National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 410 - 410 377 In the End, Surveillance Bore It All

410: Chapter 377: In the End, Surveillance Bore It All 410: Chapter 377: In the End, Surveillance Bore It All While Jiang Yuan was looking at the screen, Mu Zhiyang felt inexplicably restless.

It might seem like someone was simply found on the screen, but this was only after looking through several dozen people over two days, and it was their only result—a result that directly broke the case wide open.

Mu Zhiyang felt that he had, more or less, made a contribution to the case.

In the current Jiang Yuan’s Cold Case Squad of Ningtai, it was quite difficult to make a contribution, especially considering his colleagues, each of whom was an elite from the major Beijing-Shanghai Main Urban Districts, and it was extremely difficult to even make a name for oneself.

In fact, it wasn’t easy at all.

The person on the screen, number one, was somewhat different from the number one victim in the ice coffin.

Not only were there no postmortem lividity marks, the gold chain and watch were also missing; the only similarities were the shirt and a slight change in hairstyle.

For Mu Zhiyang to pick out this individual in a crowd was indeed a display of keen insight.

“It should be the same person,” Jiang Yuan determined by the gait, which is a mainstream method in identity recognition technology.

In fact, it’s the method used at major airports and high-speed train station checkpoints in the country, instead of facial recognition.

Liu Jinghui also came over to look and wrote down the license plate number in his notebook, saying, “Find this car, and bring in the driver and the owner for questioning.

There’s no way someone like this goes to the bus station for no reason.”

“We’ll go,” Gao Yuyan and Dong Bing quietly formed a team.

Lately there were no arrest missions, and both needed to find a new role within the Cold Case Squad.

Jiang Yuan nodded in agreement, then added, “Bring the car back too, and check it out.”

“Yes,” both responded in unison.

“Looking at this, number one is definitely the drug owner,” Liu Jinghui deduced, analysing the information he had: “Number one likely shipped the drugs out through the bus station of Ningtai County.

So, the reason for number two killing number one, was it for money or for something personal?”

Meng Chengbiao, who was experienced, said, “If it’s for money, he would be after the goods, and number one should no longer have had the drugs on him.”

“Right.

If it were for money, number one’s necklace and watch would also be taken.

Hence, the number two victim was intending to kill number one from the beginning.

The motive?”

Meng Chengbiao said, “Number two was also a drug user and couldn’t escape the drug circle’s grasp, so, most likely, the murder is drug-related—a fallout among drug dealers?”

Liu Jinghui said, “That’s also a real possibility, the bartender was a drug user too.

Moreover, there’s a high probability that the two knew each other.”

Upon hearing this, Jiang Yuan couldn’t help but recall the crime scene and slowly nodded his head.

Tang Jia asked cooperatively, “Why would they know each other?”

“We didn’t know before that they were drug dealers.

Think about it, a drug dealer sitting in a bar at three in the morning.

No matter why he’s sitting there, if an unfamiliar person walks in at that time, wouldn’t he immediately become defensive and alert?

How could he then keep sitting leisurely at the bar drinking?” Liu Jinghui paused, then continued, “Of course, I won’t rule out that he was a cool and collected tough guy who got stabbed straight to the heart by someone walking up to him.”

“Dying while trying to show off would indeed be interesting,” Shen Yaowei laughed after visualizing the final scene.

“Considering the autopsy, the likelihood of a cool and collected tough guy is not high.” Jiang Yuan had personally conducted the autopsy, and this being a current case’s initial dissection, he had gathered much more information than usual from cold cases.

Confidently, he said, “Even if he were James Bond, upon seeing someone else come in, his muscles would tense up.

Adding to the fact that he was stabbed to death on the spot, and furthermore directly in the heart…

but from the state of the muscles, when he saw the other person, he should have still been fairly relaxed.”

Endorsed by Jiang Yuan’s autopsy, Liu Jinghui’s deductions gained momentum.

After pondering for a moment, Liu Jinghui whispered, “Assuming this, number one and number two knew each other.

Number one was drinking at the bar, the bartender opened the door for him and then left to go home.

Number two came to meet, and the two must have arranged to meet.

But unexpectedly, number two stabbed number one to death.

There’s probably something going on…

The question is, number two’s decision to commit suicide was also somewhat too resolute.”

No one spoke out.

When it came to deductive reasoning, Liu Jinghui’s mind was definitely at the top of the game.

Liu Jinghui thought for a while longer and then continued, “Seeing that number two stabbed number one to death and then committed suicide, it seems that the initiator was number two, while number one was more likely a passive participant, perhaps simply transporting the drugs normally…”

Meng Chengbiao silently chuckled, the description of ‘normally transporting drugs’ amusing him somewhat.

Liu Jinghui’s brain was in overdrive, leaving him no time to correct his choice of words.

On the other hand, he was unable to make any further deductions.

The newly obtained clue only confirmed that the number one victim was indeed involved in drug trafficking.

In fact, even this piece of evidence would have to wait for Gao Yuyan and the others to verify.

To speculate about the relationship between the two victims based on this was clearly insufficient.

“For now, we can only follow this drug trafficking lead,” Liu Jinghui cut off any further trains of thought, first offering a conclusion.

Jiang Yuan agreed with a nod, and his team members automatically got busy.

The method of drug trafficking by separating the goods from the carriers was indeed advanced, but it wasn’t some otherworldly technology.

It primarily afforded protection to the drug owners, its real value lying more in the legal realm, and it didn’t decrease the likelihood of being caught.

That is to say, there is still a chance to investigate the drug trafficking routes.

Two hours later.

Gao Yuyan and Dong Bing hastily brought back the bus driver.

The driver was relatively calm; he took a seat in the interrogation room and seemed willing to tell the truth.

In an age where even those who haven’t eaten pork have seen pigs run, the driver had actually heard about similar incidents in chat groups, and as far as he knew, the police rarely punished drivers and bus companies even when unclaimed drugs were found on buses.

This is the legal concept of “subjective unawareness”; as long as the driver knew nothing about the drugs and did not participate in their transport, at most he would only be questioned.

Of course, the Ningtai police also didn’t plan to put this driver behind bars.

Gao Yuyan and others simply tried to enquire about details as meticulously as possible.

Soon, the relevant information was laid out before Jiang Yuan.

The first victim used a method of direct mailing, which is to bring luggage to the bus station temporarily and ask the driver to place it in the station’s luggage storage area.

Surprisingly, this process required no involvement from their own people.

“These guys have figured out a set of methods,” Liu Jinghui, who was encountering such a case for the first time, said as he frowned repeatedly.

Jiang Yuan frowned and said, “Keep checking the surveillance footage.”

When in doubt, check the surveillance; when lacking evidence, check the surveillance—it was indeed an immediate measure of the capabilities of the current criminal investigators.

Liu Jinghui was rather reluctant to accept this and stayed silent, looking down.

“We now know the time the first victim appeared at the bus station.

I think we can focus on him and use surveillance to track his movements over the following days to see whom he had contact with…” Jiang Yuan had a fair amount of confidence in Ningtai County’s surveillance system.

The newly replaced systematic surveillance system would play a significant role in bustling areas like bus stations and pub streets.

Liu Jinghui hesitated, “It’s not certain that this will yield any results.”

“It doesn’t matter if it yields no results; we’ll find another way.” Jiang Yuan, seeing Liu Jinghui had no more to say, took out his cell phone and started issuing orders.

Having worked on so many cases, he had somewhat realized a truth: for some cases, especially the difficult ones, it was always necessary to expend resources to have any chance of solving them.

Scrimping and attempting to save resources would only result in failed investigations, leading to a complete loss with all resources squandered.

Liu Jinghui, who worked at the provincial office and normally provided support to various cities and counties, was accustomed to the local police’s cooperation, each time focusing on cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

Naturally, he wasn’t as free and bold as Jiang Yuan.

In fact, the same was true this time.

Ultimately, the decision-making authority lay with the Ningtai County Bureau, or it was Jiang Yuan who would make the final call, using the resources of the Ningtai County Bureau.

So, another round of surveillance review began.

Of course, compared to the last time, this one was much simpler; the scale was much smaller, requiring only about a dozen people concentrated in one meeting room.

Plus, the hardware was all in place.

The computers, monitors, and TV screens brought over before were all large ones that had been chosen carefully, and the personnel arrangements were roughly the same.

Only Mu Zhiyang was called over in advance, sitting in the middle of the meeting room, using the same computer as before.

The starting point for this surveillance review was the time and location where Mu Zhiyang had initially spotted the first victim.

Then, the surveillance cameras followed the first victim’s movements.

It sounds simple, but in reality, because surveillance is intermittent and not continuous, even if the first victim didn’t employ counter-surveillance techniques, there were constant gaps.

To track a person’s movements continuously without interruption, like in television dramas, it’s probably difficult to achieve outside the main urban districts of Beijing and Shanghai.

At that moment, the video office’s past young elites came into play, employing techniques like jumping to find and re-lock onto the first victim.

The technique of jumping is simple, too: if surveillance is inherently discontinuous, why pursue a step-by-step follow?

One can directly jump to a farther, clearer camera based on the person’s direction of travel and time factors and search to relocate and lock onto him again.

Naturally, the execution was much more complex, but with the help of a large number of hands, it was persevered with.

Finally, the day before the first victim’s death, at a crossroads near the pub street, surveillance cameras captured the moment when the first and second victims met.

In that moment, both the first and second victims had an expression of faint surprise and composure.

The resolution of the cameras at the crossroads wasn’t sufficient to distinguish their lip movements, but it was enough to spark many speculations.

“A historic meeting between two dead people.” Liu Jinghui muttered as he watched the scene on the screen where the first and second victims spoke face to face and then passed by each other.