National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 517 - 517 475 Filing a Case

517: Chapter 475: Filing a Case 517: Chapter 475: Filing a Case Shiting County, West Mountain.

The dense forest, mainly concentrated at the mountain’s peak, had become bare starting from halfway up the mountain.

Here lay innumerable tombstones, some of the earlier ones still bore epitaphs written by the deceased or their friends.

The Shi family had not produced any famous figures whose names had survived to this day, but generation after generation of literate people were numerous, and various ancient texts and documents were left in abundance in Shiting County.

However, several hundred years of settlement meant that a graveyard without management cannot expand indefinitely.

Some of the earlier burials had been subjected to thieves over time.

Fortunately, the locals generally didn’t follow the tradition of extravagant funerals.

The graves were small and the accompanying burial objects were few, mainly consisting of the deceased’s reading materials and utensils.

Occasionally finding an inkstone or a few pieces of folk kiln porcelain was already considered a fairly good haul.

The low income was the main reason for the rarity of tomb robbers, another being that the Shi family still lived very densely and would still arrange their ancestors’ tombs on West Mountain.

If villagers passing by happened to encounter tomb robbers, they were expected to beat them severely.

Looking at these numerous tombstones and burial mounds, the two trace evidence technicians and forensic doctors from Shiting County were a bit bewildered.

“There are so many, how do we find it?” Wei Qun was actually not too keen on doing this, it was tiring enough to retrieve a body from the wilderness.

Jiang Yuan just put forth a theory, prompting everyone to exert themselves in verifying it, which was just too foolish and exhausting.

Jiang Yuan would not indulge him and simply said, “Start with the obvious dug holes.

Mark any that are found, write down their locations on the map.

Later, we will bring in specialists in this area for further examination.”

The trace evidence tech next to him frowned as he listened, “There must be tens of thousands of graves here, many of which are now so levelled that they can’t be recognized.

Looking through each one, how long will it take?”

“Tens of thousands of graves can be inspected in a few days.” Jiang Yuan didn’t give any face to Wei Qun.

Investigating tens of thousands of graves is not more complicated than interrogating thousands of people, at least you don’t have to take interrogation notes for them.

Jiang Yuan didn’t think of the idea of stuffing the body into a grave on a whim.

Firstly, the victim’s manner of death was both brutal and direct, not resembling a passionate murder or accidental killing but more like they were killed after a long beating.

And the beating was done very methodologically.

When it came to the actual killing, the method used did not seem amateurish.

This felt hard to describe in a report format, but with experience in examining bodies, one naturally could discern the difference.

It was like the hesitance and delay of an expert butcher killing a pig compared to a novice.

The latter would often result in unusual mistakes.

Simply put, the beating was professional, and the killing was professional too.

It was somewhat like a fishmonger by trade: when they said they were descaling, it was purely descaling, and when it came to bleeding, it was just bleeding.

Finally, the pattern of burying the body and the dug holes’ creation were also straightforward and labor-saving.

Needless to say, these clear signs were all behavior with experience behind them.

Furthermore, burying the body in an existing grave, by Jiang Yuan’s understanding, both the process and the method of murder were highly professional.

Professionalism requires the cultivation of experience.

Professional murder indicates not just one death.

Hence, Jiang Yuan didn’t easily let go of this case when he came upon it.

As for what the trace evidence techs and forensic doctors from Shiting County thought, in Jiang Yuan’s eyes, they were utterly insignificant.

The investigators indeed had no choice.

If Bai Jian and the others were a bit distrustful of Jiang Yuan when he first arrived, now they would only feel competitive and embarrassed, but their trust in him was absolutely full.

The thoughts of Wei Qun and the others, whether they were tired or not, definitely wouldn’t be taken to heart by their leaders.

“Wang Chuanxing, you and your team accompany them, with the specialist team taking the lead,” Jiang Yuan instructed his own police officers, who then dispersed all over the hillsides.

The team first marked out the clearly visible dug holes, and by the end of the day, they had marked several hundred locations.

The next day.

Liu Jinghui brought in the expert from the provincial department, Li Xiang, to the scene.

Liu Jinghui introduced him to Jiang Yuan and the others, saying, “Li Xiang is our province’s expert in investigating tomb raiding cases, with dozens of first-grade fossils having been recovered.”…

Li Xiang appeared to be around 50 years old, and he listened to Liu Jinghui’s introduction while shaking his hand, the two shaking vigorously for quite some time.

After Liu Jinghui finished introducing, Li Xiang said with a smile, “I didn’t study any techniques to become an expert on ancient tombs and burials, I just encountered a few such cases, so whenever the provincial department has a similar special case, they like to find me…”

Many experts are shaped this way.

Jiang Yuan smiled and said, “We sought you out for this case for the same reason.”

With that, Jiang Yuan gave Li Xiang a rough introduction to the case.

Li Xiang listened very attentively and, after Jiang Yuan finished speaking, he said, “So, our target could very well be a serial killer?”

“It’s highly unlikely.” Jiang Yuan shook his head and said, “Those who discard bodies are discarding bodies, and those who kill are killing.

From the condition of the bodies we’ve seen, a motivation driven by profit is more likely.”

“How do you distinguish that?” Li Xiang deals with many cases regularly, but such cases are very rare.

After thinking for a moment, Jiang Yuan described, “Profit-driven killings, especially when there are multiple kills, tend to be less emotionally charged—just achieving the goal is sufficient.

This is more common with bandits and the like, whether they’re kidnapping for ransom or committing violent assault.

Their strong intent is the primary thing.”

“Not so with serial killers?”

“Serial killers are driven by emotions, so if killing is their goal, the bodies usually reflect the killer’s emotions…”

Jiang Yuan provided a brief explanation but did not detail exactly how the specific emotions or other such details could be discerned from the bodies.

Li Xiang wasn’t particularly concerned; after satisfying his curiosity, he said, “I must say, in searching for a tomb here, one must have some unique perspectives.”

He had already reviewed the case file on the way and thought it through.

Now, speaking about his area of expertise, he couldn’t help wearing a smile and saying, “I’ve seen that you’ve marked quite a few robbers’ tunnels.

Frankly, this approach isn’t very useful, nor is it efficient.”

“Eh, why not?” Jiang Yuan was surprised.

“Because your goal is to see if there are any recent corpses in the robbers’ tunnels, which is hard to verify.

You might have to send someone down to look, or we need to dig them out to see.

Not to mention the large amount of work involved, the speed will definitely be very slow, and by then you might scare off the suspects.”

Jiang Yuan nodded in agreement and asked, “What’s your method, then?”

“I suggest looking for tombs whose robbers’ tunnels have been backfilled,” Li Xiang said.

“The Qing Dynasty tomb where the victim’s body was found was intact, with no robbers’ tunnels, right?”

Upon reflection, Jiang Yuan realized that was indeed the case.

“They buried the bodies to hide them, so there was the action of backfilling the robbers’ tunnels.

But for actual tomb robbers, unless it’s a particularly large tomb, tomb robbers wouldn’t bother to backfill the tunnels.

So, compared to tombs with open robbers’ tunnels, those with backfilled tunnels are more likely to contain something.” Li Xiang said all this in one breath, then added, “Of course, it’s better if I look at the site myself; some robbers’ tunnels that were backfilled earlier pertain to older matters.”

Jiang Yuan immediately agreed and quickly pulled a team together, heading back to West Mountain.

With Li Xiang leading, they continued to sweep through the tombs one by one.

The rising talents of Shiting County followed, no longer daring to complain about the abundance of tombs.

Soon, Li Xiang found a backfilled tomb.

Upon surveying the area from a higher vantage point, he said, “Shall we take a look inside here first?”

Liu Jinghui noticed he was holding back on something and immediately asked, “Did you notice something?”

“This side is closer to the road.

Look, park the car on the side, carry it over a dirt slope, and you’re here,” Li Xiang muttered, then said, “I was just thinking, carrying something as heavy as a body into the mountains is definitely not practical.”

“Makes sense,” said Liu Jinghui.

“If there’s something in the tomb, then it makes sense; if there isn’t, then it doesn’t,” Li Xiang laughed, then directed the engineering vehicles and personnel to get to work.

Two hours later.

This hundred-year-old tomb was excavated to reveal a large hole, and the two bodies inside were exposed.

One body lay peacefully in the coffin, while the other was scattered about.

Jiang Yuan stepped forward, gave a simple greeting as a forensic doctor, and then called Huang Qiangmin.

Huang Qiangmin climbed up quickly, listened briefly to Jiang Yuan’s description, and became excited, “Although we haven’t continued with solving the case, setting up a few more cases for Bai and his team is pretty good too.”