National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 431 - 431 397 Cautious Verification_2

431: Chapter 397 Cautious Verification_2 431: Chapter 397 Cautious Verification_2 Liu Wenkai cleared his throat and stood up.

He approached the person he had been questioning earlier and entered the interrogation room, but he spoke with an apologetic tone, “Sorry for the mess…”

…

Evening.

Jiang Yuan, still busy in the autopsy room, received a call for a teleconference from Liu Jinghui.

As soon as he accepted the call, he saw several people already sitting in the office.

“Jiang Yuan is still performing autopsies,” Liu Jinghui said with a smile upon seeing Jiang Yuan in his soiled protective gear.

“For the case of the deceased girl, we’ve unearthed quite a few things.”

“Have we been able to determine the identity of the body?” asked Jiang Yuan, looking up.

The results of his autopsy were just to establish some specific details, which still needed to be checked against a certain range of names.

Liu Jinghui made an approving noise and said, “You’ll need to take a look, but recently there have been some people whose departures were not quite normal, which can be considered disappearances.”

“Didn’t anyone report them missing?” asked Jiang Yuan.

“Some did, let’s just hang on to that thought,” Liu Jinghui said, glancing at several people from the Luyang City Bureau, without elaborating further.

For the Luyang City Bureau, which was heavily burdened by cases, it was instinctively comforting to reduce the number of cases filed.

Many cases, when the reporters were not so insistent, really could either be filed or not.

For the group of fallen women, their sudden departure could be interpreted as dangerous, but a more likely possibility was that they were spending a few more days with a wealthy patron in some place.

Or perhaps, having made some money, they decided to go on a spur-of-the-moment trip, even visiting the Potala Palace to cleanse their body and soul.

The whimsical idea of suddenly leaving one’s job and disappearing without a trace—leaving no one able to find them—is not unheard of among fallen women.

It was, in fact, quite ordinary.

However, if law enforcement took it seriously and linked these people or cases, then the situation would be different.

Some could still be contacted through the same means, using the same WeChat, mobile number, or QQ account; they were easily reachable, and an ID card was an indispensable item for travel.

Those who weren’t specifically hiding could usually be easily found by normal police communication tools.

The more people they found, the more unusual the ones they couldn’t find seemed.

“How long is the current list of missing persons?” asked Jiang Yuan.

“In total, there are 26 people.” Not all of these were definite disappearances, but neither was this the entire list of missing persons.

Jiang Yuan thought for a moment and said, “The third victim had hypertrophic growth on her ankle.

Look through the medical records of these people and see if there are any X-rays or CT scans of their feet.”

Previously, this procedure wasn’t undertaken because the list of suspects was too broad.

Now, with only 26 people on the list, even if it meant visiting several hospitals, the total number wouldn’t be too large.

Liu Jinghui responded affirmatively, “Victim number three died 15 months ago, and is the most recently deceased victim.

Making a breakthrough based on her case is the most appropriate.”

“We could also check the DNA of the missing persons.

The DNA for both the third and fourth victims should be available,” Jiang Yuan added.

“We’re already collecting that.” This time, Zheng Tianxin from Luyang’s Criminal Police Team spoke up.

Zheng Tianxin was somewhat helpless at the moment.

In hindsight, their request for assistance was an overwhelming excess of manpower.

A search along the national highway didn’t necessitate Xu Taining; looking back, they only needed a few hundred people and about ten dogs.

They wouldn’t even need to search the 80 kilometers, just expanding 10 to 20 kilometers from where the first and second victims were discovered and widening the search to 50 meters would greatly increase the chances of finding the bodies.

The same was true for Jiang Yuan’s Cold Case Squad.

While Mei Fang might not match Jiang Yuan’s prowess, Liu Jinghui’s judgement seemed to hit the mark.

However, if they had persevered, the 805 case could have been resolved by Luyang itself—of course, that was just something Zheng Tianxin could contemplate.

Yet, in the subsequent work, Zheng Tianxin became extremely active.

Jiang Yuan didn’t mind.

He could tell Zheng Tianxin was eager, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

After listening to the other participants’ statements, Jiang Yuan thoughtfully said, “From the evidence at the crime scene, the killer doesn’t seem strong.

The graves he dug to bury the bodies were shallow with each shovel, and during the dismemberment, he made many cuts with the knife, rarely using brute force to chop.

In such circumstances, I doubt he could have abducted the women using sheer violence.

It’s more likely that he lured or abducted them by deceit or drugging.”

“So, we’re looking for a male who is either injured or older, with poor physical strength, who frequents the flower alleys nearby…” Zheng Tianxin attempted to summarize.

Everyone was silent.

The injury was speculative, not confirmed information.

The rest of the description could match the appearance of many clients from the flower alleys, not really narrowing down the pool.

Liu Jinghui said, “Actually, we can start from the point Jiang Yuan just mentioned, which is how the criminal abducted the victims, or to put it more accurately, how the criminal took away the victims.

If he couldn’t use brute force, then how did he deceive or abduct?”

“Did he persuade the girls to visit the clients?” suggested Liu Wenkai softly.

Liu Jinghui nodded and said, “That’s the general idea.

However, places like Hongxiang Village and some individual apartments nearby, these girls don’t typically leave.

There’s no talk of visiting clients unless it’s a familiar client who speaks directly to them, perhaps offering to keep them for a day or two.”

“The victims are dead, so we can’t be sure of their list of regular clients…”

“At this point, I think we don’t need to make it too complicated,” Liu Jinghui said.

“We have previously analyzed that the criminal’s level of education isn’t high, and his meticulousness is also average at best, otherwise he wouldn’t have disposed of the bodies this way.

It’s very likely that he used normal means of communication to make invitations, like telephone calls, text messages, WeChat, or something else.

We just need to check the call records of these victims and the missing women involved in prostitution, as well as their Alipay, WeChat, and bank transaction information, chat logs, and if they shared their locations or used ride-hailing services.

We should bring in anyone who overlaps in these records, who has made multiple payments or had multiple chats, and question them.”

As he said this, the others nodded in agreement.

Unless it was face-to-face appointment arrangements, traces would be left behind.

Besides, thinking normally, even if they made a face-to-face arrangement and received a down payment, many would still call or send a message for confirmation before leaving.

Some might ask for a location to be sent, or for a specific address.

The criminal could be very careful, but he couldn’t prevent the victims from normal communication.

The fact that he never changed the knife after several murders suggested that he likely didn’t often change his communication tools or cell phone numbers either.

Liu Wenkai couldn’t help but nod, clicking his tongue twice, and said, “Looks like Luyang City’s divorce rate is going up this year.”