The mayor, a former troop commander, orders Father Carmen Amador—who studied medicine at Salamanca but never completed it—to perform an autopsy on Santiago Nasar because Dr. Dionisio Iguarán is absent. The body, displayed on an iron cot in the living‑room, is surrounded by curious townspeople, dogs, and frantic servants; Divina Flor tries to fend off the dogs with a stick, and Plácida Linero eventually has the dogs locked away, only for them to escape later. Father Amador, assisted by the town’s druggist, a first‑year medical student, and a few craftsmen’s tools, dissects the corpse in a public school. He records seven fatal wounds—deep cuts to the liver, stomach, pancreas, colon, small intestine, kidney, lungs, and various minor cuts—finds a gold medal swallowed at age four, notes a hypertrophic liver and superior intelligence, and concludes that massive hemorrhage caused death. He also curses the intestines and discards them. The autopsy report is filed as evidence.

Meanwhile, the Vicario twins languish in a cramped cell built by Colonel Don Lázaro Aponte. They are haunted by the scent of Santiago’s corpse, unable to sleep, and physically deteriorate: Pedro suffers severe abdominal pain, dehydration, and believes he is being poisoned; Pablo experiences diarrhea that is cured by a concoction of passion‑flower and absinthe given by the centenarian matriarch Su‑sana Abdala. Their complaints lead the mayor to move them under special guard to the house, then eventually to the panoptic prison in Riohacha. The twins’ mental torment includes endless washing of blood from their bodies and an obsession with the “smell” that will not leave them.

The narrative then shifts to describe the Arab immigrant community in the town—peaceful, Catholic, trading cloth and trinkets—and notes that they show no desire for revenge. Colonel Aponte investigates their homes and finds only mourning.

Poncio Vicario, the twins’ father, dies shortly after, “carried away by moral pain.” Years later, Pablo Vicario learns the goldsmith trade and becomes an elegant jeweler; Pedro re‑enlists, earns sergeant rank, and vanished on a patrol in guerrilla territory.

Bayardo San Roman, the groom whose marriage to Angela Vicario set the tragedy in motion, is later discovered unconscious on a farm weeks after the murder, suffering from severe alcohol intoxication. He recovers, is expelled from the house, and later, after an eclipse, is seen by the widower Xius and the women of his family mourning his misfortune. General Petronio San Roman, Bayardo’s father, is informed of the episode but does not intervene personally.

The chapter concludes with an extensive retrospective on Angela Vicario’s later life. She remains unmarried, lives alone, and for decades writes endless letters—first romantic, then increasingly desperate—to an unnamed recipient, presumably Bayardo. She never receives a reply, continues embroidering, and becomes obsessed with his memory, recounting her suffering and the symbolic “letters of an abandoned wife.”