Case File #4

This is #4 in the series of fantasy murder modus operandi.

An occupant at the KTT (Kim Tang Tang) Hotel, a seedy love hotel, complained to the hotel staff about the clog in the bathtub. Upon investigation, it appears that too much hair has been stuck at that outlet point. Using a suction pump, the staff attempts to clear the clog and instead, a large clump of hair with the scalp attached refluxes up the pipe. Alerting the hotel manager, who called in a plumber, the bathtub piping was opened. More clumps of hair with the scalp attached were found lining the walls of the pipe. The hair appeared to be short and coarse, possibly belonging to a man. The hotel manager then called the police.

Using the phenolphthalein test, it is confirmed that there was a large amount of blood present in the bathtub and the bathroom floor. Swab samples were sent to the laboratory, which confirmed that the victim is a male. The DNA does not match any of the samples in any known systems.

The hotel manager did not have full records of occupancy in the hotel for they rented by hour blocks to local citizens; the roster at the front desk was mostly filled with pseudonyms. There are no surveillance cameras in the hotel either. Another crucial point is, where was the rest of the body? The police suspect that the body is already dismembered and dumped in various parts of Singapore. They searched the garbage and deserted areas around the hotel, but did not find any body parts. The police can only wait for more body parts to turn up before continuing the investigation.

So where is the rest of the body?

The biology laboratory recently acquired a new set of skeletons for display. Along with it were jars of preserved organs including the heart, liver and lungs. The lab manager claims that these came from a donated cadaver.

Meanwhile, 3 metal boxes filled with the rest of the flesh and organs were dropped off a cruise ship at midnight into the middle of the open sea en route to Penang, left to sink to the bottom of the sea. Before dropping them into the sea, the murderer punctured holes in the boxes so that they will never float due to increased in gas from decomposition, and the holes allowed small scavenger creatures to feed off the flesh.

How did the murderer kill the victim? The murderer lured the victim to the hotel, asking the victim to slip in through the back door so protect his anonymity. No one saw the victim entering the hotel, and no one at the hotel knew the murderer, who was well-disguised anyway. The murderer killed the victim by asphyxiating him with a pillow, the classic seedy hotel room murder. The murderer then dismembered the body with scapels, and with trained expertise, handled the bones and organs for preservation.