungs...the bone fracture and congestion at the end of the left thyroid cartilage in the neck should be caused by external force or strangulation, not by falling down the stairs cause."

"Blood alcohol content 0.07," which is 30 percent below North Carolina's legal limit for alcohol intoxication, contradicts Ted Peterson's inference that Catherine stumbled and fell because of drunkenness. Dr. Deborah Radish's conclusion: "The cause of death was severe trauma to the head, which is undoubtedly a homicide." Rebecca Reid, a young blood spatter kinematics specialist with the Durham Police Department, walked up and down the stairwell twice, losing her confidence.She had never seen so much blood at the scene, so many different patterns of bloodstains, so much that she couldn't help herself.

Rebecca called her teacher, North Carolina Bureau of Investigation officer Duane DeVille, to ask for help. Duane DeVille put on special boots and overalls, and he also walked up and down the stairwell twice.Although the blood has dried up, there is still a sweet and greasy fishy smell in the air in the house.Duane first roughly classified the various forms of bloodstain patterns on the scene in his mind: splashing and throwing, transfer and transfer, and smearing and wiping. It was those large smeared bloodstains that caught Duane Deville's attention.Apparently, someone had tried to wipe away the blood before the police arrived.In Duane's decades-long career, though, smears of blood like this are rare at crime scenes.Under normal circumstances, the murderer either completely wipes the blood away without leaving any clues, or simply leaves it intact. This is the so-called "all-or-nothing" mode.In the sense of criminal psychology, such a "half-job" at least shows the criminal's inexperience, and shows that the police are not dealing with a repeat offender.

However, what really interested Duane DeVille were the numerous splatters of blood on the walls of the stairwell and on the hardwood floors, the largest as the mouth of a wine cup and as small as a finger.Of course, most of them are not perfectly round, but mostly in the shape of water droplets.Duane carefully selected a total of 42 typical blood drop patterns and meticulously magnified them to On the drawing, carefully measure the size of each drop of blood, calculate the angle, speed and trajectory of the blood drop in the air before reaching the final point, and then calculate their original starting point, that is, the position of the victim when he bleeds.

"Generally speaking, the way blood splatters in the air conforms to the most basic kinematics principles in physics." Duane DeVille pedantically introduced the background of blood splatter dynamics to Lieutenant Art Holland Knowledge, "The calculation process and steps are very cumbersome, and there are already ready-made computer programs that can reduce the workload. However, when doing calculations that are important and life-threatening, I still believe in the traditional paper and pen method. Or A two-pronged approach, using computer programs to verify the results of hand calculations. In practice, we generally use edible tomato paste mixed with a certain proportion of normal saline as a blood substitute to simulate blood being thrown or dripped at different angles and speeds. pattern formed."

A few days later, Duane DeVille calculated that the blood droplets on the walls and steps on both sides of the staircase came from two origins, or eruption points, one about 18 inches in the air above the 12th step from the top, and the other One point is 11 inches above the top of the next 3 stairs.In other words, the blood on the deceased was splashed from the air at a certain height from the stairs, not from the ground of the stairs to the wall and the ground.This obviously cannot be explained by the fact that Catherine's head was bleeding when she rolled down the stairs.From the perspective of time or the development of the case, Duane believes that this should have happened at the beginning of the case, and it is likely to be the murderer's first round of attacks on the victim.