The first thing that struck me was the intense crimson, soaking into the dishevelled hijab, like red wine spilt over a crisp white table cloth. The second was the awkward way in which the body lay, as though she had been thrown carelessly into the ditch, breaking bones and causing limbs to jut from her torso in unnatural directions. She was freshly dead. This final moment in her life captured; with more resonance than any photographer could fashion, by the early stages of rigor mortis.

I looked around; elsewhere in the forest UN officials were searching the hills surrounding Sarajevo, looking for evidence of wartime atrocities. Atrocities disregarded by the Western world as another European squabble. But she was alone. Unlike so many others, she was not another anonymous victim in a mass grave; their faces and bodies charred beyond recognition. In the time that I had been there, I had seen things that were to me unfathomable in my life in England. As a forensic psychologist I helped the UN investigate the war crimes still unfolding as the Serb/Bosnian conflict continued. Cautiously stepping a little closer to the corpse; the frost crackled under my boots. Her hijab had been pulled out of place, revealing dark locks of hair that fell wildly from her crown, hiding her beaten face. Crouching now, I examined her more closely; large bruises cast purple shadows on her olive skin and there were rope marks visible around her throat and wrists. Her clothes, though torn and displaced, were present and there were no obvious signs of rape or sexual assault.  

Though alone, she was not unique. The rope marks and bruises were similar to those on the bodies of three other women found in the four months I had now been there. Her black jumper appeared wet and without thinking of the possible implications, I reached down and touched it. It was still slightly damp, kept from drying by the heavy fog that drenched the sodden atmosphere. Looking at my fingers as I withdrew them, they were coated in a scarlet film, casting yet another stark contrast against my extremely fair skin. Lifting her jumper, I unwittingly revealed an elaborate mess of slashes. I was horrified by the depth and obvious violence of these wounds. Her intestines were eviscerated, exploding from the deepest laceration; twisting and bulging like a fleshy python. Feeling the bile rise in my throat I got up clumsily and walked away; passed by two men carrying a tarp.

Once more in the back of the truck I felt a little safer. All of the dead girls had been found in very remote locations, though the dumpsites seemed to offer no pattern. They were all Bosnian Muslims and all in their late teens, early twenties. Each had been strangled. Holding the fragmented puzzle pieces in my mind, I tried to link them together. Arduously recalling cases I had worked on in London for reference. The attacks appeared to be opportunistic and the attacker or attackers were most probably adult males. Given the racial specificity of the victims, it seemed to me that the attacks were likely to have been orchestrated by Serbs, or Serbian sympathizers. The hum of the trucks engine started and I closed my eyes; willing the sound to drown out my thoughts. Despite my best intentions I was unsuccessful. Like still frame photography the images flashed across my tightly shut eyelids. The longer I allowed the image to hover, the more the colours developed. The blood was always the first to gain its colour; rich velvet gently framing their faces or staining split lips and scratched throats. 

I thought of the three other dead girls. I could see their twisted bodies in situ, each one stored in the archive of my memory. The first; bloated and green, had been found half submerged, caught under a log in the Miljacka River which runs through the capitol.

The second on a disused farm long since abandoned. The walls of the barn where she was slain were still decorated with the archaic farm machinery of Tito’s reign and the fall of Yugoslav communism. The third and up until today final body to be found, was dumped along the railway line, close to the edge of the city. She too had the trademark ligature marks, but the ties around her wrists were still in place and the bruises that decorated her fractured body made it apparent that she had been stoned almost to death where she lay, before being strangled. The partial disembowelment of our latest victim seemed to suggest a trend towards increasingly violent methods of murder.

As the truck laboured down the winding road, I felt the eyes of the Serbian militia inhabiting the hills, fall behind. They hid in the high alpine regions; using highly advanced sniper riffles, supplied by the Russian army, to kill civilians as they queued in bread lines. Horror stories about the use of such guerilla tactics were quickly becoming folklore. I knew already it would be an impossible task to identify and apprehend the murderer. Forensic equipment was completely unavailable and any psychological profile I could compile would be inherently flawed, due to the extraordinary circumstances the killer and his victims lived in. In any case each of the dead girls found so far, had been buried within a couple of days of being discovered. The UN weren’t interested in filling their makeshift morgues with the corpses of individual victims of a rogue killer. The morgues were reserved for the victims of genocide, to be used as evidence of the ethnic cleansing of Bosnians by the Serbs. War offered the perfect opportunity for someone to kill and maim without any repercussions.

Vlado Gotovač:
Našto pravda je tih morate predstaviti istina se 

When justice is silent, you must represent the truth yourself.