Part IV - Epilogue

Based on our investigation, and Dr Rudi's speculation, it is suspected that Mdm. Chienne had a conflict with Mr. Herman Hartono as well as his son Adi Hartono which led to a brutal fight. Mdm. Chienne killed both of them in the conflict with a very, very, very...very stale French loaf. Also Mdm. Chienne tried to kidnap Anya Rosilawati and in her struggle, resorted to killing her too to prevent Mr. Rosilawati from knowing that she has attempted a kidnap which may raise suspicion and investigations on Mdm. Chienne. To bury the evidence, Mdm. Chienne had her dogs eat through the corpse of her victims. The dogs took part of the skulls and buried it in the park without Mdm. Chienne's knowledge which opened up the case.

When she found out that detectives were on her back she then traced the premises to Dr. Rudi's premises and hired an arsonist to ravage his home, intimidating and threatening Dr. Rudi.

Chapter IV

Dr Rudi popped a cigarette from the pack as Dr Suria confirms their location. It was a colossal building with a wide green field at its entrance. The structure was of Georgian architecture with its white pillar columns supporting the slate roof. The face of the box-like home had double hung windows evenly and neatly distributed across it. Two Doberman Pinschers, one black another copper, bared their fangs and snarled at them from across the black grill gate intricately decorated with vines. The doctors did not flinch. Dr Suria pressed the doorbell on the intercom and a classical ding-dong reverberated from the building. It took a moment for the screen to light up.

" 'Ello, who is zis?" The hoarse voice belonged to Mdm. Chienne, the face under her powdery ghastly foundation was worn and wrinkled. Her sunken eyes were smeared with a thick eyeshadow and curtained by extensive mascaras. The only colour that contrasted her pale skin and thinned blond hair were her olive irises and her glossy stark red lips.

"We are detectives Mdm. Chienne we'd like to ask you some questions."

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Dr. Suria wanted to comment that Chienne's choice of settee was very English before taking a seat but decided otherwise so as to avoid stirring Anglo-French rivalries. Mdm. Chienne took a sip from her pink cigarette holder and let out a wheezing blow.

"Sorry about Loup and Louvel errlier, ze dogs keep me company in zis quiet mansion. So zetectives, what is it zat you want to know?"

"Mdm. Chienne I would like to know your relationship with a Mr. Herman Hatorno." Dr Rudi plunged straight into it.

"Mizter 'atorrrrno, zat devil. Ze man wanted to take my daughterrr Tanya away from me. Just because 'e is ze biological fahserrr doesn't mean 'e can just take my prrrecious Tanya whenever 'e wished. I was ze one who took carre of 'er, nurrturred and fed 'er."

Dr Suria stepped up, "You do know that it is his legal right to claim his daughter right?"

"Yes I am aware zetective. One day he and 'is son Adi came 'ere for a visit, said zey just wanted to see zeir daughter but ended up trying to take 'er from me. I refused them frrom even seeing Tanya and asked zen to leave immediately. Bastards! Saying zat zey didn't want to claim ze ahserr twin from a Mr. Suriati just because zey have been a family far longer zen we have. 'Ow is zat fairre, detective?!"

"Well Mdm. Chienne, ze thing...the thing is, both Mr Herman and his son, as well as the other twin from the orphanage was found murdered a few months back. Do you have any idea of this?" Dr Rudi leaned forward for her answer.

"...Are you calling me a murrrderrer zetective? I may 'ave hated zat man to the bones but I am not a murrrderrer! I 'ave never 'eard of zat man ever since zat day and am glad it is so."

"I guess only we can tell." Dr Suria pulled out a slip "we have an authorised search warrant on your premises"

"Go ahead missuere and madamme. Sorry Tanya's off to school now so she won't be in 'er room."

Dr Rudi spoke privately to Dr Suria, "Search every crevice, every corner, Suria; especially for any sign of evidence removal. Disposing of so much flesh and bone would require something to either grind the bones to powder or some form of acid to dissolve them."

The detectives spent hours searching the house, leaving no stone unturned; but still, not a single hint was found indicating Mdm. Chienne as the culprit.

Dr. Suria glanced at her silver Rolex. She called Dr. Rudi over and tapped on the device several times, as if to say, "It's late."

"Maybe it's not her Dr Rudi. We can't waste all our effort and time on her when there isn't any evidence linking her to the crime aside from a flimsy motive at best."

Dr Rudi was convinced that they just had to start somewhere, but this certainly wasn't the place. The residence was clean as a whistle. It was time for them to look for Mr. Suriati for further enquiries.

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Mdm. Chienne escorted them to her gate.

"Zank you for your time and effort zetectives but you are barking up ze wrong tree." She gave a dismissive wave with cigarette holder still in hand as the doctors walked towards the gate.

On their way out, Dr Rudi saw the two Doberman Pinschers fighting over a toy bone, intimidating each other with growls and thrashing the thing.

He rolled his eyes away as he resumed walking to his Maserati.

"Dogs..."

Chapter III

Dr Rudi storms into the mortuary and meets Dr Suria.

"Any leads on the possible victims?"

"Yes there has been several missing people. Coincidentally all of them are related."

"There are no coincidences, Dr Suria...only the illusion of coincidence."

"They are Mr Herman Hartono, an Indonesian who migrated here 12 years ago to set up a business. The second missing person was his son Adi Hartono. Came along to help his father in their restaurant in Nusantara Damai but business was never good."

"And both of them match the two male skulls and jaws we have here?"

"Yes we had your team run cross-references to their dental records, they matched perfectly. And it wasn't only that which matched. There was also a missing girl, Anya Suriati whom father reported her disappearance four months ago. According to records Anya Suriati was the biological daughter of Mr Hartono. However the twins were accidents and due to financial issues, Mr Herman had to forgo them and left them in a orphanage. The twins were then given the names Anya Rosilawati and Tanya Rosilawati according to the surname of their caretaker. At the age of 5, Anya Rosilawati was adopted by a Mr. Suriati and was then given the name Anya Suriati."

"Did Mr. Suriati know of Anya's biological father?"

"No, Mr Herman opted to remain anonymous."

"Then what happened to Tanya then?"

"Tanya was adopted by a french widow; Mdm. Chienne, 1 year ago. The caretaker expressed that Mdm. Chienne was lonely and wanted some children to accompany her. She was even dissapointed upon knowing that one of the twins was already adopted."

"What?! One girl wasn't enough? She wanted the whole package?"

"Let me finish Dr Rudi, However according to the Mr Herman's conditions, the adopting family had to forgo the child if at any point Mr. Herman decided to reclaim her biological daughter."

"And I assume that is what he did."

"Yes. 6 months ago Mr Herman decided to take Anya back. And so he approached Mr. Rosilawati, the orphanage caretaker, to get contact details on Mdm. Chienne. After that he was never heard of again."

"Sounds like a clear motive to me. Man tries to take her beloved adopted jewel, psychotic frenchie wants to keep her, goes into a fight and wham!" Dr Rudi swung his arm as if hitting a pitch and throwing the imaginary baseball bat on the ground.

"That's highly presumptuous doctor stop making up your own stories. And where does Anya even come in in your little story?"

"Anya...I don't know she might've gone for her too. Maybe she was angry she didn't get her buy-one-get-one-free deal and kidnapped her. French women are vicious. Have you seen the heels my wife grabs from French Connection? Those things could club a man down."

"French Connection isn't even French...it's British Dr. Rudi...hence F-C-U-K?? French Connection UK" Dr. Suria rolls her eyes from the ignorance of men.

"What?! How am I suppose to connect with French then? I thought F-C-U-K was just a clever play of alphabets!"

Dr. Suria had no patience to spare, waiting for men wasn't how she became the youngest leading female investigator.

"Time to leave for Chienne's Dr Rudi, I'll get a warrant up soon."

"Yeah but we'll stop by K-9 Mart on the way, have to get some smokes."

PART III: EVIDENCES VS SUSPECTED VICTIMS + VICTIMS' DNA PROFILING

The matching of Herman and Adi with the evidences above is inconclusive. Partly because we do not know how old exactly the father and son were. We can only prove that the victims were males, and were both more than 17 years old when they died.

The DNA profile showed evidence for a father and son. In addition there was DNA profiling pattern that matched one living twin (Tanya Rosilawati). With this, match the evidence to these victims who were earlier filed for missing persons. Explain your rationale.

What is DNA profiling?

Also called DNA testing, DNA typing or genetic fingerprinting.

The process begins with a sample of an individual’s DNA (this is typically called a reference sample). In this case, since the victims are deceased, the DNA can be obtained from personal items such as a toothbrush, razors, a hairbrush etc. This reference sample is then analysed to create the individual’s DNA profile. A number of techniques can be used for this (please refer to Part II: Question 5 under DNA profiling tests). The DNA profile obtained is then compared against another sample (in this case, DNA obtained from the skull / jaw fragments) to determine whether there is a genetic match.

How do we prove that the jaw and skull fragments belong to the victims?

Based on Question 5, we speculated that two of the adult jaw pieces belong to Adi and Herman Hartono and the child jaw belongs to Anya Suriati.

To confirm this, we extracted DNA from all the bone fragments and created DNA fingerprints of both the young male adults. We then obtained DNA from personal belongings of the suspected victims. If the DNA sample from the crime scene matches that of the DNA sample taken from the personal items, we can conclude that the bone remains actually belong to the individuals. 

Voila! Evidence 1 (Skull fragments and jaw with five teeth) belongs to Adi Hartono

Using the same method, another DNA comparison can be done for evidence 2 (jaw with three posterior teeth). If both DNA fingerprints match, we can conclude that it belongs to Herman Hartono.

How do we prove that the victims are father and son?

We all inherit our DNA from our biological parents. A DNA paternity test compares a child’s DNA pattern with that of the alleged father. The result of a DNA paternity test is either an exclusion (the alleged father is not the biological father), or an inclusion (the alleged father is considered the biological father).

For this profiling, Adi Hartono’s mother’s (Herman Hartono’s wife) DNA is required. 

The above picture is an EXAMPLE of DNA profiling.

On the left, the alleged father is NOT the biological father of the child, as the child’s DNA bands do not match that of the alleged father’s. On the right, some of the child’s DNA bands match with the alleged father and the rest match with the mother.

Observe the DNA bands carefully.

It can be seen that some of Adi’s DNA bands match with his biological mother’s DNA bands and the rest match with Herman’s DNA bands. It can thus be concluded that Adi and Herman Hartono are blood-related and that Herman is Adi’s biological father.

How do we prove that Anya Suriati is the owner of the child jaw?

Since there was DNA profiling pattern that matched Tanya Rosilawati, and identical twins have almost identical DNA, we can conclude that the child’s jaw remains belong to Tanya’s twin, Anya Suriati.

Chapter II

Just as the hype amongst onlookers dissipated, so did the investigation team.

Dr Suria has long left the site, back in HQ churning out names of persons missing since 50 days or earlier considering the corpse has already undergone dry decay. 

"Time to wrap up and leave boys." A bead of sweat trickled down Rudi's sideburns.

Timmo turned his head with anticipation that resembles that of a child waiting past midnight for Santa to arrive. "Can you give your favourite assistant a ride back?"

"Yeah sure! Except I have no favourite assistant. Anyway I'm not heading to the lab, I have errands to run."

A press of a button and the Maserati at the road side clicks unlock. Rudi entered the dark metal box and revved up the engine and blast the AC, hiding under the illegally 20% VLT tinted windows. He blinked from the glare of his iPhone 6 before the retina display screen dimmed down accordingly to the brightness in the car. 'Tailor Fabrizio' was on his favourites, not that he had many friends to speak of.

" 'ello Doktor Rrudi!"

"Evening Fabrizio."

" 'ow can dis olde amico be of serrvice to you todey?!"

"Yeah...amico...I just had my pants torn this morning"

"Wiche one?"

"The Chevron one you ordered from Lombardia."

"Ah Lombarrdia~~~you cen gete de beste wine dere, frresh frrom de berrele!"

"Yeah anyway I'll need you to get it fixed, I'll get someone to send this-"

"Oh no worries Doktor Rrudi, yor wife told me everryting about it, viscous det poochy. I've alredy sente orrders bek to my casa dolce casa. By de wey yor wife, magnifico!"

Rudi was bemused. He hasn't even told his sleeping wife his departure this morning, much less a tear in his pants.

"Wait she did? When?"

"De bella donna just left our doors about 20 minutes ago. Wen I saw de torne fabric she presented to me I immediately recognised det it was one of my masterpiece, only u have suche a greate taste in Italian fabric my friend. She even double checke yor homme address to makke sure I'll send yor pants to de righte place. Odde name your wife has, 'Skull Hong'."

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She wasn’t always known as ‘Skull Hong’, before that she was just Zannennagara-chan, or in short, Zan. It was only one day when she witnessed a famous fire breather on her trip to Korea, that she was mesmerized by the beauty of the flame. The fire breather’s name was Hong Ki and he was in a mobile circus group called Fiery Throats of Jeju Island, also known as F.T. Island. They were an iconic sight for tourists especially and Hong Gi’s performance set Zannennagara-chan’s heart ablaze. Ever since then she had an obsession for fire, studied it, practiced it, experimented with it. She believed that only by showcasing her works of art did she then enlighten the masses to the grandeur of fire. Hence she went into arsonism and adopted the alias ‘Skull Hong’.

Her client approached her this morning passing her a piece of cloth and gave some information as to how she could locate the target’s living quarters. After years of arson it was inevitable that she worked for high-paying criminals. People with grudges, who needed a problem out of the way, who had to bury evidence, they were all patrons who funded her way of life. Her Xiaomi phone vibrates.

“So have you found his place?” It was a husky voice on the other side of the line.

“Hai, I am at his residens as we speakku. Haf to chasu away doggo sniffin aroun your dirty workku?”

“Just do what you’re paid to and burn.”

“Wakarimashta.”

Hong kills the line.

On the other side of the wall she was hiding behind was Mrs. Rudi Kurniawan. Her husband left home early this morning but it was a norm considering the nature of his job. Mrs. Emu was preparing dinner for his lovely husband while humming to a melodic tune. Meanwhile Hong mixes half a bucket of motor oil to half a bucket of gasoline. Gasoline is far more flammable than motor oil, but however it is easy for the victim to simply brush it off of them or off their clothing. Motor oil despite being stubborn to ignition had a much stickier property to it and would latch on to the victim. The mixture took the best of both worlds.

She stood up and threw the bucket across the open window at the rotating ceiling fan, splattering the liquid all over the kitchen including on Mrs. Emu. Quickly Hong then lit up a Zippo and threw it in as well while the misses was shocked from the situation.

“Hanabi…Utsukushi…”

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Mr. Rudi couldn't call her beloved wife, he knew she was in trouble once Mr. Fabrizio informed him about the infamous Skull Hong impersonating as his wife. The black Maserati came to a sharp break in front of a giant fireball that was his home. Rudi’s wife ran towards him with sunken, blood-shot eyes, dry of tears. He sighed in relief and hugged his beloved noticing that some parts of her skin suffered from low degree burns.

“What happened?!”

“I don’t know! I was preparing dinner when suddenly at the window a figure with a skull mask popped out and threw petrol at me and tried to burn me alive! Luckily most of the oil was on my apron and I snapped it off just in time before it started soaking in and onto me. Who did this Rudi?! Who would-“

Rudi’s iPhone rang and he could see it was Timmo on the line.

“Hey Timmy this ain’t really the best-“

“We’ve evidence that the victims’ were burnt doctor. But that still doesn’t explain how the murderer disposed of all the other evidence such as the flesh or remaining part of the skeleton. Use of any acid strong enough to dissolve bones would have to be authorized –“

“Brief me later in the lab Timmy. Things just got personal and I’m gonna make this cur pay for what he did to me.”

PART II: EVIDENCES AND FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS

EVIDENCES


-A part of a large jaw bearing five teeth;

-A jaw with some teeth still in eruption;

-A piece of jaw bearing 3 posterior teeth.



For the first picture, we can guess that it is a male victim as the ramus is at nearly a right angle and the skull robust. Since the third molar has erupted, he is likely to be older than 17 years old. Since all of his alveolar ridge can be seen and some teeth are in tact, the person is suspected to be not too old of age and isn’t born with missing teeth.

For the second picture, we can guess that it is a male victim as the ramus is at nearly a right angle. The third molar has erupted hence he is likely to be older than 17 years old. The occlusal table is also shallow which may be due to prolonged attrition and there doesn’t seem to be any alveolar process mesial to the first right mandibular molar indicating that it might have been the second premolar might have been extracted. This suggest that the victim is of elderly age but this is however inconclusive.

For the third picture, we can guess that it is a female victim as the chin is pointed. It is also observed that the permanent canine of the female has just erupted implying that she is of 9 to 10 years of age.


With very limited resources of only a few fragments of jaw and no less than a skull, the usual identification means prove to be very restrictive. The methods below would aid further in identification of a victim :





1) Sieving


Retention of soils is a pre-requisite for subsequent sieving (screening) off-site and offers much potential depending upon the questions being asked by the investigation. The types of forensic material that can be recovered through visual sieving that may have been missed during excavation include small durable objects such as buttons, items of jewellery, glass fragments, projectiles, small elements of human remains (e.g. tarsals, phalanges, neonatal bones, nails, etc.), or less durable items such as paper, wrappers or cigarette ends. Survival of the latter items will be more heavily dependent on the soil environment, the time since burial and the level of human decay within the grave
Coarse sieves ( 5-10mm) to recover small items
Smaller sieves ( <1mm) for macro-remains (animal bones, insect, botanical evidence)


Human hair is one the examples of sieved item which has been shown to be a relatively good survivor with a high potential for DNA extraction.


Sieving Methods:
Dry sieve (Outdoor/Laboratory)
Wet Sieve (Outdoor/Laboratory)
Flot (Outdoor/Laboratory)

-soil to be broken down into water and where lighter bodies float to the surface to be floated away and heavier bodies stay in residue in which is then sorted out using the microscope

















2) DNA Profiling Tests




SGM :

It tested six DNA STR regions and a sex-determining marker and had a discriminating power of approximately 1 in 50 million.


Identifiler : 

This test includes the 10 STRs and the sex marker used in SGM with the addition of a further five loci which allow greater discrimination between closely related individuals. Consequently it is extensively used in paternity testing and in the identification of unidentified deceased individuals when reference samples are to be submitted from close family members.


Powerplex16: 

This test includes 13 of the STRs and the sex marker present in Identifiler with the addition of two alternative STRs known to be highly variable between individuals. Consequently it is of use when the further investigation of close family relationships is required.


Y-STRs: 

This test uses STR regions located only on the male Y-chromosome. As females have no Y-chromosome Y-STRs can only be passed on through the male line of a family, hence all male members of the same family line will have the same Y-chromosome and consequently the same Y-STR profile. This test is therefore used to investigate familial relationships where males are thought to be related. This is particularly useful when the relatives in question are not biologically close (e.g. grandfather and grandchild.


Mitochondrial DNA: 

Mitochondria are small organs (‘organelles’) responsible for cellular respiration. They have their own DNA and are present in all cells in large numbers. Mitochondria are inherited maternally; hence all maternally related individuals will have the same mitochondrial profile. This test is therefore used to investigate relationships where individuals are thought to be maternally inherited. In addition, because there are many mitochondria in every cell, mitochondrial profiles can be obtained from degraded samples where nuclear STR DNA testing has failed to produce a profile, but there must either be direct reference samples available from the individuals in question or reference samples from confirmed maternal relatives in order for comparisons to be made.



3) Radiography

Carry out an orthopantomogram(OPG) to get radiography of the mandible. Therefore, we can know the estimated age of the victim by depending on the maturation of crowns and also transparency of roots.

4) Forensic facial reconstruction


By using this method, we can recreate the imaginary face of an individual either into two or three dimensional by using the skull and large jaw found.




5) Radiocarbon-14 dating
We can determine the radiocarbon content in tooth enamel by using radiocarbon-14 dating. This method works on the principle that accumulation of carbon-14 by the body will stop upon death, and will decay at a fixed radioactive decay rate. Therefore, by knowing the carbon-14 content in the deceased and through calculations, the age and year of death of the victim can be estimated.






6) Forensic anthropology

We can determine the gender of the person based on the shape of their shape of their forehead, brow ridges, angle of ramus, and shape of chin as can be seen in the following pictures below

According to part 1, Dr. Rudi mentioned that there is ‘Blunt force on the back of the head’. By looking at the size and shape of the injury of the skull (as used in ballistics forensics), we can approximate the weapon used and try to find evidences of the weapon in the vicinity.

Lastly, by cross-checking the list of missing person in few months back, we can narrow down the scope to only a few suspected victims. Then we can interview their family to find out more information related to the case.

PART II: WAYS TO IDENTIFY THE VICTIMS...

Other than examining the dental aspects provided as evidence, what other ways can the victims be identified?