National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 716 - 659: Hastily Done

Chapter 716: Chapter 659: Hastily Done

Fang Xia Village.

Tao Lu accompanied Jiang Yuan, driving for over three hours, specifically for this trip, chatting and laughing all the way, with an attitude that could not have been any better.

Tao Lu was extremely satisfied with Jiang Yuan.

If the chief had some additional expectations of Jiang Yuan, it was because he was the real financier, bearing the burden of the budget, which he couldn’t outwardly express.

Tao Lu, however, didn’t have that much on his mind. As the captain of the Beijing Division, his role was pretty much the same as the captain of the county’s unit, perhaps with even more worries, but as long as he did his job well, most of his work was considered done.

And when it came to work, Jiang Yuan’s answers were just too standard, especially with yesterday’s "Wanlong Gardens sewer dumping case," Tao Lu was not just satisfied, he was pleased.

He now resembled a bear that had overeaten, apparently too sluggish to chase after prey, entertaining Jiang Yuan with trivial conversation.

When Jiang Yuan arrived in Fang Xia Village, he immediately went into work mode.

The dumping case a few days ago was routine to him. A determination of the time of death directly changed the entire logic of the case from the ground up. Theoretically, once Jiang Yuan corrected the death timeline, the remaining work could have been done by Liu Cheng or someone else, and the outcome would have likely been the same.

In fact, the follow-up work was actually done by Liu Cheng and others.

However, without Jiang Yuan’s presence, whether Liu Cheng and the others could concentrate fully and invest substantial resources in advancing the case in a new direction was another matter.

The crime scene of the case in Fang Xia Village was in a self-constructed house on the east side of the village.

Composed of the Fang and Xia families, Fang Xia Village was a large village with three to four hundred households. Of course, there weren’t many people left now, but as a countryside location in the Jingji region, Fang Xia Village still had close to a thousand residents, living on agriculture, animal husbandry, farm labor, and "remittances," maintaining a semblance of bustle despite its remoteness.

The deceased Xia Hong and his family survived on several vegetable greenhouses and a hillside of fruit trees, and their economic condition was quite good, one of the rare families that maintained a rural way of life.

Perhaps it was their favorable economic conditions that brought about their violent deaths.

Although their income could not match that of some netizens, Xia Hong’s family of three had a gross annual income of about four to five hundred thousand, with a net profit of around three hundred thousand. Despite both spouses working hard, in such a remote place as Fang Xia Village, they were substantially better off.

Other villagers would be doing well to earn thirty to forty thousand a year, and most households had only one main breadwinner.

As for those who worked away from home, the villagers of Fang Xia Village who lived long-term in Beijing had already left this ecosystem behind.

"Xia Hong’s house has been left as it was, without much alteration," the local police officer leading the way said, "Xia Hong’s parents are both alive, and they have siblings, but currently, no one has inherited this house. The village hasn’t interfered with it; it’s been left deserted just like this."

Houses in the village aren’t valuable, even though it’s considered part of Beijing, but it’s a bit far from the Sixth Ring Road. Thus, as an ordinary rural self-constructed house with a history of murder, it not only had no inhabitants, but the neighboring households had moved away too.

Approaching the house, it looked even more desolate.

The concrete house, sturdy and solid, was two levels high, but ugly.

The front of the house had tiles stuck onto it, but both sides were bare, and due to the angle, unless one stood directly in front, one could see the bare concrete on both sides.

In front of the concrete house was a yard of about a hundred square meters, completely paved with blue bricks, which made it look somewhat nicer.

The yard’s iron fence was locked with a chain, hanging down, giving off a rather carefree appearance.

Noticing Jiang Yuan’s gaze, the leading police officer explained, "We locked the chain. Normally, this gate isn’t locked; at most, they would just latch it from behind. Someone could just reach in to unlock it themselves."

Jiang Yuan asked, "Has anyone gone in?"

"Some mischievous kids went in to explore," the officer said with a hint of resignation, "A total of four kids. The first time, two went in, the second time, four. They stayed for about ten minutes each time. Someone told Xia’s family, and they weren’t happy about it. The kids who went in wouldn’t admit they did anything wrong, and some people even called the police. In the end, we mediated."

"How did you mediate? What did Xia’s family want?" Tao Lu inquired with interest.

The officer replied, "The parents beat the kids in front of Xia’s family as a punishment; that put an end to it."

Tao Lu thought, "That’s not too bad..."

Liu Cheng then stood in front of the yard gate and said, "On August 10th, the neighbor of the Xia family discovered that Xia Hong’s door had been closed all the time. Not only had no one come out, but also the greenhouse had not been tended to, so they entered on their own. Upon reaching the bedroom, they found bodies on both the ground and the bed, and then reported it to the authorities..."

Listening, Jiang Yuan nodded, then put on gloves and tried to open the iron gate from the outside... it could be easily done by just reaching in. Very simple.

"These people are really careless," sighed Tao Lu.

"People are all like this nowadays. Many think they can sleep without locking their doors. Just the other day, I worked on a theft case where the victim lived in a villa and never locked their doors during the day, practically luring a security guard inside," said Liu Cheng, shaking his head, though it was unclear for whom he felt sorry.

"Let’s go inside and take a look," suggested Jiang Yuan, who had read the case file carefully beforehand and now held a photocopy. Starting from the main entrance, he went step by step, saying, "The room is messy. In the second room from east to west, there is blood seepage. The female homeowner, Zhu Meifang, was found facing the direction of the door, collapsed. In the northeast corner of the room, there was a double bed with a young child in a prone position, and a large amount of blood on the exterior wall of the window... The male homeowner, Xia Hong, was leaning against the eastern wall, with bloody handprints left on the writing desk and pools of blood on the floor..."

The bloodstains in the room had already been cleaned, but the furniture remained unchanged in position, only some bedding had been taken away as evidence.

Jiang Yuan walked and observed, following the sequence of the investigation detailed in the case file, re-examining the bedroom once again.

"The palm print was found above the bedside table?" Jiang Yuan pulled out a photo and stood in front of the bedside table to verify.

From the photo, it was clear that a faint palm print had landed on the edge of the bedside table, looking as if the left hand had inadvertently left it there while someone was rummaging through the drawers.

Jiang Yuan looked left and right, almost as if he was conducting the initial investigation of the bedroom all over again before finally stepping out and continuing to examine the other rooms.

"Over here, there are mainly signs of searching for valuables. The perpetrator searched very thoroughly, pulling out many drawers..." The police officer from the police station meticulously explained.

Jiang Yuan stopped in his tracks and turned to look at the officer, asking, "Was it your station that conducted the initial investigation entry?"

"Yes."

"What areas does your station cover?"

"This side of Liugouyan, some parts of Zhengguang District are ours."

"Has your station solved murder cases before?" Jiang Yuan asked this for a reason. Police stations have various responsibilities, which differ from place to place. In theory, as a branch of the police, they have their own authority to sign documents and manage finances, which isn’t much different from a division, except for the difference in their capacities.

In practice, most police stations do not handle major cases like homicides; some don’t even handle criminal cases and call for the criminal investigation team when encountering one.

The police officer shook his head and said, "At most, we help with preserving the scene. We don’t directly participate in the investigative work."

"What does preserving the scene include?"

"Protecting the scene, checking if the perpetrator is hiding, being mindful of the crowd, managing the flow of people, and so on..." The police officer earnestly listed several tasks.

Jiang Yuan nodded as he listened, then continued to survey the scene.

After several groups of people had come and gone, Jiang Yuan finally finished examining the scene thoroughly and said, "Let’s go back."

"Hey, wait, wait, since we’re here, let’s have a meal together; it’s not often we get this chance," hurried in the chief of the police station.

Jiang Yuan politely declined.

On the way back, Tao Lu felt a bit regretful and said with a smile, "We really should have tried it. Liugouyan has a tradition of raising donkeys, and their donkey meat is quite authentic."

"They were a bit hasty in their investigation process," Jiang Yuan didn’t follow up on Tao Lu’s remark but instead handed over a few selected photos to Tao Lu, saying, "Their level is about the same as Longli County. I thought something felt familiar yesterday."

"Longli what?"

"In short, the results of their initial investigation are unsatisfactory. There are many issues with the scene, including that palm print, which all have to be reconsidered," Jiang Yuan concluded, giving Tao Lu an answer that was hard to accept but sparked hope.

Whether it’s appropriate to point it out or not, if they could solve this ’three-corpse’ case, it wouldn’t matter if it overshadowed their own department’s pride.