CNA Lifestyle visits the mortuary to find out what forensic pathologists like Dr Lee Chin Thye do – and is it anything like true crime TV shows.
There’s no doubt that the true crime genre is enjoying a resurgence of late. Chances are, you've got hit docuseries such as Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, The Serpent, and The Sons Of Sam: A Descent Into Darkness all lined up for a weekend of macabre streaming pleasure on your TV or mobile devices.
Metal sinks, weighing scales, white cutting boards and plastic bag-lined bins. It smells sterilised but without the heavy after-odour of disinfectants. And what of the ubiquitous wall of metal doors that open to drawers containing corpses? Think cold rooms instead – walk-in refrigerators that don’t look very different from spacious cargo lifts.
Interestingly, not every corpse that comes through those metal doors undergoes a post-mortem. After the requisite documentation, such as general photography of the body and measuring its weight and height, a CT scan is first performed before any dissection, if at all. And no, there isn’t an organ that takes a longer time to remove than the others, according to him. “The difficult cases to dissect would be those where the normal anatomy may have been altered. For instance, a complex surgery had been done.
As for the peculiar colour, that comes from a pink dye that is used to stain the specimens and make them visible. Finally, the slices are sandwiched between pieces of glass and ready for examination under the microscope.Dr Lee held up a slide to the light. It contained a specimen shaped like a human heart but smaller than a walnut. Isn’t the average human heart the size of a fist? “It belonged to a baby,” he said.
He recounted that the CT scanner was used to identify any bone or teeth in the debris but there weren’t any such identifiable remains.The breakthrough was when one of the staff identified an object just over 1cm wide as part of a bra. “It subsequently turned out to be a bra hook,” he said. “And the forensic science lab matched that to some of the clothing that was found in the victim’s house. That gave us hope that there could be human remains and it placed somebody who was female at the scene.
Another faux pas, according to him, is that forensic pathologists are often shown analysing the collected evidence. “You may have seen on TV that the character who collects the blood or DNA from the body is the same one who puts it into a machine for the test results. I don’t perform toxicology analysis. Instead, the samples are sent to a specialised lab and the results take about a day.”
So, no late nights and spooky encounters then? “I can’t say I have any personally,” he said with a chuckle. “And I haven’t heard from my staff either. But I believe the mortuary is the last place for spirits to haunt; more likely for them to be found at the scene of death, don’t you think?”Now, surely, there must be a docuseries or movie that best depicts his profession? “I don’t really want to pick one,” said Dr Lee. “But I will tell you the one I like the most: CSI Miami.
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