National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 1238 - 1166: Is There Evidence?

Chapter 1238: Chapter 1166: Is There Evidence?

Jiang Yuan and his team arrived late, belonging to the seventh team coming to aid, with three more still queuing behind.

Among them, at the forefront was Changyang City Criminal Police Detachment, Shuidong District Bureau, and other major criminal investigation units from Changyang itself, followed by the provincial criminal investigation team, as well as renowned experts like Ge Zhibing and Jiang Yuan leading their detective teams.

In a normal major case, these heavy units might not necessarily take charge directly, often opting for guidance or providing support.

But in this particular case, facing a murder directly targeting an academician, even units like the Changyang City Criminal Police Detachment could only participate as one among many.

The direct leader of the task force was already the commission’s criminal investigation bureau. At this moment, several principals from the criminal investigation bureau were following closely behind the director of the Changyang City Bureau, pondering while listening to the reports from everyone.

Walking relatively quickly in front of several exhibition boards, the director gradually slowed down, evidently, more time brought more contemplation, which is true for both sides. In some sense, this was also a brain-storming session typical of Chinese officialdom, serious, meticulous, requiring a massive amount of brain cells.

Huang Qiangmin waited until the leading team arrived in front, noticing the whiteboard on their side was still blank, he then asked Jiang Yuan: "Do you want to fill in something?"

"About what? Oh... the whiteboard, right? Just a moment..." Jiang Yuan was actually quite tense, swiftly browsing through the images.

For a homicide case, there were indeed too many photos taken on the scene, imagine, several criminal photographers probably kept their fingers on the shutter the whole way through.

If given ample time, these photos could be screened later on. Alternatively, quickly browsing through them wouldn’t be impossible.

But, if rushing for time as now, the above plans are naturally not feasible.

Jiang Yuan was flipping pages desperately but couldn’t finish the photos, naturally lacking the capacity to analyze anything on the whiteboard.

His method of solving cases differed somewhat from ordinary criminal investigation methods. Normal detectives typically start with case analysis; in a typical case of homicide, the first step should be to analyze the criminal’s activities at the crime scene, how they entered the scene, how the murder was carried out, whether there was an interaction or struggle between the parties, whether the victim resisted, if the criminal was injured, finally, how the criminal handled the body and left the scene, etc...

In this academician murder case, the killer’s actions at the crime scene were clear, so the investigation could directly move to the step of confirming the killer’s identity.

This naturally derived two directions, whether to investigate through the killer’s entry into the scene or through the killer’s departure from the scene.

According to this thinking, investigating the entry into the scene direction, one could opt to investigate vehicles, tracing backwards continuously through the vehicle’s ownership and origin, observing if the killer exposed themselves at a certain section, like revealing their face when passing a vehicle checkpoint, or simply, the car belonged to the killer themselves or was acquired recently...

Of course, regarding the route of vehicle origin or ownership, everyone wasn’t too optimistic. If the killer could be traced directly through the vehicle, there’d be no need for such deliberate disguise with a ski mask, they wouldn’t even need to flee, surrendering would actually make survival easier instead relatively.

And the way the killer left the scene also displayed some counter-recon awareness.

They used a mountain motorcycle to leave, making it hard to trace the motorcycle’s origins or the path they took. However, the fact they placed the motorcycle here in advance indicates prior scoping and preparation by the killer.

Investigating based on this might be a breakthrough point.

Analyzing along this thought line, the killer should have scoped the area more than once, possibly even in other places frequently visited by Academician Lou, interviewing around this point might also yield breakthroughs.

Thinking deeper, why could the killer await timely near the intersection, where did they get the information from, or just persevering like this all day, presents another train of thought.

If it’s the former, catching the mole might solve the case outright. If it’s the latter, interviewing passing drivers or construction workers nearby, or perhaps even delivery personnel or restaurants, might directly identify the person.

Jiang Yuan focuses more on searching for physical evidence, then conducting investigations and analysis based on the evidence.

From the perspective of criminal forensic thinking, this approach seems rather outdated and rigid; after all, adopting other sleuth angles might break through more readily.

Yet Jiang Yuan is particularly skilled in this aspect, currently exerting significant effort in physical evidence analysis.

Until the director was about to approach, Huang Qiangmin hastily urged once more, Jiang Yuan hesitated a bit then rose to write a line on the whiteboard: Vehicle Origin, Cigarette Butt.

Without waiting for others to inquire, the director had already walked over.

"Jiang Yuan’s here too, I heard you just cracked a major drug trafficking case..." The director mentioned some news seen on the internal network, and looking at Jiang Yuan’s whiteboard, couldn’t help but chuckle: "Concise and succinct, come, tell us your thoughts?"

Jiang Yuan glanced at Liu Jinghui, first said: "I looked at the scenes and some related photos of vehicle checkpoints. The management of dumper trucks is relatively strict, I think investigating from vehicle origin should yield results."

"Okay." The director nodded, this was no extraordinary idea, previous teams had mentioned it too.

Jiang Yuan continued: "Currently, the killer should have waited at the scene for a long period, and the killer is a smoker; you can tell from the ashtray in the driver’s cab, there’s ash but no cigarette butts, indicating where they waited likely has butts discarded."

The director nodded as he listened.

Nearby, Yu Wenshu then explained: "Butts have already been collected at the scene, however, with strong wind condition that night, around the spot where the vehicle was parked, vehicles continued to pull in; thus, determining the personnel associated with those butts’ DNA will take some time."

The DNA from cigarette butts is very easy to extract, being one of the police’s favored DNA carriers. However, DNA matching doesn’t guarantee a direct match, especially considering the abundance of butts at the scene, possibly requiring meticulous examination to ascertain the killer’s DNA, this step is necessary, albeit far from swift surely.

The director took the good guy role, smiled: "Jiang Yuan’s consideration of two directions here, both are very promising..."

"Lastly, is the matter of the killer’s whereabouts." Jiang Yuan saved leadership’s time, added: "I incline to think the killer headed northeast."

"Ha?" Having gone through six exhibition boards, the director and others didn’t expect Jiang Yuan to provide such a direct answer, they were momentarily frozen as they prepared to move.

The director promptly inquired: "Is there evidence?"

At this moment, he indeed needed proof.