National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 1032 - 965: Kitchen Knife

Chapter 1032: Chapter 965: Kitchen Knife

"Yeah, why? This killer must be seriously ill."

Sitting in a small meeting room, several members of the special investigation team flipped through the updated information and re-examined the various photos provided by Jiang Yuan, before carelessly tossing aside the files bursting with maggots.

"Is the killer and the body disposer two different people? The killer commits the murder at the first crime scene, dumps the body at the second, and then someone at the second scene discovers the body. For some reason, perhaps they can’t report it to the police, so they dispose of it again?"

The speaker was Captain Ma Jiyang, a star officer of Changyang City Criminal Police Detachment, who had accumulated three second-class merits and investigated numerous significant cases. His experience was naturally vast, and upon seeing Jiang Yuan’s report, he immediately made a reasonable conjecture.

However, Jiang Yuan slowly shook his head, saying, "The time between the second and third body disposals is relatively short, and the environment is relatively better. Otherwise, if the body had been laid with many eggs during the second disposal, there would be a greater difference in fly species by the third disposal."

Ma Jiyang, focusing purely on the facts, pondered and said, "Let’s revise that. The killer acted alone, killing at the first scene and disposing the body at the second. For some reason, it was quickly moved to the third scene. A single person independently disposing of the body twice must have been quite exhausting. This could also explain why they disposed of the body by the riverbank instead of burying it."

This speculation was an amendment to the issue raised by Jiang Yuan just before.

Jiang Yuan neither agreed nor disagreed, indeed there was such a possibility.

With Ma Jiyang’s example before them, someone immediately proposed a new idea:

"It’s very likely that the environment at the second scene was too complex, or some incident occurred, prompting the immediate move to the third scene. The woven bags, those should have been obtained at the second scene, right? Could the remaining body parts still be at the second scene?"

"Relocating a body isn’t easy, especially so many body parts. If it’s a one-man job, it’s as much work as moving houses, plus having to clean up the second scene. Might as well have buried it."

"Burying isn’t necessarily more effective than dumping a body. I’m inclined towards functionality. There must have been an urgent reason to move from the first scene, possibly an uncontrollable public location or the victim’s place. The hasty move to the second location suggests it was a space where the killer felt safe, perhaps his own home. Then, he found a suitable place to dump the body at the same time as performing operations like dismemberment."

Hearing this, Jiang Yuan nodded in agreement and said: "Judging by the chop marks on the body, a Chinese kitchen knife likely was used for the dismemberment. Hence, the likelihood that the second scene was the killer dismembering the body at home is quite high."

In domestic forensic research, kitchen knives as murder weapons have been thoroughly studied. Firstly, kitchen knives are heavy-bladed tools but compared to similar heavy-bladed tools, knife wounds tend to be longer and deeper, especially when cutting across the neck, wrists, groin, or genitals, where Chinese kitchen knives often cause open and spindle-shaped injuries.

For novice forensic doctors, a more straightforward judgement can be that if the head and neck have slashing injuries with straight edges, neat wound margins, and sharp wound angles measuring about 5 to 7 centimeters in length, then it’s assumed to be done with a kitchen knife.

By comparison, an axe would leave rectangular wound angles if fully driven in, and triangular if only partially. Other common sharp tools have their own classifications and summaries.

This level of judgement doesn’t even require Jiang Yuan, as forensic reports had already laid out the findings long ago.

The team members nodded in agreement, noting that kitchen knives are easy to find, but someone who specifically sets out to dismember a body would not typically choose a kitchen knife. In other words, those who use kitchen knives for dismemberment likely have one readily at hand.

Ma Jiyang took another sip of tea and slowly said, "Using whatever is at hand again... This indicates he didn’t have a particularly thorough plan, but the job was still done quite well. Was it luck? Or... was there a previous record?"

This conjecture was a bit bold, but Jiang Yuan thought it over and tended to agree with Ma Jiyang’s point of view.

Although so far, only body parts have been found in this case, it cannot be denied that the killer’s actions were quite smooth.

The detectives checking surveillance footage haven’t found usable evidence, and the body parts were disposed of relatively cleanly. The chosen spots for body disposal were also quite fitting; if not for the rising water levels in the Tai River, the corpse’s condition would have only worsened and become harder to find after another ten days to half a month.

As is well known, murder is like managing a project, where smooth progress is rare, and difficulties are common, often insurmountable.

Therefore, when seeing a project advancing very smoothly, one should not assume that the project is easy but rather that the project manager is capable and experienced, and well-prepared.

Otherwise, any minor slip-up could lead to complete failure.

"It is indeed possible that it’s someone with a criminal record. Otherwise, transferring the body three times, an average person wouldn’t be able to do that." Jiang Yuan expressed his agreement.

A body not only starts to stink, its skin undergoes pigment changes and turns yellow. Livor mortis and rigor mortis can make it even more disgusting to deal with.

Anyone who can withstand disposing of a body once is desperate. To continuously dispose of it twice requires a strong mindset. Many murderers are found with bodies hidden in their own homes when caught.

It’s not that they cannot dismember bodies or dispose of them, it’s that the modern mind is too far removed from killing and corpses, such that many people can’t bear it, even if they are the killer themselves.

Therefore, the possibility of the culprit being an ex-offender is indeed high, given that they can kill, dismember, and dispose of the body twice without being discovered, under unprepared circumstances.

"We can start by visiting the ex-offenders in the nearby address, check their home situation. He dismembered the body so thoroughly, it’s likely that he lives alone. Even so, places like the bathroom are probably a mess, the drain might be clogged, and there could be splashes of bone fragments everywhere..." Ma Jiyang immediately came up with a plan.

Since they suspect the killer dismembered the body at home, they might as well go have a look.

Though the killer must have cleaned up, there might still be something to be found at the scene.

As for the workload, Ma Jiyang hasn’t taken it into consideration yet. The case has been at a standstill for so long; they should follow up on any clue they have immediately.

Jiang Yuan is not opposed to it, thinking along similar lines—what if?

What if the person being visited gives themselves away? What if the visiting officer discovers a clue? What if a neighbor of the visited person suddenly steps forward and says, "There’s been something strange happening around here recently..."?

"Okay, Captain Ma will follow up on this lead. Will your team be enough?" Unlike before, Jiang Yuan is now the person in charge and the commander of the special case group. He can make decisions on personnel assignments with a single word, and only needs to prepare a meeting record for Yu Wenshu afterwards.

Ma Jiyang thought for a moment and then agreed: "A small-scale check should be enough."

Ma Jiyang’s team has over thirty members. It’s definitely not enough for a large-scale investigation, and somewhat limited for extensive visits. This also indicates that Jiang Yuan is not very optimistic about this lead, hence the slightly smaller investment.

Of course, Jiang Yuan used a question, so if Ma Jiyang is willing to take on more responsibility, he can naturally ask for more manpower. The larger the responsibility, the greater the capacity...

However, Ma Jiyang did not put forward any request. Visiting ex-offenders has its advantages as well as drawbacks. At the very least, ex-offenders have much stronger counter-surveillance capabilities. Whether or not they can uncover anything often depends on the police officer’s skills, so simply increasing manpower doesn’t necessarily improve the chances of success.

"What about us?" Cao Chujun, the captain of the third team, asked. He was one of the earliest captains from the Changyang City Criminal Police Detachment to work with Jiang Yuan, but because he’s older, Yu Wenshu seldom assigned him to Jiang Yuan’s team.

Cao Chujun has been involved in the case from early on and has followed it all the way, and he does not want Jiang Yuan to be concerned about his age, so he took the initiative to ask.

Jiang Yuan thought for a while, then said, "I personally prefer to wait a bit. From the current evidence, I think we can adjust the time of death, which was previously 28 to 42 days. Taking the date the body was found as a basis, that would be 8 to 22 days before the body was discovered. In my judgment, 10 to 14 days should suffice."

Not just Cao Chujun, but all the detectives present were evidently intrigued.

If the window for time of death is this narrow, the difficulty of many investigations would decrease exponentially.

Of course, if the estimation of the time of death is wrong, then Jiang Yuan would definitely have to take the blame, not to mention the embarrassment of being wrong.

Everyone became serious. Cao Chujun said: "Actually, we don’t need to be strict to within 4 days. Since the case has been dragged on to this point, being accurate to within a week is already quite good."

"Many fly samples were found at the scene, and the variation in species actually aids in determining the time of death." Jiang Yuan paused here, then continued, "Continue other directions of the investigation. For the third team, I think we can try to search for a kitchen knife."

"A kitchen knife?"

Jiang Yuan nodded: "The killer used a kitchen knife to dismember the body, and did it so meticulously that the knife’s edge is likely rolled by now. That’s only because the decomposition of the body was significant. Otherwise, it should be evident from the wounds... All in all, the killer’s kitchen knife in the house is likely rolled, there is a certain probability that they’ll need to buy a new one."

Cao Chujun hesitated, then said: "Currently, purchasing kitchen knives in our city does not require registration."

"Start with online purchases then. We’re not trying to find the person directly, let’s first make a list. If there’s any overlap with other investigative directions, we can visit them." Jiang Yuan said and then added, "Continuously dismembering and disposing of bodies must be exhausting, and given the perpetrator is likely male, they may very well resort to online shopping."

Cao Chujun agreed.

Ma Jiyang simply chuckled: "I just wonder what it feels like to cook in a kitchen where you’ve just dismembered a body!"