AN UNUSUAL CASE OF SKULL FRACTURE

I had a tremendous response for my article on "Forgery of cheques" published in the July 1995 issue of Crime & Detective. One of the best letters was received from Mr. Sanjay Gupta of Florida. He tells me that he is studying air conditioning in Gainsville University, but he is deeply interested in crime and crime related stories. He has liked "Crime & Detective" so much that he has asked one of his friends in New Delhi to keep sending him issues of this magazine regularly. He has also in his possession several crime books.

He tells me that decipherment of erasures is possible depending upon the thoroughness of the erasure. No technique will decipher a complete erasure. He has appreciated the way, I solved Mange Ram and Ramesh Chand's case. However he gives us some additional techniques for deciphering partial erasures. Partial erasures can be deciphered using low magnification. Other techniques available to enhance images are (1) examination through coloured filters to enhance contrast, (2) high contrast photography (3) infrared examination. For the benefit of our readers, I may tell that infrared (IR) is just a kind of special kind of light which can not be seen by human eyes. Carbon particles are very opaque to IR light. This means that if carbon particles are present in an ink (as they are in many inks), this technique will enhance the image. He also tells me that erased iron-based fluid inks can be restored by fuming the document with sulfo-cyanic acid which reacts with the iron in the paper to produce a red colour. All readers may not be familiar with the kinds of inks that are available in the market. For them the term "iron-based fluid inks" may be incomprehensible. Well, there are two basic types of fountain pen inks. The iron-gallotannate type was used as early as the eighth century and with substantial improvement is still in use today. Iron salts are combined with gallotannic acid in an aqueous solution. This solution when applied to paper is first colourless but darkens quickly when oxidized by air. Modern inks of this type contain a synthetic blue dye to provide an immediate blue colour to the ink which turns black after oxidation on paper. This explains the origin of the name blue-black fountain pen ink. Blue-black inks are very stable. The ink is insoluble in water and cannot be erased effectively by abrasion. The other type of fountain pen ink consists of an aqueous solution of synthetic dyes. These inks have a bright colour but are not as stable as the blue-black inks. When we talk of iron-based inks, we are actually talking about the iron-gallotannate type of inks. What Mr. Sanjay Gupta tells me is this. Had I fumed the forged check (submitted to the bank by Mange Lal), with sulfo-cyanic acid, I could have got a red colour in place of the words "ve", which were supposed to have been deleted by Mange Lal.

Well! well!! I am thoroughly impressed at the depth of technicality our readers are going into. I have since checked up with certain research papers related to forgery of cheques, and have found Sanjay's method perfectly in order. Well Sanjay, thanks for giving us such valuable information. I will certainly keep this thing in my mind for future. Meanwhile I will request our readers to keep sending similar stories, news clippings or other material of interest to me for inclusion in our forthcoming issues.

This time I am going to tell you about an unusual case which I solved in 1993. On 23 August 1993, the police found the dead body of an unknown male on the outskirts of Delhi, in a deserted area. From the external appearances, the man appeared to be around 45 years of age. The head of the dead body was badly mutilated and crushed. The skull bones were lying scattered on the ground. The brain matter was completely pulped and was flowing out of the open skull cavity. The mouth was gagged with a cloth, which was later identified as the victim's own handkerchief. Some blood was found around the head of the victim. From first appearances it appeared to be a case of death by blunt force impact. It appeared as if someone had killed him by hitting his head with an iron rod or lathi.

The photographs of the victim were published in all the leading dailies. An effort was also made to establish the identity of the victim, by tallying the records of missing persons maintained with the Missing Persons Bureau. Soon a lady by the name of Champa identified the photograph as that of her husband Mewa Lal. He had been missing from the house since 21 August. On that day, Champa along with her two young children had gone to her parent's house for some family wedding. Mewa Lal was to join the family the next day. But he did not turn up. Champa thought that he must have got busy in some work, so she attended the wedding on 22nd. However since she was anxious about her husband, she cut short her stay and returned before schedule in the early morning of 23rd. On coming back home, she found that the front door was ajar, and nobody was inside. She enquired about him in the neighborhood, and from the relatives, but no one could tell anything about Mewa Lal.

Mewa Lal was a man of doubtful character. Women were his weakness. He would often flirt with women, spending lavish money on them. In his quest for women, he wouldn't spare even married females. He was lately running an affair with Jaya, a 35 year married female. Jaya hailed from a lower middle class family and was exceptionally beautiful. Her husband Chandran was not earning well, and Jaya always felt the pinch. She would often curse her luck that she had got married to Chandran, who could not even arrange for a day's square meal. Needless to say when Mewa Lal tried to become intimate with her she gladly submitted herself to him. Mewa Lal would give her new Saris, bangles, sandals and other cosmetic items off and on. At times he would even give her cash to meet her day-to-day needs. Jaya did not need anything more than this. So she had surrendered herself completely to Mewa Lal.

Mewa Lal was not particularly a rich person. He had no fixed job. He did sundry jobs on a commission basis. This made his earnings very erratic. Sometimes the cash flow would be very good, while at other times, it would be almost nil. His wife Champa was always in financial trouble. She knew that her husband was a flirt, and she also knew that he was lately running an affair with Jaya, but she was helpless. Ever since her marriage, she was telling him by various means, not to engage himself in such activities, but he wouldn't listen.

His affairs with Champa had increased his expenses a great deal. According to some estimates of neighbors, he was spending almost Rs. 2,000 on her every month. This was a huge amount for Mewa Lal, who was not earning much. To meet his expenses, he took a loan of Rs. 10,000 (in October 1992) from Kaushik, an affluent person of the town. Kaushik knew Mewa Lal well. In the past he(Mewa Lal) had done some odd jobs for Kaushik. It was agreed that Mewa Lal would return the money to Kaushik within 3 months, with 16% interest. Of course Mewa Lal had no means to return the money to Kaushik, but he did not disclose this fact to him.

In Jan 1993, as promised, Kaushik went to Mewa Lal to get his money back along with interest. Mewa Lal didn't even have a single paisa to give him. This generated some tension between the two. However Mewa Lal sent Kaushik back saying that he would soon arrange for money, and settle his account.

These were empty promises however. In June 1993, Kaushik had become so frustrated that he had decided to take the help of some muscle power to extract money from him.

When police asked Jaya about the murder, some more interesting facts came to light. Jaya told the police that Chandran, her husband left for work on the morning of 21st August. Soon afterwards Mewa Lal came to her house. He was slightly drunk. He told Jaya that his wife had left for her parents' house to attend a marriage and they could have some uninterrupted fun then. Since Chandran was also not at home, they indulged in sexual intercourse as usual. The whole day they spent like that. In the evening Chandran came back early quite unexpectedly. This caught both of them by surprise. Although, Jaya was able to slip Mewa Lal out of the house through the back door, his undergarments were inadvertently left on the cot itself. Chandran's anger knew no bounds, when he saw Mewa Lal's undergarments on his wife's cot. He immediately took his Lathi and left for Mewa Lal's house. Jaya said that he was murmuring very angrily to himself. She couldn't understand much, but he was muttering something to the effect that he would settle the matter once and for all. Her neighbors also confirmed this statement who saw Chandran rushing angrily towards Mewa Lal's house. Jaya told the police further, that Chandran had returned home after about 20-25 minutes only. From his looks, it appeared as if he was very much satisfied.

This was the backdrop of the story, against which we had to see the death of Mewa Lal. The police story was that Chandran had killed Mewa Lal with his Lathi, and had returned back satisfied. All the available facts pointed to this only. He had left his house with his Lathi in anger, and had returned back quite satisfied. He was muttering that he would kill Mewa Lal. He (Mewa Lal) had ravaged his wife, so his anger was understandable. But when Chandran was apprehended, he vehemently denied his involvement in murder. It was at this stage that the police contacted me and requested me to help them with the case.

A quick look at Mewa Lal's face showed that his face had indeed been battered very badly( Please reproduce top figure on page 594 here-Designate this as Fig 1). Many of the pieces of the skull bones were missing. I asked the police where the other missing pieces of bones were. I was told that they had collected everything they found on the scene, and had submitted them to me. I knew that the police had missed several bone pieces. I requested them to take me to the place where the body was lying. At that place also, I couldn't find anything of importance. But sure enough, some of the skull pieces were missing. I knew this because, I couldn't reconstruct the whole skull cap from the pieces of bone available with me. The remaining pieces of bone just couldn't vanish in thin air. Finally I demanded to be taken to Mewa Lal's house. I made a thorough search there. Sure enough I found three skull cap pieces there. They fitted the missing portion of the skull quite neatly. This meant that the killing had been done at Mewa Lal's house itself and the body was later dumped at the place where it was found ultimately. This was the first great advantage of a thorough autopsy. Had the autopsy been done less thoroughly, i.e. if I had not taken the trouble to try to reconstruct the skull, (which was not very necessary too) everybody would have thought that Mewa Lal had been killed in the deserted area itself.

The skull had been shattered to such small pieces that it was impossible to piece them together by any conceivable means. Finally I decided to "sew" the pieces together with the help of wires. I drilled holes in the broken skull pieces, passed metal wire through the holes and then stitched them together ( Please reproduce the bottom figure on page 594 here - designate this as Fig 2). I had to encounter a bigger surprise, when I reconstructed the skull in this manner. Staring before me was one neat round hole in the skull! Look carefully at the reconstructed skull in Fig 2. The black arrow depicts the outlines of a neat round hole. The full circumference of the hole is not visible because I couldn't fit one piece with the wire (the piece was too small for that). However I fitted that piece at the gap with my bare hands, and the neat round hole was complete in its entirety before me. I placed the skin back on the reconstructed skull, and the bullet hole gaped before me so clear, no one could have missed it ( Please reproduce fig on page 595 here - Designate it as fig 3). This turned the whole police story topsy turvy. It was as if I had gone back in time and was witnessing the murder with my own eyes. Mewa Lal had not been killed by Lathi at all. He had been killed by a gun! This was a startling new fact for the police, brought about only by the autopsy. This changed the police story completely. Chandran was a poor man. It was impossible for him to keep a gun. So in one stroke, Chandran was out of police's clutches. However from the external appearance of the dead body of Mewa Lal, it surely appeared that he had been battered by a Lathi. A less thorough autopsy would have failed to bring out this new fact. Now that we knew that Mewa Lal had been killed by a gun, we knew there had to be a bullet also. We had to recover the bullet also. Since the bullet was not recovered from the body, it had to be at the scene of murder. Since we already knew that Mewa Lal had been killed in his own house, we decided to search his house for the bullet. After a thorough search, we found it buried in a wooden door. The bullet had apparently pierced Mewa Lal's head and had lodged in the door opposite to where Mewa Lal was standing.

The story was beginning to become clearer to us now. The only other enemy of Mewa Lal was Kaushik. He had to recover his money from him. Till now, he was not under suspicion at all. But now the police decided to question him too. He seemed nervous from the very start. The police got suspicious and decided to interrogate him in more detail. He was told that Mewa Lal had been killed by a gun, and the police had come to know about it. Kaushik had a licensed revolver. We recovered that revolver. Test fires from that revolver showed that the bullet which was recovered from Mewa Lal's house had indeed been shot from that revolver only. Now Kaushik broke down, and he narrated the whole story to the police. He had gone to Mewa Lal's house on the night of 21 August to recover his money. Mewa Lal once again asked for some more time. This led them to a quarrel. In a sharp fit of anger, Kaushik drew his revolver and shot at Mewa Lal. This killed Mewa Lal instantly. Kaushik had never intended to kill Mewa Lal, but now he had to do something fast. He dumped the body to the outskirts of the city in his jeep. Later, when he heard that the police suspicion had fallen on Chandran, he was too happy. As for Chandran, while he was rushing to Mewa Lal's house in anger, he met one of his friends Raju, who asked what the matter was. When he narrated the whole story to his friend, he discouraged Chandran to resort to violence. He convinced Chandran that he should talk to Jaya with love, and she should understand. Any way Raju was somehow able to convince Chandran, that violence does not solve anything. This seemed to satisfy Chandran somewhat, and he returned home, apparently in peace. Had he gone to Mewa Lal's house, perhaps he would have caught Kaushik stashing away Mewa Lal's body in his jeep.

The court admitted my scientific evidence, and convicted Kaushik to life imprisonment. Thus a thorough autopsy helped nab the correct criminal. What on the face of it seemed to be the handiwork of Chandran, turned out to be the deed of Kaushik. This was yet another victory of Forensic Medicine.

(To protect the identity of individuals, the names of persons and places, and the dates have been changed)