That night, the investigator from Semarang Police Department arrived at the mortuary. They delivered a human remain. They said, the deceased was found in an abandoned place. A body bag was put on the autopsy table. When we opened it, I couldn't help but took few deep breaths. The deceased was a very young girl, probably around her twenties, she had long straight hair, caramel-coloured skin and wearing a pair of pajamas. When we moved her from the bag, I could see bruises and abrasion wounds on her neck. Some of the wounds were crescent-shaped - one of the special characteristics of strangulation marks.
"We couldn't find any ID yet.", said one of the investigator, "There weren't any witnesses either."
"Well, the area where we found her was kind of vulnerable place.", another investigator said, "It was dark, far from crowded place."
I sighed. I looked at the deceased contorted face. She was obviously in a lot of pain and fear before her death. When we started the outer examination, besides the obvious wounds on her neck we also found signs of sexual assault. We cut some of her nails and took swabs from the genitalia area for DNA examination. As for the autopsy, we needed to find her identity so we could tell her family first.
I didn't know why, but I wanted the case to be solved so bad. Perhaps I made a mistake by feeling sympathetic towards the deceased. What happened to her was tragic. She was probably sexually assaulted and then strangled to death. I couldn't imagine the pain and the horror she felt seconds before she died. That was my mistake, I couldn't think objectively. I forgot that as forensic pathologist, we also got our limits in order to involved in a case.
For the past few days, I kept waiting for the news from the investigator. They haven't found her identity yet. Even after the autopsy finally conducted without any notification for the family of the deceased, I still didn't hear about her identity. During the autopsy, we found the thyroid and cricoid bone badly broken. Her stomach were empty. There were obvious signs of asphyxia such as darker and aqueous blood, petechiae all over some organs such as lungs and heart. We found small amount of urine in her bladder. It was negative for alcohol and other illegal drug test. The cause of death were blunt force injury on the neck, causing a blockade of airway passage that causes asphyxia.
The swab from the vaginal area showed spermatozoa and positive for PSA. That made me even more upset. She was raped and killed. I couldn't just let the perpetrator get away with it, could I? I thought that I needed to do something.
So for few days afterwards, I became obsessed with that case. I searched for announcements on missing person on internet. Even those outside Java island. I became frustrated when I couldn't find any missing person announcement with similar characteristics. It lasted for two months and I still did not find any clue let alone a result. According to the rule, the decased would be burried in cemetery for the unidentified.
Few days before the day of the burial, my husband (At that time, my fiance) visited his mother in Yogyakarta so I took the usual morning travel to meet him there. I talked to him about the case before.
"So there's still no clue, huh?" he asked.
"Yes. I didn't know where I went wrong!" I sighed in frustration, "I tried evey damn thing to find her and..."
"That's where you went wrong.", he interrupted.
"What do you mean?"
"You let your emotion blinded you. I don't know why you became so obsessed with this case, but you shouldn't be. Listen, we humans have our limits ... if we already tried anything within our limits and our competency but we didn't have the result the way we wanted it ... that's life! Accept it."
"We cannot save the whole world.", he told me, "So for the sake of your own, just let it go."
I couldn't argue back. He was right. Perhaps at some point, my emotion made me careless as well as arrogant. I think with the science I studied, I could save the whole world. I became frustrated, because I forgot that science was merely human's way to understand God's creation - despite the fact that some of those who study science might not have faith in Him.
At some point, I remember the story of The Prophet Khidr and Moses my husband once told me. The story told how Prophet Moses was impatient when he was a lot of unjust deeds during his journey with Prophet Khidr. In the end, Prophet Khidr showed Prophet Moses that the unjust deeds were actually done under divine guidance of Allah SWT.
Such is the interpretation of those things over which thou wast unable to hold patience.
With that, I finally tried to let go. As human, we have our limits. We were nothing but a speck of dust. If we couldn't understand something... it means that we might not understand it just yet, or we won't understand it.
During the day of the burial, I sent Al-Fatihah for the decased before the ambulance arrived. It was my second cold case. I probably would face another cold cased in the future ... but hopefully I could handle it wiser than I did before.
Because in the end, we were only humans.
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