National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 644 - 588: Dig Deep

Chapter 644: Chapter 588: Dig Deep

There are numerous methods to deduce age through forensic science. Summarizing them... someone even wrote a book about it, the kind that spans several hundred pages.

Basically, from teeth to finger bones to pubic bones to the six major joints to DNA and mitochondria, there’s a way to infer age for all of them.

For living individuals, all imaging techniques can be used to identify age, including X-rays, CT scans, MRI, ultrasound, and so forth.

However, different approaches and locations yield different levels of error.

To pinpoint an age within a two-month range is not easy.

"The hospital or health bureau should have records, I remember helping with that, applying for a replacement birth certificate." Shen Yaowei chimed in from the side casually.

Meng Chengbiao couldn’t help but glance at Shen Yaowei and chuckled, "Yaowei is good at getting things done. But for records from 20 years ago, I guess we’ll need to do quite a bit of digging."

"Then let’s have a look. Can you manage it, Yaowei?" Jiang Yuan pointed to Shen Yaowei.

Shen Yaowei responded and took out his phone, saying, "I’ll make a call and ask around first."

Next to him, Wu Junhao suggested, "I think we can also search the residences of Zhang Xiulan and the others again. The birth certificate is very important, and it might not necessarily have been thrown away. When we captured them, they probably didn’t anticipate this."

"Agreed, you can lead a team to go search." Jiang Yuan concurred.

Meng Chengbiao cleared his throat twice and said, "I have another idea."

"Oh, go ahead, Team Meng," Jiang Yuan invited, with his hands on the table, looking at Meng Chengbiao.

"This Zhang Haobin, I checked his file, and just in recent years, because of fighting and hooliganism, he’s been in and out of the police station no small number of times. However, the Zhang family has money, and they usually compensate quite promptly, so the consequences haven’t been too severe..."

Meng Chengbiao paused here, then cleared his throat again, saying, "The words Captain Wu mentioned earlier made me suddenly think—could the Zhang family have fabricated details on the birth certificate? Could these cases also involve fraud?"

Jiang Yuan asked, "For example?"

"Having someone else take the blame? Or maybe after injuring someone, they just run off, and the victim might not recognize them and can’t track them down..." Meng Chengbiao looked at Jiang Yuan, then at the silent Director Tang Xiaobo beside him, seeing that neither of them showed signs of disagreement, he continued,

"Zhang Enfan’s assessment of his nephew Zhang Haobin was that he is rough and lecherous. What I’m wondering is whether or not he knows about Jiao Lina’s case. If his assessment doesn’t take Jiao Lina’s case into account, then how does it manifest? When Zhang Enfan evaluates his own nephew, he surely wouldn’t do so on a whim. There’s no need for that; he could have just said it outright, right?"

Everyone fell into deep thought.

Jiang Yuan, in particular, nodded inwardly. It’s said that experienced detectives are inherently suspicious—based on Meng Chengbiao’s comments, a suspicion level of LV1.5 would undoubtedly be appropriate.

Jiang Yuan asked, "Do you think he has committed other offences?"

"He’s definitely been involved in many cases already," Meng Chengbiao was now fully engaged and quite forthright. "Now, the question is whether he’s had the opportunity to commit a major offence. I think it’s very likely, not just based on Zhang Enfan’s assessment but also, considering his personality. A young man who likes to resolve things with violence, who has attempted rape and murder before, is he likely to commit similar crimes again?"

The detectives present nodded softly.

As the saying goes, "A prodigal who returns is more precious than gold," but domestically mined gold of ordinary quality contains only 2g per ton of ore and is rarely seen by detectives.

Most violent criminals they encounter are habitual offenders. For example, a man who commits domestic violence isn’t likely to do it just once. Only those violent criminals who serve long sentences might change, but not necessarily because of a change in beliefs—it might be that the long duration of their imprisonment alters their behavioral habits. Additionally, as they age, the levels of hormones like testosterone in their bodies decrease, which can make them less violent.

And rapists are particularly prone to becoming repeat offenders.

Choosing to commit rape already indicates a lack of control over desires, and those desires will undoubtedly surface again and again.

If they weren’t punished for their first offence, it’s not incomprehensible for them to commit a second or a third offence when their desires peak.

"How do you propose we investigate?" Jiang Yuan felt that Meng Chengbiao’s theory was sound, but how to actually proceed and from which angle to investigate was the real issue at hand.

The first thing that came to Meng Chengbiao’s mind was interrogation, and he suggested, "I think we can question Zhang Enfan; he might know something. Also, perhaps we could bluff the Zhang family?"

Wang Chuanxing said, "Ordinary members of the Zhang family probably don’t know anything; I’m afraid Zhang Xiulan’s family wouldn’t turn in their own grandson or son."

Meng Chengbiao had to admit that this was indeed a concern.

Getting Zhang Xiulan and others to confess to Zhang Enfan’s actions was difficult enough, let alone their direct descendants.

"However..." Meng Chengbiao was a bit unwilling to let it go, saying, "Zhang Xiulan’s family, they handled the corpse very well too. They knew when rigor mortis would set in, knew how to clean the body, and also knew how to make it decompose more easily, how long to leave it..."

"Indeed, they’re bolder than the average person," Jiang Yuan nodded.

Mu Zhiyang said, "There are old people in the village who can dress the deceased in their burial clothes; Zhang Xiulan isn’t young and should have helped out before."

"That’s also a reason," Jiang Yuan replied, acting like a reed swaying with the wind.

From his perspective, the deductions made by the group were all reasonable, and there were also grounds for refutation.

Overall, further investigation was needed.

But to tell the truth, with the progress of the case at this stage, it would be appropriate to conclude the investigation.

Simply pursuing a heavy punishment seemed like a bit of a waste of resources... however, digging deeper around a person or a series of events was also one of the ways to crack a case.

Thinking this, Jiang Yuan lightly tapped the table twice and said, "Team Meng, continue the interrogation according to your thoughts. Wang Chuanxing, go through the assault and sexual assault cases from the last two or three years, not just those from Litang Township, but also from the surrounding areas. Bring them to me later; there shouldn’t be too many."

After thinking for a moment, Jiang Yuan added, "Also, go through the missing persons cases thoroughly and organize them as well."

Litang Township is also part of Ningtai County, which meant that all major local cases had already been screened by Jiang Yuan.

However, Jiang Yuan had initially screened the cases for the entire county; some less serious injuries that did not meet the standard for major cases, simple cases of indecency, or cases outside of the county, were all excluded from the scope.

Additionally, if a woman like Jiao Lina had no relatives and nobody to earnestly look for her after she went missing, the police would also be in the dark.

The group agreed and went about their tasks.

Although they had objections to each other’s suggestions, when it came to bringing criminals to justice, they were all on the same page.

Jiang Yuan was already planning to deal with smaller cases after finishing with the Zhang family’s case, so he was not changing his original intention and continued working.

He did not look for cases with scarce evidence; instead, he sought out cases that had gathered ample evidence but had not been further processed.

Especially cases of minor assault and indecency.

In Jiang Yuan’s experience, cases of minor assault were not difficult to investigate. Generally, such incidents involved mutual fighting due to various reasons. If no one was injured, it was a typical case of public security, resolved through mediation, apology, compensation, up to 15 days of detention at most.

If someone was injured, then the party with the more severe injuries had leverage; a second-degree minor injury led to months in prison, while a second-degree serious injury could mean years in prison.

In places like a county town, it was very likely that the fighting parties knew each other, or one could easily find out who was involved with just a few questions. The difficulty in handling these cases did not lie in the investigation.

Those who ran away and couldn’t be found were more interesting.

Jiang Yuan specifically focused on such cases, using the same method as before: he memorized the Zhang family members’ fingerprints, footprints, and other information, then directly compared them with photos from the cases.

In less than a day, Jiang Yuan actually found a match in an indecency case, or rather, it could be considered an attempted rape case!

Zhang Haobin’s fingerprints appeared on the victim’s personal backpack, but they hadn’t been matched before due to the difficulty of comparison.

Of course, a single case of indecency was not enough to be convincing. Just as Jiang Yuan was pondering whether to persist or to seek an alternative approach, Meng Chengbiao returned, bringing with him the so-called "curse of Zhang Enfan."

"This guy now wants to make meritorious contributions," Meng Chengbiao said with a chuckle, then his expression turned serious, "He says that Zhang Haobin had several girlfriends, some of whom have gone missing."