skinnin' babies

Okay, so that's a little offputting. But the trick is that children, as you may or may not have noticed, are... well... squishy. So when they get hit really hard, it doesn't always leave a bruise you can see on the outside, because the skin stretches and the little capilaries in the skin don't rupture, but there can be very severe injuries underneath the skin, in the fat, in the muscles, and down deeper in the internal organs. So when you do a case in which the child may have been beated to death, you have to, well, carefully flay the skin off in order to see underneath. (You do it so that it fits back on nicely and you close the baby back up at the end of the case so that it looks the same as any other autopsy but still...)

So there you are, carefully, thoughtfully, lovingly skinning a baby...