National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 621 - 565: Change Path

Chapter 621: Chapter 565: Change Path

Liu Jinghui had not yet completely finished reading the case file, but during the review process, he subconsciously chose the second body as the main focus of attention.

This was completely different from Jiang Yuan’s thinking.

In Jiang Yuan’s view, the first case and the third case were where the murderer was most likely to slip up.

The first case could potentially be the killer’s first crime, and as everyone knows, a serial killer’s first crime is often imperfect.

By the way, the slogan "Every homicide case must be solved" was coined shortly after the triple homicide in 2004. One background of this slogan was the large number of serial murders that occurred domestically. Of course, at that time it was not referred to in this way, but one of the understandings was this:

Because the solve rate for homicide cases was low, many killers went unpunished, which gave them the opportunity to practice and learn how to kill, indirectly increasing the number and difficulty of serial killings. Therefore, it was essential to concentrate police force on solving fresh cases as soon as possible, to fundamentally contain the spread of serial murders.

For similar reasons, when police encountered serial murder cases, they often considered tracing back to the very first case, which means they first considered consolidating cases, then focused on the first case in the series. Often, they would even ignore the current case and concentrate their efforts on investigating the first cold case.

The first case was very important, and the third case—as the finishing piece—felt even more important to Jiang Yuan, because this case was obviously meticulously staged. It was this case that triggered the alertness from various sides, leading to its inclusion in various lists.

The more meticulously staged the case was, the more likely there were to be slip-ups, in theory.

However, Liu Jinghui’s thoughts were completely different from Jiang Yuan’s.

After an in-depth review of the case, Liu Jinghui found Jiang Yuan and said, "I suggest focusing on the second case as the main attack target."

"Go ahead," Jiang Yuan suggested when he asked Liu Jinghui over for advice.

Liu Jinghui sat down opposite Jiang Yuan and said, "To me, the second case has actually the highest difficulty in terms of execution, and it’s the easiest to run into problems."

Jiang Yuan exclaimed with a "Huh," "Isn’t it the third case? The killer even used drugs and had to quietly bring a living person over at night."

"There are many ways to obtain ether, especially 20 years ago." Liu Jinghui paused, then continued, "Actually, compared to a living person, a corpse is harder to deal with. Even if ordinary people can’t understand how heavy a 100-pound body is, having tied people up before, how can they not understand."

Liu Jinghui went on, "Moreover, after the experience of the first time, the killer clearly could subdue a frail woman and take her to the railroad. Why would he kill her first and then take her there?"

"Third, the issue of the primary crime scene. There’s a primary crime scene once a person is killed, and it’s relatively difficult to cover up the primary crime scene. Even if the police never discover the primary crime scene, but as the killer, one should guess that the police might be able to find it, so it should still be cleaned up, right? And to hide oneself and also to make the primary crime scene easier to clean up, wouldn’t one need a room? Isn’t that a matter of a few hours of work? Is the house owned or rented? How do you explain that?"

Listening to this, Jiang Yuan slowly nodded, Liu Jinghui’s reasons were very sufficient. Cleaning up a crime scene is no joke, more tiring than post-renovation house cleaning. A few hours of work would be driven by the sheer urgency of preserving one’s own life; for tedious tasks, it might take even longer.

Of course, the killer could also use cleaner methods of murder, such as strangulation, but clearly, the killer did not adopt this method. Perhaps it was the fear of leaving traces upon contact with the victim, or maybe there were other reasons. In any case, the killer used stabbing.

Looking back at the analysis, no matter which method the killer initially chose, they should have anticipated scenarios like stabbings. In other words, time should have been arranged accordingly, and physical stamina stored up.

Although these requirements are indeed demanding, for a serial killer who has escaped punishment for 20 years, his abilities should not be underestimated.

Liu Jinghui considered even more than Jiang Yuan had thought, and he continued, "If the primary crime scene was in a remote and wild area, that’s a possibility. However, there wasn’t much mud or leaves on the body—killing someone in the wilderness and then bringing the body in is like taking off trousers to fart, why not just leave the body outside."

Jiang Yuan replied, "That makes sense. Could the killer be the kind who is very ritualistic?"

"I think it’s because of the means of transportation. It wasn’t easy to get a vehicle 20 years ago. Bicycles and motorcycles are far too conspicuous. The first and third cases are easily explained; it was quiet at night, and the victims could have walked there by themselves. But how was the second case’s body brought in?"

Jiang Yuan then fell into thought. After a while, he said, "There don’t seem to be many vehicle traces at the scene, the vehicles we found belonged to institutions, and nothing was discovered."

Jiang Yuan still had the skill to identify vehicle tracks, but even looking at the photos, he couldn’t find any obvious clues.

Liu Jinghui hummed, then elongated his tone and asked, "Do you think, could the body have been transported here by train?"

"Hmm?" Jiang Yuan was startled, indeed, if the body was brought over by train, that would have made transporting it much easier, but, train management was much stricter than that of ordinary vehicles.

Huang Qiangmin interjected, "I saw in the report that the railway had been checked several times in this regard."

"It’s hard to say, it’s just a guess of mine." Liu Jinghui had only looked through the dossier and naturally could not provide a definitive answer.

"Are you saying that we should shift our main investigative focus to Victim No. 2?" Jiang Yuan hesitated slightly.

Liu Jinghui nodded again.

Jiang Yuan sighed, "Alright then, let’s change our focus."

In the past few days, he had been fixated on Victim No. 3, sacrificing several pawns in the process, and most importantly, many police officers had done a great deal of work based on his judgments.

Now, to withdraw police resources and reinvestigate Victim No. 2 seemed indecisive, a waste of police effort. After all, no one wanted their work to be in vain or easily invalidated.

But, based on his trust in Liu Jinghui and his persuasive judgment, Jiang Yuan readily changed direction.

Moving forward one pawn a day isn’t about blindly charging forward.

Now that the river had been crossed, it was time to move the pawns that needed to be moved.

Making the change now was easier than waiting until they completely lost the trail on Victim No. 3 and then having to start over.

Once Jiang Yuan decided to make a change, he immediately retrieved Victim No. 2’s case file to review it. Fortunately, when the case was last reopened, the task force had transferred over all the evidence from various sources; otherwise, he would have had to travel to another city to view Victim No. 2’s case file.

Soon, the room was filled with just the sound of rustling case files being turned.

Like Victims No. 1 and 3, Victim No. 2’s social network was not complicated. The three victims lived in different cities and hardly had any connections with each other.

This was one of the reasons why the case was judged to be a series of serial killings. If the three victims had been connected and had conflicts of interest with the murderer leading to the murders, it would have been considered a normal multiple-victim homicide.

However, with no relationships between the three victims, solving the case became very difficult, as random killings have always been a difficult point in homicide cases.

"Why do you think the murderer killed three people and then stopped?" Liu Jinghui, looking at the case file and seemingly talking to himself, raised the question.

The lighting in the office was getting dim. Huang Qiangmin stood up to turn on the light and said, "An accident? A transfer? Or maybe a prison sentence?"

"This person is a master. To kill three people and then stop, it doesn’t feel right." Liu Jinghui was always one to raise questions without solving them. After pondering for a while, he turned to Jiang Yuan and said, "It would be great if we could find the primary crime scene of Victim No. 2."

Jiang Yuan went over his own skills and said, "Then it’s still , extracting pollen from the victim’s clothing to see if we can reconstruct her route on the day she was victimized, though it seems difficult."

Liu Jinghui was even less hopeful about this, wondering where he could find a plant distribution map from 20 years ago, simply shaking his head in deep thought.