Chapter 1371: Similarity

Wang Chuansheng, you send this slip to the Chiyong City Bureau. Jiang Yuan signed his name in a flourish on a printed sheet and handed it to Wang Chuansheng.

Wang Chuansheng glanced at it and knew it was another half of an autopsy report.

The reason it's called half is because Jiang Yuan didn't want to write a full autopsy report, and he didn't have time to complete one and write the report, so he only noted a few points of what he saw and handed it over.

This one, written in size 4 font, reads: 【Metatarsal stress fracture, increased lumbar lordosis. Significant wear on the medial anterior aspect of the talus trochlear articular surface, and asymmetrical legs—pay special attention to these points to prove the earlier judgment that the victim was a dancer is inaccurate; it's more likely an ice skating enthusiast, possibly with dance training experience……】

Jiang Yuan's signature connected to the printed text, proving the report was written by him.

He currently doesn't have time to issue a legally binding autopsy report, but with his signature, the local criminal police team will also take it seriously.

As for whether the case can be solved, Jiang Yuan can't be certain either. From finding a clue, or rather having a breakthrough, to solving the case is still quite a distance away.

Just like now, if there were other methods, Jiang Yuan wouldn't want to ask Xu Taining to clear the scene. Huang Qiangmin need not even be mentioned—accumulating some family assets in Ningtai County is no easy feat, and no one wants to start over from scratch.

But the case still needs to be solved, even if the probability is low for such screening; what should be done must be done. Jiang Yuan is actually now using advanced forensic skills to screen the modus operandi of past accumulated cases.

Only, he can find some leads in other cases, but for the clues he needs, he has consistently failed to obtain them.

This pattern is somewhat like fishing—even if the angler is well-prepared and has prepared the bait the target fish likes most, failing to catch the target fish is perfectly normal. Instead, small fish disturb the nest, occasionally hooked one or two.

Wang Chuansheng carefully placed the printed slip with Jiang Yuan's signature into the folder, then took a photo and directly sent it via WeChat to Liu Zhengwei of the Chiyong Police Bureau, then said: "If they ask about it, should we take the call?"

"For now, what I can provide is all written on the paper. A call isn't necessary either; if they want to investigate further, they at least have to wait until our side's case is completed." Jiang Yuan's reply was not surprising.

Wang Chuansheng agreed after confirming. Not only is this case like this, but usually, when Jiang Yuan handles cases, various immortals still want to cut in line to look at fingerprints, the scene, the corpse, etc. Theoretically, Jiang Yuan only handles cases that can be dealt with quickly, not particularly urgent ones; the rest are left for later.

It can be said that the police bureau that has seen Jiang Yuan's one-dragon case handling is far fewer in number than those consulting Jiang Yuan's criminal police team. To some extent, Jiang Yuan's current one-dragon case handling is more like a form of advertisement.

Of course, the slip Jiang Yuan just wrote is an actively discovered clue. Previously, in such situations, he might have still had Huang Qiangmin deliver it, but since the Chiyong City Bureau has already joined the group battle, there's no need to be so troublesome.

The person in charge of the Chiyong City Bureau who received the message inevitably had to deploy troops again. They cannot reduce the workload of the "Li Huimin Project" on Jiang Yuan's side, and their own cases won't be fewer either; they might have to borrow some young, strong, well-nourished young people.

Jiang Yuan looked at photo after photo, and time flew by.

Dong. Dong.

Another evidence box, as well as a stack of mechanical hard drives and optical discs, was placed on the desktop.

Jiang Yuan didn't even lift his head and asked: "Where from?"

"We had someone newly organize it." The speaker was Xu Taining, with Liu Jinghui standing beside him.

Jiang Yuan glanced at the two in surprise: "Any new developments?"

"Liu Chu has a new theory, and I somewhat agree with it." Xu Taining smiled slightly, looking toward Liu Jinghui beside him.

Liu Jinghui sighed: "Let this guy seize the opportunity. I'm considering that burning corpses is actually also a modus operandi, and this modus operandi actually eliminates other modus operandi, so I think we should also consider related types of cases."

Jiang Yuan looked up at Liu Jinghui, thought for a moment, and said: "The degree of corpse burning varies, and so does the degree of evidence concealment. If you want to conceal chest wounds, you need to burn the upper body to charcoal level, preferably accompanied by decay so the heart wounds aren't visible. For binding marks, burning the rope makes the binding method invisible, but this state of hands bound behind the back is still quite visible—you'd need to burn until the hands' state is indistinguishable."

"So it needs to be burned very severely?" Liu Jinghui translated.

"Pretty much."

"This is better—it narrows the scope." Liu Jinghui paused, then said: "I asked the traffic police comrades, and according to them, this involved Santana didn't catch fire; it was somewhat lucky, mainly because there was too little fuel in the tank. They drove all the way here, the remaining gasoline wasn't enough, the weather was cold, and in the end they couldn't completely burn the vehicle."

Jiang Yuan understood, nodded slowly: "So, for cases where the vehicle was completely burned, should we include them in the situation?"

"Not necessarily vehicles." Xu Taining spoke up, broadening it: "Not necessarily limited to vehicles—I roughly looked through, and burning corpse cases are still quite numerous—outdoor burning, home killings followed by burning, various kinds, especially gasoline pouring, not few in number; gasoline should be relatively easy to obtain."

What he said was not few—it was the aggregation of cases from many cities and counties.

Frankly speaking, under normal circumstances, no one would conduct such a large-scale investigation of cases, even if it were a ministry-supervised case; it's impossible to involve such a large scale, as the cost would be too high, and very few cases require such a large-scale investigation—this imposes excessively high demands on organization and investigative capability.

Being able to do this itself is already a kind of ability.

Just like Liu Jinghui's analysis—if not for Xu Taining's support, his idea couldn't be realized; similarly, if not for Jiang Yuan's support, Xu Taining wouldn't rashly drag so many burning corpse cases into this, because ordinary forensic judgments might not be accurate enough, and speed is also an issue, making the plan fundamentally unimplementable.

As for Jiang Yuan, this is simply a matter of whether it's necessary or not.

"I understand—I'll look at the burning corpse cases first." Jiang Yuan understood the two's ideas and also somewhat agreed.

From his perspective, although involving cases across multiple provinces, cities, and counties, corpses are corpses after all, and there won't be extra difficulty.

The killer's method—even if it's burning corpses, as long as it's not burned completely clean, it's still easy to judge.

……

Half a day later, Jiang Yuan indeed found an example of a burning corpse case with hands bound behind the back among a pile of burning corpse cases.

"Ba River Burning Corpse Case!"

Upon hearing the news, Liu Jinghui and Xu Taining each picked up a portion of the file and began reading.

"The victim was dragged into a dense forest and burned, hands bound behind the back, burned after death. The killer also used the gasoline-pouring method, and the time of the crime is also close……" Jiang Yuan gave a brief introduction.

"But we can't see the binding method of the bound hands." Liu Jinghui felt a bit regretful.

"It's already very close." Xu Taining didn't need such a precise answer, waved his hand at the people behind him, and said: "Put it away, mark it as B-level. With so many resources we have, what's a few more linked?"

ABC three levels are the case similarity standards set by Xu Taining; B-level is already the closest case collected so far.

Liu Jinghui couldn't help but glance sideways at Xu Taining, then received a grin.

"You guy, you're really not worried at all." Liu Jinghui felt a bit emotional; he himself often goes out to do this, and he truly understands the pressure involved.

Xu Taining smiled calmly and said: "Using others' resources to handle cases—what's there to worry about? Worry that they won't invite you anymore?"

Liu Jinghui stared at Xu Taining for several seconds, then realized: "Anyway, they won't be able to invite you in the future, is that it?"