The Serial Number in the Bone

They pull a body from the river. No face. No hands. No way to know who

it was. Most cases die there, no prints, no photo, no identity.

But one detective asked, “What’s left when everything’s been taken away?”

At autopsy, tiny details stood out, a healed rib, an old surgical

scar, and traces of a rare drug. Then came the discovery. Inside the bone,

a metal plate. Stamped with a serial number smaller than a grain of sand. That number led

to a hospital… and the hospital led to a name. The killer erased the outside,

but the truth was still inside. So when a body has no face and no fingerprints… does it ever really