National Forensic Doctor-Chapter 898 - 836 Truly Deserving to Die

Click, click, click.

The officer gripping Badawi’s arm squinted his eyes into a slit, dizzy from the camera flash.

Their arrest of Badawi hadn’t been ostentatious; on the contrary, they tried to be as discreet as possible. However, Badawi was a public figure, and he was participating in a golf tournament. The police couldn’t wait until the end of the game, as there would be too many variables. Ni Cha himself wasn’t even confident in keeping the secret that long.

By the time Badawi was brought to the police station, there were already dozens of reporters outside.

The son-in-law of the late Member of Parliament was now taken back to the police station, and there were rumors that the "Member of Parliament Renne drowning case" had been reopened. The various connections easily led to a series of speculations, and spawned a large amount of viewership and readership.

As for where the "rumors" came from, that goes without saying.

"Captain Jiang, the suspect has been taken to the interrogation room, and he’s requesting a lawyer. Besides that, he hasn’t said a word," Ni Cha said solemnly, but not anxiously. This was an anticipated situation.

Under the Europe and America style judicial system, remaining silent is almost the option every suspect chooses. The difference lies in whether some people actually have a lawyer, while others not only lack legal help but can’t even afford a lawyer, which means a long and meaningless wait in the interrogation room.

Badawi certainly had a lawyer, so all he needed to do was to remain silent and wait for his lawyer to act.

In this model, wealthy crime suspects initially have an advantage during interrogations.

However, Ni Cha found Badawi’s level of resistance to be somewhat unusual. Shouldn’t a normal person’s first reaction be to challenge the police with "why are you arresting me?"

But questioning means talking, and dialogue could be used by the police, so Badawi’s behavior seemed more like it was premeditated and practiced.

Of course, this alone couldn’t be considered evidence, not even speculation. It’s no big deal for wealthy people to receive interrogation training; it’s even less so if Badawi was prepared.

Nevertheless, Ni Cha’s emotions gradually stabilized.

"Theoretically, we can now collect various biological features from Badawi," Ni Cha looked expectantly at Jiang Yuan.

"For now, footprints are what we can use, but they might not hold up as evidence in court," Jiang Yuan paused before continuing, "Let’s leave direct evidence aside for the moment. I think we can take a look at Badawi’s previous statements. If he is the murderer, then there would be issues with his past statements."

Since the Member of Parliament Renne’s death case was a major one, despite the chaos, the police had recorded statements from everyone.

Ni Cha slapped his thigh: "I also think this could be a breakthrough."

Now, the new evidence pointed to Badawi; revisiting the previous statements, if there are discrepancies, they could be thoroughly investigated.

Zhong Renlong fetched Badawi’s statement and presented it for everyone to assess.

As Jiang Yuan had read before, Badawi stated that in the latter half of the party, he was drinking whiskey in the room with his friend Sulaiman.

Without waiting for Ni Cha to say more, someone immediately pulled up Sulaiman’s statement, printed it, and distributed it to everyone.

Meanwhile, other officers started searching the surveillance video for Sulaiman.

Sulaiman’s account was similar to Badawi’s, and he also appeared very cautious on the surveillance. However, according to the timeline, in the latter half of the party, Sulaiman was spotted several times on the other end of the hall.

In other words, it was at least impossible for Sulaiman himself to be with Badawi the entire time, and his testimony was obviously a lie.

"Such an obvious issue, how come it wasn’t discovered before? Bring Sulaiman back!" Ni Cha feigned anger.

Only the media really treated the "Member of Parliament Renne drowning case" like the Kennedy assassination case, taking it seriously but not to the extent of meticulously investigating everyone’s timeline. If the son-in-law Badawi was somewhat under scrutiny, Sulaiman was completely off the police’s radar. He was just one of the guests attending the party and was quite distant from Member of Parliament Renne.

It was now 5 pm.

Hardworking media reporters had no intention of knocking off; instead, their numbers only grew. Some TV station reporters even appeared with their broadcast vans, starting live coverage on the scene.

Sulaiman sat in the back seat of the car, flanked by two police officers. The anger in his eyes dissipated gradually with the sound of reporters banging on the police car windows.

"Why exactly are you arresting me?" Sulaiman asked for the nth time. His reaction was typical for a person under arrest, but it also, from another angle, illustrated how his status as a fallen aristocrat had become no different from that of an ordinary citizen.

The officer sitting next to him looked at him with eyes that seemed to gaze upon a commoner, saying nothing.

By the time Sulaiman was brought into the interrogation room, Ni Cha and the others had sorted through most of the video footage involving Sulaiman.

Those accustomed to investigating individuals’ movements through video surveillance know well that tracking the same target through multiple cameras can be quite a mentally taxing task.

People under surveillance are already somewhat distorted, and it’s manageable if you are familiar with the subject. But if the subject is new, and the video is played too fast, it’s very easy to overlook them.

Moreover, surveillance footage is not always continuous. Controlling the transition from one point to another isn’t that easy either.

Operating a computer is one thing; dealing with real-life video footage is another. Many surveillance systems are not connected to the internet—Ningtai County has spent the budget of several districts in succession to connect the video surveillance in a brief period, and new problems will continue to emerge.

The surveillance inside and outside the Lunen household obviously had worse conditions. The original setup was not built all at once, and added surveillance equipment was often neither standardized nor interconnected. You have to retrieve them separately and adjust the format for use.

As for tracking the movement of people between points, problems often arise. For instance, what should be a 30-second walk from one point to another can become baffling if the subject stops to smoke a cigarette in the middle.

Investigating Sulaiman naturally posed various problems, but with enough people watching the surveillance, smoking a few cigarettes wouldn’t help. This is one of the advantages proposed by the Cold Case Squad. Because the case is important enough, there are sufficient resources, and that’s how leads become evidence. Otherwise, allocating just a group of four or five officers to watch the footage, make arrests, drive, and write reports, it wouldn’t just be difficult to conduct a thorough investigation, but even to clear up a single direction would be very challenging.

"This guy must have been cheating," a cop cursed fiercely after watching less than half an hour of footage.

Ni Cha immediately came over and saw, from a parking lot camera angle, Sulaiman kissing a woman in a yellow garment before each walking to their respective cars.

The surveillance angle was from afar, and from this video alone, their faces weren’t clear, but with other videos as corroboration, the man could be confirmed as Sulaiman.

"This guy really deserves to die," Ni Cha understood the situation at a glance and asked, "Do we know who the woman is? Are we certain?"

"We’re checking backward; she’s probably someone’s wife too," replied the officer.

Ni Cha sighed, "Sulaiman is married, right?"

"Yeah, his partner’s family is quite wealthy, wealthier than us at least," the officer said enviously, "and she’s pretty too. This guy really deserves to die for messing up our case."

"I saw Sulaiman on the third floor earlier; the third floor is all bedrooms, right?" another officer mentioned.

"Check and see if this woman has appeared on the third floor," Ni Cha paused before continuing, "Get familiar with the guest list, find a clear frontal photo to compare. A woman that beautiful, how can we not remember? Once we confirm her identity, bring her in. He really deserves to die!"