Chapter 241: Saw Blade

Although it was only identifying one victim, or rather, identifying one victim had already made everyone's emotions high.

In several groups, the number of people speaking had clearly increased.

In the "Gray Badge Group" that Jiang Yuan was pulled into, someone chatted happily:

Trace Examination Li Rui: 【Feeling hope, identifying the corpse source, can search the activity trajectory on the day of disappearance.】

Scene Investigation Zhang Mingyuan: 【Don't be so optimistic, missing for 3 years and four months, only family members can remember a bit, ask people around, they can't remember.】

Image Investigation Fu Quanzhi: 【Didn't you actively look for people when they went missing? Normal people, if someone around them went missing and they were asked, they would definitely remember it vividly.】

Scene Investigation Zhang Mingyuan: 【When she went missing, her parents weren't around, they went to the countryside. The victim had no job, stayed at home, thinking, now called flexible employment, so there were no colleagues. Four days after going missing, the parents called many times and couldn't get through before reporting to the police.】

Forensic Expert Niu Lihuang: 【 (? w?) The victim has cervical spondylosis, lumbar disc herniation, all occupational diseases of desk work, but she didn't have a job?】

Scene Investigation Zhang Mingyuan: 【Playing games, probably.】

Forensic Expert Niu Lihuang: 【Damn, forensic experts can't do it anymore, how can this judge the life occupation scene?】

Scene Investigation Zhang Mingyuan: 【Fortunately, the victim's jewelry was found, Jiang Yuan is still powerful, otherwise, whether this wave could find the victim is not certain.】

Image Investigation Fu Quanxian: 【Then now, are there any clues about the motorcycle? Or is the clue broken?】

Scene Investigation Zhang Mingyuan: 【Still looking, and can't be limited to the victim's living area, this person's living area is very narrow.】

A group of people chatted, moving from optimism to pessimism, and soon stopped chatting.

Jiang Yuan also frowned as he watched. He had imagined the victim's identity, but had no stable thoughts.

However, his initial thought was also that the victim was a white-collar worker or a civil servant, at least the type of office work. Where would he think that a girl in her twenties, playing games seriously, could play out so many diseases.

After brushing the mobile phone, coming back to his senses, Jiang Yuan sighed secretly and looked at the corpse again.

According to his original thoughts, if the location of the corpse source or the crime scene was found, the probability of finding the killer would be very high.

Just in terms of accumulated homicide cases, the evidence obtained now was not small.

However, not finding it was not finding it, especially during the period of finding the victim's home, if there were new clues, it might be possible to lock the killer directly, but if there were none. The value of this clue would be greatly reduced.

The criminal police were still working hard locally, through investigating motorcycles, investigating the personnel situation at the time of disappearance, investigating the victim's interpersonal relationships, etc., perhaps they could discover a bit of a clue.

But from Jiang Yuan's perspective, the best evidence was always the corpse itself.

"King of Evidence" explained the richness of the information provided by the corpse, it was just that obtaining it was a bit too difficult.

However, compared to the first three corpses, the fourth corpse seemed to have more to say--this was purely Jiang Yuan's feeling. If one had to describe it, the fourth corpse appeared more messy and handled more sloppily.

And judging from the time, the time of death of the fourth corpse was also relatively long. Jiang Yuan's judgment was 4 years ago.

It was equivalent to saying that this victim was killed by the killer earlier.

Handled insufficiently perfectly.

Or encountered an accident during the handling process?

Jiang Yuan cherished expectation in his heart, carefully looking for clues.

Actually, it is normal for a killer to encounter some unexpected situations during the process of dismembering a body.

When slaughtering pigs in rural areas during the New Year, even a butcher who has been killing pigs for a lifetime wouldn't dare to claim that they never have any accidents.

Moreover, the killer is under immense psychological pressure, the operating location is often uncomfortable, and their vision and other factors are restricted, so it is very normal for unexpected situations to occur. Some killers even learn to wear latex gloves or the like, only to end up cutting the gloves into the corpse.

Jiang Yuan hadn't found any particularly useful evidence on the first three corpses, but looking at the fourth one, he hoped to gain something.

He didn't examine the corpses in order either; instead, following his intuition, he first picked up the large bones to flip through them.

This examination took over an hour.

During this period, other forensic doctors also came over to look at the bones, but everyone focused on different points, and their directions of attention and judgment were also different.

Jiang Yuan watched silently, but when he reached the cut radius and humerus, he couldn't help but stop.

This time, what attracted him was the cross-section of the bone.

The bone had been sawn open with a saw. There was nothing novel about this. Many dismemberment monsters like to use saws, including Wang Guoshan from the reservoir body-dumping case, who also used a saw for dismemberment.

Compared to those who use axes, knives, or similar tools for dismemberment, using a saw requires less effort, results in more pieces, and the average weight of each piece is smaller.

Jiang Yuan had seen many corpses dismembered with saws, but as far as the fourth corpse source was concerned, its cross-section had changed.

What kind of change?

Jiang Yuan took out several sternum and rib bones to compare with the humerus and radius. At this point, he could see that the cross-sections of the former were flatter and smoother, while the latter not only had relatively severe cutting marks but also obvious saw-jumping marks. In addition, the stepped marks on the humerus and radius were obvious, with a distance of 4 millimeters from the cross-section and a length of 4 millimeters, whereas the sternum and ribs appeared flatter and clearer.

All of this points to one problem: the killer changed the saw.

Regardless of whether he cut the sternum first or the arms first, he had changed the saw.

Perhaps one saw broke, perhaps the saw blade broke, or perhaps he felt the saw he was using wasn't effective enough. Regardless of the reason, in short, the killer changed the saw, or at the very least the saw blade, during the process of dismembering the body.

But whether it was the saw or the blade that was changed, it further reveals an answer: the killer completed the dismemberment at a fixed location.

The reason for this deduction is that the killer must have been using a high-power saw, most likely a chainsaw.

A chainsaw is not small in size or weight, usually weighing around 10 kilograms, and its saw blade—which should more accurately be called a saw chain—is a heavy, bicycle-chain-like object weighing several jin. Jiang Yuan felt that a normal dismemberment monster wouldn't carry two chainsaws, or one chainsaw plus an extra chain.

If this dismemberment monster had a "chain-breakage phobia," wouldn't it be more reasonable and appropriate for someone as meticulous as him to simply replace the saw chain on the chainsaw?

This thing is often used to saw wood and trees and is made of special steel; it can be used for hundreds of cuts and still be sharpened for further use, so it doesn't break or get damaged that easily.

Buying a new one online to replace it, and after chopping up two people, he might even be able to return it to the seller.

Therefore, the more reasonable explanation for the change of saw or blade on the fourth corpse source is that the killer was dismembering the body on his own turf.

Only then would it be smooth and easy to replace the saw or blade when encountering a problem.

This overturns another hypothesis: that the killer intentionally carried the saw and other tools to commit the crime far away from his residence or workplace.

In other words, the killer's residence or workplace should be near the crime scene.

That is, near the residence of the third victim, Feng Xiaoyan!

Having figured this out, Jiang Yuan immediately called Huang Qiangmin.

Huang Qiangmin, on the other end, hadn't rested either; he listened to Jiang Yuan's reasoning with anticipation, though he was slightly silent afterward.

"Is there a problem?" Jiang Yuan felt something was wrong.

"We've already swept through Fang Jinxiang's motorcycles, and no suspects were screened out." Huang Qiangmin sighed.

Jiang Yuan was a bit surprised: "Swept that fast? Then... around Fang Jinxiang? The rural areas closer to Feng Xiaoyan?"

"That's also possible. But motorcycles aren't used as much here as they are in Zifeng Town." Huang Qiangmin paused and said, "Could it be that they rode over from other townships twenty or thirty kilometers away?"

"That's a bit too far. Besides, carrying one chainsaw on a motorcycle is already tough enough; carrying two, or one chainsaw and two chains? That would be too exhausting."

"That's true." Huang Qiangmin paused for a moment and said, "It's possible Feng Xiaoyan moved, but the possibility of her leaving alone for dozens of kilometers is indeed not high."

As Huang Qiangmin said this, he negated his own point.

"So, the probability that the killer is in Fang Jinxiang or the surrounding area is indeed very high. It's a pity that we can't find the source for the other corpses, otherwise..." Huang Qiangmin was a bit frustrated, then added, "We've been paying attention to the dismemberment tools, but haven't found anything. Well, your discovery is still very valuable. I'll report it to Director Xu; we still need to strengthen the search and investigation here."

Jiang Yuan acknowledged this, hung up the phone, and felt a bit exhausted himself.

While the scope has been narrowed, a radius of ten or fifteen kilometers is still quite large. If there were enough time, a detailed, step-by-step investigation would have a high possibility of success.

It's just that investigation is the most time-consuming part.