National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 1350 - 1276: The Rubber Plantation Serial Murders

Chapter 1350: Chapter 1276: The Rubber Plantation Serial Murders

After the two Chinese families arrived at the police station, they prompted the Dama Police Station to hold a high-intensity press conference.

Local media quickly followed up, eager to dig up every detail of the case’s past and present and stir it up again.

The young couple from matching backgrounds, broke up in middle age, the husband killed the wife, then dismembered the body and disposed of it...

For the media, this case is full of sensationalism.

The husband intended to murder, secretly hid firearms, and began searching for burial sites on his own farm.

Unexpectedly for the husband, just as he was preparing to commit murder, his wife, Bai Sijia, voluntarily filed for divorce, demanding the family’s most prized farm, or else she would release videos of Yue Hongxu with other women, humiliating him within the family.

Unexpectedly for the wife, just as she was preparing to teach her husband a legal lesson, her husband Yue Hongxu drew a gun, forcing her to stand on a plastic sheet, then pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Ironically, the first crime scene was their most valuable asset, a whole floor office building in the city center. After killing her, Yue Hongxu nonchalantly met with a new tenant, signed a lease, stayed alone for two hours, dismembering the body with a hatchet from his car’s trunk, and dumped it in a nearby sewer, then hurried back to attend a family dinner.

At the family dinner, Yue Hongxu casually spread the news that "Bai Sijia was in a bad mood and went traveling."

In Yue Hongxu’s plan, this move allowed him to achieve several goals:

First, he bought himself enough time to handle the assets, planning to sell the farm back to the family, convert the rest into US dollars, and live freely abroad afterwards.

Second, he created an alibi for himself. And with the suspect not in the country and insufficient evidence, the police might shelve the case, leaving him an opportunity to return to Dama decades later.

Thirdly, if nothing was uncovered, Yue Hongxu planned to wait six months, then say Bai Sijia "fell into danger on a trip", and finally fabricate a story of disappearance to conclude the matter.

Unfortunately, his plan was thwarted before it could be fully executed.

As interrogations progressed, some information slowly leaked out.

Discussions on media and the internet intensified.

The general public did not know the details and had no intention to dig deeper. The rabble-rousing discussions could only revolve around emotions.

At this time, the Dama Police Station actively spread rumors, mentioning "forensic expert Jiang Yuan from China"...

Privately, he was quickly dubbed "God Jiang from China"!

Stories of Jiang Yuan participating in television programs and investigating influencer death cases were unearthed, spreading across various TV stations and social media.

Huang Qiangmin for this purpose specially met with the assistant director of the Dama Police Station again, sighed upon returning, and comforted Jiang Yuan, "They have it hard too."

So this matter passed.

The police station achieved the effect it wanted, and Jiang Yuan... Jiang Yuan went off to He’s Rubber Garden to handle the case.

He’s Rubber Garden.

This was a well-managed forest land. The leveled plots were divided into two large areas by a dirt road, with rubber trees planted in neat rows, each tree with a head-width’s bark stripped at human height, resembling Native American tree people.

The distance between trees was uniformly wide, with underbrush barely grazing one’s feet, undoubtedly the result of daily maintenance by workers.

Jiang Yuan and his team arrived very early, the grass still seemingly covered with dew, glistening wet, making one wonder if, given the local climate, it’s perpetually damp all day long.

Dama is a place with an average annual rainfall of 2800 millimeters, ranking first in Southeast Asia, eighth in the world. By comparison, several provinces famed as Jiangnan Water Towns have an average annual rainfall between 1400 and 1600, roughly half of Dama’s.

"Did it rain today?" Jiang Yuan wiped a tree trunk and asked the local policeman beside him.

"A drizzle, I’d say it’s yesterday’s rain, starting from yesterday until today, stopped a few hours ago," replied the local policeman.

"It rained for over ten hours straight." Jiang Yuan spoke in Chinese, then turned to Liu Jinghui, "A criminal’s paradise."

"Southeast Asia is indeed a paradise for criminals," Liu Jinghui said, with a stern expression matching his lean mid-aged frame and serious attire, exuding a leader’s aura.

"High temperature, high humidity...a variety of decomposers, numerous hiding spots in space." Jiang Yuan gazed into the distance, beyond the rubber grove lay wild woods, towering trees intertwined with vines thick as an arm or even a thigh, the understory and ground cover plants densely packed, impossible to penetrate without an axe.

Similarly, bodies hidden within are hard to find and decompose quickly, just like the three corpses Jiang Yuan previously saw.

According to Jiang Yuan’s judgment, the murders in this series of cases within the rubber groves were not very old.

The first corpse was about 4 days old, the second about 3 days, and the third possibly only slightly over a day before being discovered — after the first murder, the rubber garden strengthened its security measures, which, though ineffective at protecting employees, did speed up the finding of bodies.

Nevertheless, even the third corpse’s appearance was battered, to say the least.

This is rarely encountered in temperate regions.

If not for Jiang Yuan’s exceptional abilities unaffected by the area, an average forensic doctor accustomed to temperate cases would be baffled on the spot, needing several cases just to get familiar, and forensic entomology would require starting from scratch, making it nearly impossible.

In this sense, forensic work has regional limitations.

Similarly, from a cadaver preservation angle, committing murder outdoors in tropical areas is far more complex than in cities.

Of course, outdoor murders have unique advantages; the tropics have their benefits, and the polar regions have their methods. Overall, a person wouldn’t generally follow strangers to such remote wilds...right?

Hence, from a normal perspective, if acquaintances are involved, interpersonal relations are a primary thread to pull.

Liu Jinghui organized his thoughts, turned to Zhong Renlong, and said, "This rubber plantation, it should be a closed operation, right? Any outsiders coming and going?"

Zhong Renlong first translated for the local policeman beside him, then regurgitated, "In theory, it’s closed, with the nearest populated area at least ten kilometers away, but the rubber grove itself has no walls, controlling only the dirt road we took to enter, which has barriers and checkpoints. So, if someone doesn’t use this road, the rubber garden can’t control them."

"Are there forests surrounding the rubber plantation, can people enter or exit without using the dirt road?"

"Some can do it, but most can’t."

Liu Jinghui didn’t linger on the matter, slowly nodded, then said to Jiang Yuan, "In that case, I think we can divide it into two parts: the first part, whether outsiders are coming and going, leading to external killings. The second part, internal serial murders... here, it is almost a completely closed environment, hmm..."

He grimaced, seemingly struggling, but a smile already crept up his eye corners.