National Forensic Doctor-Chapter 868 - 806: The Killers

Jiang Yuan was meticulous when he selected cases, and Li Jikuan rushed back again, his slender legs pumping.

"There’s actually a cripple—no, I should say a person with a mobility impairment," Li Jikuan finished saying before waving his hand dismissively, "But that’s not important. The main thing is that this guy... this person took off before finishing his job. The foreman thought he had gone to work elsewhere. And, he matches the ethnicity, height, and he’s even left-handed!"

Li Jikuan grew more excited as he spoke, mainly because everything was falling into place so smoothly. During his time as a police officer, he had seen many murder cases, but just as this one was looking to become a major headache, it suddenly shifted to an investigative breakthrough.

Jiang Yuan smiled and said, "So the ethnicity matches, huh? However, looking at his method of stabbing thrice, a mere urban collector wouldn’t be so decisive, nor so easily counterattacked. He must have used quite a good knife, probably one he regularly uses—it’s very sharp. There’s a cut that scraped right along the bone, leaving a long groove..."

Li Jikuan quickly grabbed pen and paper from nearby and hurriedly took notes.

Once Jiang Yuan finished speaking, Li Jikuan offered a sheepish grin and said, "We haven’t caught the person yet, nor seen the murder weapon. The suspect fled right after the stabbing... But no worries, we’ve pinpointed his location and have already sent someone to capture him."

"Did he run off with his cellphone?" Liu Jinghui asked curiously.

"No, he probably snapped his SIM card. He’s been administratively punished before, spent 15 days detained. He must have picked up a few tricks," Li Jikuan remarked with a chuckle, "Not very sophisticated though; he called his wife yesterday. Her phone only receives verification codes, local delivery calls, and calls from three or four family members. One look and we pinpointed it."

Li Jikuan’s tone was light, his face illuminated by a genuine smile.

He was truly delighted, unable to hide it even if he wanted to.

Lei Xin felt a palpable sense of discomfort.

What was this? It seemed like hiring an expensive, combined harvester, paying the deposit and rental, shipping it over on a large trailer, providing hospitality, and then, when it had reaped what would typically take months to harvest by noon, a neighbor says, "Can I borrow this machine for a bit?"

Li Jikuan resembled such a neighbor.

Watching him, Lei Xin knew he wouldn’t share the cost for the harvester’s fuel, let alone the rental and transportation fees. The more he watched, the itchier his teeth felt.

"Let’s take this case," Jiang Yuan decided.

"Okay, okay," Lei Xin immediately flashed a charming smile. His two-day stubble was a bit overgrown but did not detract from his winsome smile.

Lei Xin agreed, then looked at the case, his expression turning serious.

"The Xushuang Mingyuan Family Annihilation Case." Lei Xin saw an image on Jiang Yuan’s screen—a photo of a male victim’s skull. In the picture, the victim’s head had become somewhat decomposed like a dry corpse, and there were deep and varying bloodstains.

Lei Xin didn’t need to read the text; he immediately knew the case Jiang Yuan had chosen.

This case was emblematic of the downhill safety trend in Qinghe City this year. A family of three, living in the upscale community of Xushuang Mingyuan, had been exterminated in their home by an intruder. The deaths were gruesome, the perpetrator showed significant anti-investigative skills, which triggered oversight by both the city and provincial departments.

Even now, the "705 Special Case Group" wasn’t disbanded, with nearly ten detectives working tirelessly day and night. The case had been prodded in several directions but hadn’t developed further.

"Have you found any breakthrough in this case?" Lei Xin asked hopefully. He knew Jiang Yuan wouldn’t choose this case lightly; selecting a 705 case implied it held a significant advantage among the rest, and Lei Xin naturally wanted to know what Jiang Yuan saw that was different.

Jiang Yuan didn’t answer immediately but started by arranging photos of the several victims in sequence on the desktop.

The images displayed were of the victims’ heads; three victims, two adults and an 11-year-old girl, all had their hair shaved off to reveal partially rotted scalps and chaotically hacked wounds. In some places, stark white bones were exposed. freёwebnoѵel.com

Liu Jinghui and others naturally gathered around. Though not forensic doctors, they were accustomed to viewing photos of corpses and wounds—they understoodly up to a certain extent, much like the difference between an antique hobbyist and a national archaeological team.

"The brains of both spouses were chopped over a dozen times, and the child was also hacked several times. I remember this case, wasn’t Song assigned by the province to follow up? In the end, it remained unsolved?" Liu Jinghui had been traveling with Jiang Yuan across Shannan Province and had some understanding, though not comprehensively clear, of the local circumstances.

Lei Xin nodded gravely and said, "At the beginning, this case was considered as a burglary gone wrong, turned into a break-in and murder. Later, we also considered the possibility of a vengeance killing, but we didn’t follow the clues thoroughly..."

Lei Xin continued, "The neighborhood has four gates, all monitored, but the walls are very low, especially the one facing the river. During the dry season, it’s actually possible to walk right up. We suspect that the murderer used this way to enter and exit, but we haven’t found any matching footprints or shoe prints."

Lei Xin added, "A key issue is the timing. After exterminating this family, the murderer pilfered some of their belongings—likely wearing gloves and shoe covers. Afterward, he dumped a large amount of salt, which was stored in the house, onto the bodies, and finally poured all the cleaning agents in the kitchen and bathroom like detergent and Mr. Muscle onto the floor, which made it a long time before the bodies were discovered."

Lei Xin further explained, "The final discovery was made because the child hadn’t attended school for several days and the teacher couldn’t reach the parents, leading to a police alert. The police opened the door the following day. By that time, the victims had been dead for five days, but the smell at the scene wasn’t very strong... The murderer had ventilated the place by opening windows and also turned on the range hood..."

Liu Jinghui pulled out his notebook, noted down several points, and after Lei Xin finished, he couldn’t help but say, "This case sounded complex when I heard about it, but I didn’t expect it to be this complicated. The murderers seem to indeed have some criminal experience..."

"There aren’t several murderers," Jiang Yuan interrupted Liu Jinghui to prevent him from continuing down the wrong analytical path and explained, "The main oversight in this case lies here; there’s likely only one murderer."

"Only one? But... the three victims at the scene were killed by three different weapons," Lei Xin didn’t want to doubt Jiang Yuan, but this detail was fundamental to the case.

If there were three perpetrators, it indicates a gang crime, which is completely different in execution, methods, and logic from a solitary perpetrator.

For example, gang crimes are much more likely to leak information. Thus, detectives from the Qianjin District Bureau put considerable effort into this aspect but came up empty-handed. Moreover, gang crimes often involve repeat offenders, which is also a direction for investigation. Thirdly, checking surveillance footage and looking for suspects differ significantly between group and individual crimes.

Fourth, the motives for gang crimes tend to be more rational and profit-driven, requiring a shared criminal basis.

Therefore the investigation stage, particularly in setting the direction of the inquiry, differs significantly between gang and lone operations.

"This is indeed quite challenging," Jiang Yuan interjected, pointing to a photo of the victims’ injuries. "I’ve looked at this photo several times, and it was only after repeated viewings that I noticed this point. The bodies were decomposed and had been salted, and the depth of the wounds on the head was also not significant... In short, in my assessment, there’s only one murderer, not the three as you speculated."

Jiang Yuan had access to Level 6 tool mark detection capabilities, which typically serve to simplify complex problems.

However, this time, whether by conscious effort or sheer coincidence, the murderer created a scene that, at the very least, suggested the need for a Level 4, perhaps even a Level 5 analysis to diagnose the tool marks.

Of course, this did not mean the murderer’s criminal abilities reached Level 5; the difficulty of setting the puzzle was clearly less than solving it.

Despite this, the specifics of this case were quite extraordinary.

Nevertheless, Jiang Yuan believed that once this distinctive point was breached, the investigation’s progress could significantly accelerate.

Jiang Yuan took one photo of each of the three victims and said, "The murderer used the same weapon. It appears to have been a machete with a thick back."

Jiang Yuan demonstrated with his hands and continued, "The quality of the knife wasn’t good. Initially, the murderer used the sharp edge of the knife to attack the male victim, the family’s head, striking multiple times and even hitting the wall twice, which resulted in the blade getting nicked. Thus, the marks on the male victim varied between sharp and nicked states."

Jiang Yuan added, "At that point, either the murderer didn’t realize or couldn’t switch weapons and used the damaged knife on the female victim. She tried to block the machete with her hands but was ultimately cut down. Then, the blade broke."

Jiang Yuan specifically marked the breakage point on the blade, then on the female victim’s skull where the break occurred.

This was a very challenging aspect for a regular forensic doctor.

Distinguishing a broken, nicked blade from an intact one isn’t trivial.

Forensic doctors from Qinghe City, even those supported by the provincial office, likely became thoroughly confounded here.

Jiang Yuan simply stated, "The murderer’s strength was substantial, as even the damaged blade inflicted severe injuries, ultimately killing the third victim, an 11-year-old girl."

Lei Xin understood and slapped his thigh, "No wonder the murderer used such force when attacking the young girl. We thought it was done by different people, but in fact, because the blade had broken, he subconsciously applied more force!"