National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 626 - 570 Bald Strike Team Strikes Out

Chapter 626: Chapter 570 Bald Strike Team Strikes Out

Changyang City Criminal Science Center.

Jiang Yuan took the clothes he had retrieved and boarded the high-speed train to Changyang City.

These garments had been washed and rifled through numerous times. To say that it was extremely difficult to find evidence like hair fibers in these clothes was an understatement. Even if any were found, most would likely be contaminated with hair from unrelated individuals.

Jiang Yuan’s hopes were pinned on skin flakes, especially on the several woolen overcoats, wool cashmere sweaters, knitted garments, wool hats, and scarves he had specifically brought back this time.

Although these items of clothing had also been searched multiple times, they were not suitable for washing with water, nor did they require regular cleaning. The Liu family had not taken them for dry cleaning after Liu Limin’s death, so they were the most likely to still contain flaked skin.

Secondly, the gaps in these woolen and knitted products had enough space to accommodate skin flakes, especially during close contact scenarios such as hugging, where the flakes could embed deeply into the fibers. Only then would the recovered skin flakes be most valuable.

The difficulty of this task could be described as hellish.

Thus, despite facing just a basket of clothes, half of the technicians at the Changyang City Criminal Science Center started shaking.

The other half had no idea how to do it.

Nevertheless, Wan Baoming was insistent on gathering the people together.

Standing in the center of the laboratory, Jiang Yuan said, "Thank you for your hard work. This task is quite challenging. We need to extract the skin flakes from the clothes as much as possible. Better slow than missing any."

Jiang Yuan wasn’t planning to do it alone. Don’t be fooled by the mere twenty-odd articles of clothing, hats, and scarves—working on them could exhaust three people to death.

The workload for this task could be greater than that of dealing with pollen, almost comparable to the concept of trace evidence.

In current cases dealing with pollen, if one wishes for a bit of ease, a washing method is often adopted to rinse the pollen off the objects. Since pollen is resistant to acid and corrosion, even after torment in a washing machine, the pollen evidence would just be swirled in water, then extracted with a centrifuge.

If skin flakes were handled in this manner, it would work if there were many, but with few, the loss would be too great.

Having discussed this in advance with Jiang Yuan and knowing that it was a needle-in-a-haystack situation, Wan Baoming emphasized, "The case is important, everyone be spirited. Let’s divide into Group A and Group B, and cross-check the findings. The group with the most oversights will be punished with three drinks at dinner!"

"I’ll treat everybody to a roasted whole lamb dinner and provide plenty of craft beer, along with Maotai," announced Jiang Yuan, invoking his financial prowess.

The technicians immediately perked up. These days, nobody lacked a bit of spare change, but the opportunity to gather together for a festive meal with roasted lamb and drinks like Maotai and beer was something to be happy about.

Besides, they were helping out Jiang Yuan from Ningtai, who had kindly offered to treat them, so naturally, everybody was willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

Without mentioning anything else, leaving a good impression with Ningtai Jiang Yuan meant the potential for consultation or future technical collaboration, and getting familiar was extremely beneficial.

Technical giants might be a bit less influential than political giants, but as long as they don’t die, they can continue to bring their expertise to bear, which is quite impressive.

The Criminal Science Center in Changyang City was originally the largest criminal scientific and technical team in the province, even larger than the Shannan Provincial Department. During this period, those who did not understand trace evidence worked on other projects and tasks, while those knowledgeable in the area were all hands on deck, making the laboratory a bustling place.

Jiang Yuan also made a call to Huang Qiangmin, used the funds owed by Changyang City Bureau, and purchased a batch of head-mounted microscopes for everyone in the Changyang City Bureau.

A group of people, equipped with the head-mounted microscopes, dived into the task of searching for skin flakes hidden in the crevices.

The harvested skin flakes were sent directly to the laboratory to undergo PCR analysis.

Using skin flakes, particularly from the scalp, for DNA identification, was a technique introduced by the ministries around 2008. It spread to Shannan Provincial Department by 2010, and to various city and county bureaus about 12 years ago.

Before that, if criminal police weren’t especially attentive to this area of knowledge, they wouldn’t think of collecting scalp flakes.

Knowledge updating is a very lengthy process, and for criminal police, aside from their already heavy daily tasks, there is also a vast amount of knowledge requiring updates. Attending a briefing today on smart lock technology does not mean one will be caught up on the sixth briefing on DNA technologies; such is the norm.

From this perspective, finding the boyfriend’s scalp flakes in the victim’s clothing was still possible.

It’s particularly straining on the eyes.

A group of technicians got to work, and very soon there was no sound.

On the other side, Xu Taining was also exhausted.

With three local departments and one city bureau involved, not to mention a provincial department and a ministry above, although the latter two appeared in a supportive role, they had their demands. They occasionally required reports, and Xu Taining, a senior superintendent dispatched from the provincial department, faced even higher expectations from the department.

Furthermore, reports couldn’t consist of mere hollow descriptions; they had to be filled with substantial data.

Even if the leaders only listened briefly, the data and information could not be omitted.

When it came time to contribute funds and manpower, the three major contributing localities found it increasingly difficult to coordinate. The provincial department and the ministry only provided matching funds, giving a proportionate amount based on how much each locality contributed. Despite this, the voices from the provincial department and the ministry were starting to sound unpleasant.

At such times, a common leader might seek support. Xu Taining did not do that; he used PUA tactics.

"Huo City has already contributed 30%, just add a little more, and I’ll wrap up the report."

"Yes, if Huo City adds more, will you add too? Okay, then you still rank first. Rest assured, the report will stay as it is."

"Yeah, your contribution will definitely be specially noted. Actually, I suggest using personnel to replace funding. It’s more cost-effective to do it now than to exchange personnel later when the relative value changes."

"No problem including lab time. You later issue a separate request for that, but for funding, you need to add a little more... Ah, you can count it towards the lab’s funding later, but everyone else has paid, only you haven’t..."

"Hello hello, Changyang City Bureau’s lab funding is all in, how about your side... "

Just in terms of task management, even though he had to manage several lines, Xu Taining did not find it too difficult, nor did he find it very hard to use PUA tactics on each unit.

Standing in the conference room, Xu Taining was animated and in his element, his voice booming as he waved his arms and shouted, much like a soccer coach, as though he was pushing everyone forward.

But indeed, all the units were being pushed by him.

The next evening, a lead that had been sifted through multiple times finally became the definitive one.

Xu Taining checked repeatedly, then without even caring to inform the leaders at the provincial department, he couldn’t wait to call Jiang Yuan. Xu Taining had been involved in Jiang Yuan’s cases twice recently, setting up elaborate operations that ended with no result, with frustration too deep for words. Now, finally, he felt a sense of vindication.

"Captain Jiang, we might have found our man," Xu Taining’s voice loud enough to travel through the glass window and out of the conference room.

"Found him? How did you manage that?" Jiang Yuan was also unexpectedly elated.

Xu Taining, full of pride, said, "It’s simple when you think about it. We compiled a list of real estate transactions across the three localities and one bureau from the three years before the case. The list of cash purchases on the market only totaled four digits. Compare that with the transfer records from the victim Liu Limin’s list, and we got our guy."

He made it sound easy, but considering the effort it took to trace the clue all this way, a single county bureau might not have held out until this moment.

Xu Taining boasted, "This man’s name is Wang Shiji, and would you believe it, his family is actually a railway dynasty. A Changyang native with uncles, brothers, and grandfathers who all work for the railways..."

"Have you arrested him?" Jiang Yuan asked eagerly. Just these details alone were enough to bring Wang Shiji in for interrogation.

"We’re setting out immediately," Xu Taining laughed heartily, masking his embarrassment.

He had called Jiang Yuan first this time, leaving no time to order the arrest.

After hanging up, Xu Taining immediately called Wu Junhao to have his Bald Strike Team assemble and head straight to Changyang City.

Then, Xu Taining called the provincial department and the Changyang City Bureau.

By the time Wu Junhao’s Bald Strike Team arrived and met with the local police of Changyang City, it would likely be late into the night, but no one raised any objections because of the hour.