National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 1021 - 955: Dawn_3

Chapter 1021: Chapter 955: Dawn_3

"Indeed," Liu Jinghui picked up his cigar again and puffed away for a while: "Actually, no matter which conjecture it is, if the door lock is believed to be opened in an abnormal manner, then it can be interpreted as the work of someone who is not an acquaintance. This could also explain why the surviving little boy said there were two culprits, it’s quite common for burglary or robbery involving a break-in to be committed by multiple people... umm..."

Listening attentively, Jiang Yuan turned to Liu Jinghui: "Did you think of something?"

"Thieves working in groups to commit burglaries or robberies may not necessarily be an organized gang, but they are usually experienced. Especially those with the skill to pick locks technically, it is improbable for them to just do one job and then give it up. Even if they’ve killed someone, could they possibly be using a new invention for the crime for the first time and then just abandon it? Thieves don’t have that kind of self-control," Liu Jinghui shook his head. Being a thief is an addictive occupation, once many commit to it, they hardly ever give it up, they are like evergreens in the criminal ecosystem.

As Liu Jinghui pondered, he gave an apologetic smile to Jiang Yuan and said, "I think we might put aside the idea of technical lock-picking for now."

"Alright," Jiang Yuan agreed readily.

"Speaking of which, I’ve got an idea," Liu Jinghui pulled over a whiteboard and said, "If the murderer had duplicates of the key made... I know, you just mentioned that a new key would not have produced so many scratches, but is it possible that the murderer attempted multiple times with different keys... no, he must’ve made multiple attempts, trying once, if it didn’t open, either try again or duplicate another key, then test it?"

Jiang Yuan’s eyes lit up: "Let me have a look."

With that, Jiang Yuan immediately went to retrieve the disassembled lock and started examining the lock cylinder under a magnifying glass.

The magnification of the magnifying glass wasn’t high, which caused Jiang Yuan to frown and shout, "Open the windows, all of them; let’s clear out the smoke."

The heavy smoke from the cigar was, at least in Jiang Yuan’s perception, affecting the observation.

The windows of the conference room had already been wide open, and the exhaust fans were working as hard as they could. Liu Jinghui had someone come in with a fan or some useless papers to vigorously fan away the smoke and threw the two cigars out the door.

After the smoke cleared, Jiang Yuan also looked up: "Very likely, very likely! That’s a good hypothesis."

"Can this all be confirmed?" Liu Jinghui had wondered but hadn’t thought it could be technically proven. He usually relied on bringing people in for interrogation.

Jiang Yuan nodded energetically: "The scratches inside the lock, they show a pattern of abrasion, polishing; abrasion, polishing, then again abrasion and polishing in a repeated cycle, which is why they look so peculiar. If someone was using a newly duplicated key to open the lock, no matter if they managed to open it or not, it would cause significant abrasions inside, but the continuous process of attempting to unlock it would partly polish these abrasions..."

Jiang Yuan: "The sizes of the keys the murderer tried to duplicate were likely inconsistent, some might be a bit longer or larger than the original key, which would create deeper scratches. The traces inside the lock cylinder do not match the traces of a newly duplicated key opening the lock just once, and they aren’t quite consistent with being opened a few times either, but they do fit with someone attempting to open it multiple times, irregularly. This is somewhat similar to a forensic doctor’s probing wounds, indicating the criminal attempted multiple trial runs before committing the crime. This probing attempt could have lasted from one to two months, maybe even three months."

Liu Jinghui became excited: "If that’s the case, then the culprit might not be a complete stranger. The victim’s family didn’t have much money and no valuable goods were missing. If the culprit was a stranger, there’d be no need to fixate on their house. This suggests the culprit probably had some way of accessing the victim’s keys, then made a duplicate and kept trying?"

"Very likely," Jiang Yuan took another look through the magnifying glass, nodding non-stop: "First, a key was made, which failed to open the lock, so he took it back for filing, then came back to try again, and when that didn’t work, returned for more filing, this would also explain the changing size of the key, the file made the key slightly smaller, reducing the roughness, but the length remained essentially the same!"

"Someone who knows the family... or maybe not too well-known, but had access to their keys," Liu Jinghui nodded incessantly: "I’ll make a list!"