Chapter 444

Captain Bai felt a bit guilty after being spoken to by Huang Huang Qiangmin. He laughed loudly twice and said: "If you guys can solve the case, everything is easy to talk about. If the case can't be solved, don't brag like this."

Huang Huang Qiangmin crushed the cigarette in his hand into the spider plant's pot, lit another one, and said with a dazed look in his eyes: "Old Bai, I didn't have much contact with you before, and I didn't realize that your mouth is really hard."

"You win, you can say whatever you want. If you can't solve the case, then get lost." Captain Bai's eyes became exceptionally arrogant. This straightforward provocation, although seen through at a glance, was still very unpleasant.

Huang Huang Qiangmin laughed: "If your IQ were a bit harder, you would know that the reason our Jiang Yuan came to your Shi Tingxian is because he has continuously solved cold cases... Does the number of homicide cases you, Bai Liu Jian, have solved in your life equal the number our Jiang Yuan has solved in two years?"

Captain Bai didn't lose his composure even if he lost the argument, and said without hesitation: "No need to compare. The number of homicide cases I've solved in my life might not even equal what your Jiang Yuan solves in a year... but..."

Huang Huang Qiangmin's expression had originally softened, but upon hearing the word "but," he could only look helplessly at Captain Bai Liu Jian.

Bai Liu Jian said: "Even if you solve many cases, solving countless cases doesn't mean you can solve this one. Let me put it this way: there is no one in the world who dares to say he can solve all cases, right?"

Huang Huang Qiangmin was stunned. Such a hard mouth; even if it were thrown to him, he wouldn't have the confidence to bite it to pieces.

Liu Liu Jinghui, listening from the side, found it interesting and laughed: "Captain Bai, logically speaking, what you just said is a fallacy of equivocation."

Captain Bai felt embarrassed to argue with Liu Liu Jinghui, who came from the provincial department, and held his ground, reinforcing himself.

At this moment, Jiang Yuan said: "Captain Bai, find two criminal police officers from the special task force for the Majiazhuang family extermination case, the kind who followed it from beginning to end."

Bai Liu Jian said: "I am one of them. What do you want to ask?"

"Did you investigate the footprints on the window?" Jiang Yuan took out a photo, which was a close-up of one-fifth of a footprint. It was roughly the middle part of a shoe, stepped on the window frame, leaving a mark.

As soon as Bai Liu Jian heard it, he knew what Jiang Yuan was asking, and said: "We specifically asked someone to look at this footprint back then. It was too small to be used as evidence."

The entire crime scene was a mess. It was already impossible to distinguish which footprints belonged to the villagers, which belonged to the murderer, and which belonged to the police officers and joint defense team members who arrived later. Only the one-fifth footprint on the window could basically be determined to be the murderer's.

This was a typical footprint position for a burglary. The forensic team of Shi Tingxian also tried their best to take a relatively complete footprint.

However, because of the structure of the window frame, it was very small, and in the end, it didn't play a role.

Similar to fingerprints, footprints also need to have a certain size and certain characteristic points to be easily compared.

One-fifth of a footprint, and only the middle part of the shoe at that—in the eyes of normal footprint experts, this is basically useless evidence.

Unless it's LV5!

Jiang Yuan had already looked at this footprint carefully just now. He picked up another photo from his side, placed it in a row with the one-fifth footprint, and said: "These two footprints are together. They are footprints of the same person."

Both photos were footprints; one was only one-fifth of a normal one, and the other was complete.

Bai Liu Jian was stunned, his expression gradually turning into: Are you kidding me?

Because in the two photos in front of him, the former was a footprint of a sneaker, and the latter was a footprint of an old cotton shoe.

The shoes are different, yet you say they are footprints of the same person...

Jiang Yuan explained on the spot: "I think it should be that the murderer changed shoes after committing the crime."

At this, not only Bai Liu Jian, but everyone else in the office crowded over.

Changing shoes in the middle of a crime is something one has heard of, but it is very rare to see.

Huang Huang Qiangmin also hummed, pretending to be calm, but he was equally curious inside. To be honest, he hadn't seen many difficult cases; perhaps half of the difficult cases in his life were seen while following Jiang Yuan. No way around it, the murderer who commits such cases cannot concentrate on going to Ningtai County to commit crimes, so only a police officer like Jiang Yuan, who wanders around committing crimes, can be so knowledgeable.

Jiang Yuan took a third photo, which was a smeared bloodstain, numbered 277.

While writing the number in his notebook, Jiang Yuan said: "The murderer likely stepped in blood. To avoid leaving overly obvious traces, the murderer took off his shoes here, put on a pair of the victim's shoes, continued to commit the crime, and finally left with his own shoes."

Jiang Yuan began to display a large number of photos, which were footprints of old cotton shoes and sneakers indoors, respectively.

Previously, Bai Liu Jian and the other criminal police officers of Shi Tingxian had not failed to consider working on the case from the direction of footprints, but there were too few clues from footprints, and there were too many footprints.

The Ma family's courtyard had hard ground. Walking from the hard ground into the tiles of the living room left a large number of footprints, but the clarity was not high.

From the one-fifth footprint on the window frame to the step of the sneakers on the ground, it is no exaggeration to say that even without the LV5 footprint identification skill, one would at least need to reach high-level LV3, and this step is something most footprint experts in Shannan Province cannot achieve.

If it is a super major case and there are no clues at all, and one must rely on footprints, one could pack up all the footprints in the courtyard, classify them, and then compare them. Finding a high-level LV3 footprint expert could also do this case, just like what Jiang Yuan did before. The whole process is relatively cumbersome and wastes time.

However, Jiang Yuan doesn't need to go to such trouble now. The newly upgraded LV5 footprint identification skill just happens to play a role when encountering such high-difficulty footprints.

And this step is the most important 0-1.

By comparison, everyone is more concerned and curious about the shoe change, which is actually 1-2; a low-level LV3 could easily judge it.

Immediately after, Jiang Yuan released a few more photos of bloodstains and said:

"The murderer first entered wearing his own sneakers. As a result, not long after entering, he encountered the victim, Ma Jun. Ma Jun should not have realized that someone had entered the house. The murderer killed the victim Ma Jun at a very fast speed. Afterward, he took off his own shoes, took out a pair of Ma Jun's shoes from the shoe cabinet not far away, continued to commit the crime, and finally left with his own shoes."

"The shoe sizes of the victim Ma Jun and the murderer are similar; they should only differ by half a size, a difference like 42 and 42.5."

"The two people's heights are similar, but their weights and ages differ significantly. Therefore, from here, one can distinguish that some of the old cotton shoe prints belong to the victim Ma Jun, and others are very likely the murderer's."

Bai Liu Jian hurriedly said at this time: "These old cotton shoes sold quite a lot back then. There are many people in Majiazhuang who wear the same shoe soles. How to distinguish them?"

Jiang Yuan said easily: "Even if they are shoes from the same batch, the shoe soles are the same, but the degree of wear is different. Shoe soles after wear naturally have differences."

Jiang Yuan placed three photos on the spot as examples: "These three are the footprints of three identical old cotton shoes at the crime scene. You can see that the wear points on the right side, left side, and heel position are all different."

Bai Liu Jian opened his eyes wide, feeling that he saw it, but also feeling that he saw nothing.

It was impossible for Jiang Yuan to explain "the influence of different pitches on magic power" to a Muggle. After waiting for a while, he continued: "The key is that the same type of shoe print can show two physical characteristics, which also shows that two people have worn these shoes..."

"The same pair of old cotton shoes has discordant footprints. Although it is possible that family members mixed them up, comparing them with the sneakers can still distinguish the difference."

"In short, I think it is feasible to look for a breakthrough through the footprints at the scene."

Jiang Yuan quickly made a summary and looked at Captain Bai.

Bai Liu Jian had no way to refute it and even felt that what Jiang Yuan said made some sense.

At this moment, Bai Liu Jian's heart began to beat wildly, thump, thump, thump, uncontrollably.

If the point of view proposed by Jiang Yuan is confirmed, this case really has a new lead.

For a cold homicide case, any new lead is precious. Not to mention that the lead in front of him sounded reliable.

"The murderer should have a certain understanding of Ma Jun's family. Looking at the movement line of the bloodstains, it can be seen that the murderer's route was very decisive." Liu Liu Jinghui suddenly added: "A fellow villager? Or a relative or friend?"

Jiang Yuan said: "The killing was also very decisive."

"Majiazhuang is a relatively remote village, right? A few years ago, outsiders should have gone there relatively rarely. So to know the layout of Ma Jun's house, especially to find Ma Jun's house, it should be something only locals could do. However, Ma Jun's family wasn't too wealthy. Why was it the first house he chose for burglary?" Liu Liu Jinghui thought while speaking, and a large amount of inspiration burst into his mind.

Huang Huang Qiangmin silently took out his mobile phone and began to send messages to several leaders in charge of Shi Tingxian.