National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 778 - 721: Searching for Clues

Chapter 778: Chapter 721: Searching for Clues

The red light was powerfully piercing, and looking out from the darkness immediately brought about a sense of daze.

Liu Cheng shielded his eyes and waved his flashlight twice, prompting the red dot on the opposite side to move.

"There are too many cameras, one might think they’ve been targeted by a sniper," Liu Cheng complained as he walked to the entrance.

"More evidence isn’t a bad thing," Liu Jinghui actually agreed with Tao Lu’s setup; although it might not be very useful at the trial stage, during the investigation, the "mountain" within the ironclad evidence really did have significance.

Liu Cheng muttered something under his breath, not really opposing anything, but instead stood there somewhat gloomily.

There wasn’t much left for him to do. The place was extremely remote and leaving was out of the question, so all he could do was stand guard.

Liu Jinghui walked up and down, and as his mind burst with inspiration, he too stood beside Liu Cheng, deep in thought.

From across the room, one could see that both men’s eyes were unfocused, but while one man’s mind was whirring furiously, the other’s was flat-lining.

Jiang Yuan first walked through all three floors, then returned to the first floor to change his clothes and gloves.

At this point, Liu Cheng seemed to spring to life, eagerly asking, "How is it?"

"There’s a lot of evidence. The evacuation wasn’t too rushed, but they didn’t clear much evidence, hardly doing any systematic cleaning," said Jiang Yuan, glancing at Liu Jinghui.

Liu Jinghui was instantly invigorated, frowning as he said, "That suggests that this might not be the primary crime scene."

The location where the victim, Zhang Lizhen, fell into the water was nearby, and the spore information on her body also indicated she had been in this courtyard, but that didn’t necessarily mean she died there.

It was possible she died outside the courtyard, or even in the grass or under the trees.

Logically deducing, the police had found this estate by following the information from Zhang Lizhen’s corpse. Considering that such a fine estate, obviously not cheap to maintain, had been abandoned around the time of Zhang Lizhen’s death, there must be a connection between her death and the estate.

Then, by common sense, if Zhang Lizhen had died within the estate, it would be most logical to clean up as a way to eliminate evidence.

So, the lack of cleaning traces within the estate greatly suggests that the primary crime scene was not inside the estate, making the cleanup unnecessary.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that the person in charge of the estate wasn’t aware of Zhang Lizhen’s death. But, by common sense, it’s hard to believe that the manager of such a remote and unique estate would have such weak control.

On the other hand, even if the person in charge didn’t know about Zhang Lizhen’s death, and therefore didn’t clean the estate, the murderer should have returned to the scene to clean up.

Liu Cheng also snapped back to reality, pondered for a while, understood, and proceeded to ask further, "Actually, even if this isn’t the primary scene and nothing happened here, wouldn’t it still be normal to clean up?"

"That’s an interesting question. If the person in charge had time to take away things like picture frames, why not clean the room?" Liu Jinghui paused, then said, "There are only two reasons, either they felt it was unnecessary, or they felt it was necessary."

"Unnecessary to clean up? Someone has died, that reasoning obviously doesn’t fit," said Liu Cheng.

Liu Jinghui nodded.

Liu Cheng continued, "By necessary, you mean the person in charge felt it necessary to leave evidence behind?"

Liu Jinghui nodded slowly, "That’s the only explanation."

The two of them looked at Jiang Yuan as they spoke. They were here to show off their deductive reasoning, but the truth ultimately needed to be supported by evidence.

Jiang Yuan called over an officer with a camera and another for crime scene investigation, and they began to examine the scene from bottom to top in order.

"Start with collecting footprints from the ground," Jiang Yuan instructed, brightening the forensic light and collecting footprints one by one.

Soon, the dim room was illuminated by the forensic lights.

As of now, Jiang Yuan believed the footprints were of great value.

Not only could footprints reveal a series of identity characteristics of those present at the scene, but most importantly, they could indicate whether there had been any scuffles, resistance, or dragging.

It is easy for a person to die but difficult to kill, and even if the victim was female, it wouldn’t be easy to kill her cleanly. Although previous reasoning discussions had leaned towards the first crime scene not being indoors, it was still necessary to investigate to be sure.

Moreover, actions such as scuffles and dragging could be discerned because they were out of the ordinary, more intense activities.

For Jiang Yuan, as long as there were footprints, even less intense activities could be evident.

He had now activated the Crime Scene Reconstruction (temporary +1) skill, which amounted to having Level 5 Crime Scene Investigation skills and an additional higher level, equivalent to Level 6 expertise in Crime Scene Reconstruction.

At this level, given enough time and effort, one could not only deduce how the owner of the footprints moved and where they went, but even the actions of the footprints’ owner before and after stepping could be discerned.

A simple example, when a twisting mark appears on a footprint, it suggests that the owner of the footprint might have turned.

Many human actions require a point of force, and as long as the ground conditions are good enough, these can be identifiable. The dust that had accumulated over more than a year of closure in this residence now became an advantage for footprint identification.

Jiang Yuan and his team first used planks to collect and record the footprints layer by layer.

At the same time, while the others were collecting footprints, Jiang Yuan performed another round of analysis, then circled several footprints in a spiral pattern of observation.

He picked up some hair or flakes of skin, which were also marked and photographed separately.

For Jiang Yuan, the difficulty wasn’t in the crime scene investigation itself, but in organizing it well—not just systematically during the investigation phase but also providing robust evidence in the subsequent phases of the investigation and during the trial was the most challenging part.

It was predictable that there would be many residents and visitors in the mansion, and the task of filtering all of them out efficiently and systematically was not a small one.

Three floors, going around each one layer by layer, collecting evidence—it was dark by the time they were done.

After collecting the footprints, they collected fingerprints and classified various other traces.

A normal crime scene investigation wouldn’t proceed this way—typically, only key fingerprints and traces would be collected from strategic locations.

Otherwise, in this digital age, it might not be much of an issue, but 20 years ago, when paper documentation was prevalent, the sheer volume of evidence would have been problematic.

This time, the scene was different; including Tao Lu and others, there was a tendency to collect as much evidence as possible and to identify as many individuals as possible.

This continued until late in the evening, when most of the crime scene examination was finally completed.

Compared to the interior, the yard yielded little of value. Over one year in the woods was entirely different from over one year in the city.

In an environment teeming with microorganisms and fully filled ecological niches, it was difficult to find fingerprints and footprints in the yard, let alone use them to prove anything.

"Tao, the crime scene investigation is finished," Jiang Yuan said as he removed his gloves again, the sky now completely dark.

"The fingerprint and footprint identification work, has that been assigned to you as well?" Tao Lu added.

Jiang Yuan nodded, "I can handle it."

"Okay, then I’ll bring in the dogs," Tao said.

The forensic doctor nodded again.

Tao Lu took out the walkie-talkie, saying, "Let the dogs in."

Several robust police dogs immediately appeared before Jiang Yuan and the others.