National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 619 - 563

Chapter 619: 563

Qingbai City wasn’t small in terms of urban area, with its five districts spreading quite far apart. The most important third case in the Jingyang Line triple murder took place in Qingbai City.

Thus, Qingbai City and the provincial department had mobilized. According to experts, the murderer had to be someone very familiar with the railway lines and the train timetable, and at the same time, well-acquainted with the local situation. The latter point made the experts hold great expectations for Qingbai City.

After all, the population of Qingbai City wasn’t large 20 years ago, and it was mainly composed of state-owned enterprise workers with little personnel turnover, increasing the probability of finding the murderer.

However, results did not meet expectations, and the case remained unsolved for over a decade. Although there had been attempts to restart the investigation, there were no results, and it continued to be shelved.

About half of the police officers who handled the case at that time had already retired.

The highest-ranking officer who remained was Zhang Shizhong, the Captain of the Cyber Security Division of the Qingbai City Criminal Police Brigade. He was also over fifty years old, but when it came to the Jingyang Line triple murder case, he was quite articulate and evidently had a deep memory of the case.

A few people simply found a restaurant, eating while they chatted.

The restaurant was a fresh fish restaurant, specializing in river delicacies without pursuing any special cooking techniques, just a pot of fresh fish, all about half a pound each, stewed in a rich broth, truly enhancing the freshness.

The fish was stewed to the point of falling apart, needing careful handling when picked up, as the flesh and bones separated once placed in the bowl.

Of course, the most delicious part was still the soup, so fresh that one couldn’t help but to sip continuously.

The tofu in the soup was even tastier than the fish, but if one consumed several pieces of tofu and then ate a piece of fish, the fish would again seem delicious. And if coupled with a bowl of soup, it would indeed be a heavenly delight.

Jiang Yuan, sweaty from eating both soup and meat, asked Zhang Shizhong, "I saw you collected quite a few footprints around the area. Didn’t you find any suitable leads at the start?"

Zhang Shizhong put down his spoon, wiped his mouth, and shook his head, saying, "While we did collect footprints, in the end, only a minority led us to actual people. Moreover, the collected footprints were far from the crime scene and couldn’t be linked to any suspects."

The crime scene was on the railway tracks, with both sides lined with gravel, making it virtually impossible to leave any footprints.

Jiang Yuan didn’t have high hopes for this, taking a couple sips of soup before continuing, "What about eyewitnesses? Perhaps through the footprints, you could find eyewitnesses?"

Zhang Shizhong looked at Jiang Yuan with surprise and said, "Just from the footprints alone, you can’t determine the time, can you? The person who left the footprints might have passed by several hours ago or even many days ago; it’s difficult to find an eyewitness."

"What you mentioned, regarding the freshness of the footprints, it’s unlikely they’re from several days before since it had rained two days before the incident. Everyone was affected by this. After analyzing the footprints closely, those from the day of the incident and the previous day amounted to at least almost ten separate prints."

"This I do not know," Zhang Shizhong said helplessly, shaking his head. "Regarding the footprints, we actually had experts come to look at them at the time, but we tend to find the person first and then compare the footprints."

"Yes, technology has indeed improved now," Jiang Yuan nodded. Undeniably, technology is always progressing. Although over the past few decades in China, many technical masters have emerged in the field of footprint analysis, a 53-year-old shepherd became one of the top criminal investigation experts in the country, known as "Divine Eye" for his skillful "footprint tracking."

But the next generation builds on the research of their predecessors. The overall level of identification has improved over half a century, and some techniques and skills that the predecessors did not possess have also been developed.

This series of techniques, especially in the last two decades, is in a period of explosive growth.

When the triple murder case occurred, footprint analysis was already common, and estimating the age, gender, and height of individuals was not a big problem.

However, in terms of usage, finding people through footprints was not the main approach. The primary method was to find the person first, then use footprints for confirmation, and it relied more on shoe prints than barefoot prints.

This was also related to the era: people around the year 2000 did not have a collection of shoes at home. It was normal to just have one or two pairs of shoes for daily wear, and people generally didn’t change shoes unless the seasons changed. Moreover, shoes were not easily discarded until worn out; cobblers were commonly found at street corners and alleys able to repair anything from soles to uppers to surfaces.

Hence, even if a suspect discarded their shoes, from rag-pickers to waste collectors to garbage dumpers to scavengers, there would always be someone picking up the discarded shoes.

This provided a basis for the comparison of suspects through shoe prints.

Nowadays, such opportunities have become increasingly rare. Ordinary people frequently change their shoes and even sell second-hand shoes. Shoes thrown into the garbage bin aren’t necessarily picked up by anyone anymore...

Switching from shoe print identification to footprint identification adds another layer of difficulty and requires continuous experience accumulation by later researchers. To put it academically, even formulas need to be written down.

In fact, over the last twenty years, various scientific achievements have exploded. While there are certainly shoddy articles that fudge numbers for funding, there are also real achievements made. In the field of footprint identification alone, several Science and Technology Progress Awards have been issued.

Of course, there are still those who distrust such awards. In the realm of basic science, scientists may not argue over doctrines, but for technicians in the criminal investigation field, proving themselves is quite simple. To those doubters, just urinate at an important or peculiar place, incidentally leaving a urine footprint, and then see how many days it takes to catch oneself.

Zhang Shizhong had only a vague idea about footprint identification; he neither knew its limits nor the level of experts’ skills.

However, seeing Jiang Yuan’s confident expression, Zhang Shizhong said, "If the culprit can be caught through footprints, then there certainly won’t be a problem..."

"We’re not there yet." Jiang Yuan coughed twice, emphasizing, "The footprints at the scene are far from the crime scene, and it’s not clear who left them, nor can it be proved that they were left by the murderer. We’ll start by looking for eyewitnesses."

"Using footprints to find someone, and from twenty years ago at that, seems very difficult." Zhang Shizhong was a bit surprised.

Jiang Yuan uttered a noncommittal "Hmm" and said, "As for difficulty, it’s probably about the same as finding a culprit in an ordinary case."

He was using Image Enhancement Level 5 for footprint identification, plus a temporary skill bonus of +1 to find the murderer, and if things didn’t go well, he might even need Image Enhancement Level 5. Frankly speaking, with this set of skills, solving a current murder case might be easier than committing one.

However, even with Level 6 footprint identification, it wouldn’t be possible to directly produce the murderer’s ID number, so the resources to be used in conjunction must be substantial—the necessary screenings, the people to be found, and the inquiries to be made are indispensable.

In other words, Jiang Yuan could reduce the difficulty of finding someone through footprints from a technical standpoint, but he would still need a substantial amount of resource support.

Looking at this case in particular, just finding these passerby might take several hundred to a thousand man-days, and the results obtained might not even be useful.

Zhang Shizhong immediately grasped this point, and his expression became serious.

One can boast and draw cakes to satisfy hunger, but these expenses, these resources to be used, are indeed real.

Slurp...

Huang Qiangmin slurped his soup, making a contented noise.

Zhang Shizhong couldn’t help but look over and said helplessly, "Director Huang, our Qingbai City isn’t exactly a wealthy metropolis..."

"This time we came out here, we are working for you for free. Not only do you have Jiang Yuan’s expertise, but there are also many people like Wu Junhao helping you, and we don’t want a penny of your salary," Huang Qiangmin said indifferently. "As for the expenditure, it mainly depends on the direction the case takes; it’s not about wasting your funds..."

"Of course, of course," Zhang Shizhong hastily apologized. "I didn’t mean that, I mean... well, all right, I’ll report to the boss, whatever it takes to solve the case."

Jiang Yuan spoke softly, "This case happened so long ago, to rebuild it from scratch, no matter which angle we tackle it from, there will be several steps that will consume a massive amount of funds and manpower, you have to be prepared for that."

"I understand. I get it, really," Zhang Shizhong said with wry smile. There’s an old saying, ’One does not know the cost of a heart until the bills come.’ The Qingbai City Bureau may have plans for the case, but the sting of the cost hits hard all the same.

Huang Qiangmin ladled some fish soup for Zhang Shizhong, and once his heartache subsided, he then said, "For this case, the provincial department and the ministry will definitely offer support, and the railway side will probably wish to provide some assistance too. Cui Xiaohu, Director Cui, and Director Li are already working on it for us..."

Zhang Shizhong’s mood improved greatly, "It would be best to have support..."

"By tomorrow, there should be an interrogation expert from the ministry here." Huang Qiangmin looked at Jiang Yuan, "If we can find the person, that is."

Jiang Yuan nodded silently, knowing that identifying footprints after so long was easy, but finding someone through them was difficult.

Fortunately, Qingbai City had a large population of factory and mine workers, and although there were also individual vendors in the small markets by the railway lines, most of the pedestrians likely belonged to the factory and mine workers and their families. In fact, most of the individual vendors in the markets were also family members and relatives of factory workers, and this group, if efforts were made to search, could always be traced.

Moreover, Jiang Yuan was not aiming to find the owners of all the footprints; he just wanted to find as many people as possible, then combine that with the records from back then to decide which direction to pursue.

Thus, on the second day of his arrival in Qingbai City, Jiang Yuan’s temporary skill +1 was added to... Image Enhancement Level 5.

With the help of these 400-plus minutes of image enhancement, Jiang Yuan first processed the various footprint images.

That day in the office, the computers never stopped roaring.

Zhang Shizhong, along with several leaders from the Qingbai City Bureau, came and went, listening to the loud cries of the newly bought high-performance computers, louder than the calls of women in commercial KTVs, and he inwardly cursed the situation.

The machines were being used so intensively; he dreaded to think how demanding it would be when it came to people.