Chapter 760: Screening

Tao Lu arrived even later. He entered the door with a gloomy face, and seeing that Huang Qiangmin and Jiang Yuan had already arrived, he nodded and explained, "There was a traffic jam on the way. Any discoveries?"

Huang Qiangmin shook his head slightly and said, "Jiang Yuan is looking at it right now."

Jiang Yuan raised his head and said, "Most of the evidence has already been collected by the trace inspection team earlier, including fingerprints, DNA evidence, footprints, and the like. Currently, there are no matches."

This type of case is also the most common type in criminal police work. Cases with absolutely no evidence are actually rare, especially homicides, because enough forces are dispatched in all aspects, and obtaining a large amount of information is inevitable. For a perpetrator to remain hidden under such circumstances, the difficulty is extremely high.

Even being hidden doesn't work, just like the burglary case the technical investigation team just handled. Finding the owner of a mobile phone that was turned off at 10 PM and turned on at 4 AM—I ask you, what were you doing entering an unfamiliar area with a phone at that time while keeping it turned off?

Instead, cases like this one, where evidence was left but there is no information in the police database, are more troublesome.

If it was a case committed by a related person, checking the victim's network of relationships might solve the case. That would just be an ordinary premeditated murder case; it can't be said to be easy to solve, but it's just ordinary. Most premeditated murder cases are at this level.

Many people never scored full marks when they were in school, never occupied the high ground of intelligence from childhood to adulthood, had to take the exam several times just to get a scrap civil service position, couldn't even speak fluently when standing in front of a group of middle-level unit managers during an interview, and didn't even know what wit was. When it came to killing, they suddenly felt they had calculated everything, could fight against the entire system, could single-handedly crush the intelligence of hundreds of people, fight against professional equipment and software worth a fortune, and make countless elite veterans who had been immersed in this for years fail here, reflecting on their own careers destroyed here.

—It's the same meaning as people who speculate in stocks and think they can make money.

Of course, there are always those who are lucky and get it right by mistake.

For example, right now: DNA doesn't match, fingerprints don't match, the perpetrator's doesn't match, and the victim's doesn't match either.

Proving that the perpetrator might indeed have gotten it right by mistake and was lucky, Cui Qishan called Jiang Yuan over.

After Jiang Yuan said a few words to Tao Lu, he squatted back on the ground and looked at the footprints.

If fingerprints don't match, they just don't match. If it's a missing fingerprint, there's a chance for technical compensation; if it's not in the database, then it's not within the scope of criminal technology.

The situation with DNA and the like is about the same.

In comparison, the information provided by footprints is more complex. Of course, it also places higher demands on criminal science personnel; to be able to read non-ordinary levels of footprint information, one must be at least LV2 or even LV3 perfection.

Tao Lu had no technical background. Seeing Jiang Yuan busy and serious, he looked up and asked Cui Qishan directly, "Has the head been found?"

In dismemberment cases, what forensic doctors need most is the pelvis, and what criminal police are most concerned about is the skull. The skull is very hard, and it is difficult for an ordinary home environment to break it open; even if broken, it is difficult to smash it.

Analogous to a coconut, which is not as hard as a skull, smashing a coconut shell is very troublesome, let alone a skull.

Theoretically, with the current living conditions of people, if one hits their head against the ground hard enough, the tiles should break first.

Therefore, ordinary people dismembering bodies cannot smash the skull, and a human skull is so large that it is difficult to transport without leaving traces. So, when criminal police look at surveillance and the like, they all like to look for the head.

Cui Qishan naturally had looked for the head. At this moment, he said with a cold face, "The head is boiling in the large pot. The perpetrator should have dismembered the body first, then used the large pot to boil the body. After boiling one pot, they fished it out and discarded it on the ground. Later, they probably found that boiling was very slow, so they used the steamer baskets to start steaming."

"Were the boiled body parts taken away? What about the head? Was it also taken away? What's the situation?"

"The head is still in the pot."

Tao Lu was surprised: "Why not fish it out?"

"It has already been boiled until the bones are detached. If fished out now, the bones will separate. Leaving it in the pot can still maintain its shape. Let's see if Captain Jiang has any way." Cui Qishan then added, "The perpetrator should have left when they were halfway through boiling the head. This head was boiled by the fire later, and then soaked for a period of time, only then did it soak to this extent..."

"Hey... understood." Tao Lu's face twisted as he listened. For the next few months, he probably wouldn't be able to face food like pig head meat.

Cui Qishan continued to report: "We estimate that the perpetrator killed the person in the courtyard, and the murder weapon was most likely an axe for chopping wood. Dismemberment might also have been done with kitchen utensils such as axes and kitchen knives. After the perpetrator killed and dismembered the body, they cooked two pots of body parts, about twenty jin per pot, and three steamer baskets, each basket might have a little over ten jin..."

Cui Qishan: "There are still some body parts left that haven't been cooked, mainly two legs with chopping marks, but they weren't split open. I estimate the perpetrator's strength isn't great either."

"Maybe that's why they dismembered the body." Huang Qiangmin interjected: "Looking at it this way, there is a possibility of a crime of passion."

"It is indeed possible. The location of the killing is not very good. The neighbors here are relatively closely connected, there are many old neighbors, and the houses between families are also relatively close. If dismembering the body, the conditions are not very good either; the axe left debris everywhere, and there was blood all over the floor. They didn't even know to prepare electric tools in advance." Cui Qishan analyzed step by step.

"It looks like there's no murder experience. I don't know how they dismembered the body either; there's no kitchen experience." Huang Qiangmin agreed.

Cui Qishan continued: "Speaking of which, there was actually no need to cook the body; it was purely unnecessary. Look at the minced meat on the ground and walls. If trace inspection takes a little bit, there will be DNA. Now it doesn't match because there is no database. The perpetrator clearly doesn't know this point."

"The perpetrator's idea was probably to stew the body in a pot, and after it was cooked, clean up the scene. They didn't have time to finish." Tao Lu speculated: "If the courtyard was thoroughly cleaned, if the neighbors didn't call the police, when the landlord returned, whether selling or living, they would face the problem of renovation next. Maybe they could really erase the traces."

Several people were standing in the courtyard, communicating near the kitchen, while local police officers came and went.

While expressing their thoughts, Tao Lu already felt a headache.

Difficult cases have their own difficulties, and this case, right before their eyes, was about to fall into a stalemate again.

"Is the surveillance at the intersection complete? How is the number of people coming and going?" Tao Lu asked with a little hope. If the surveillance was comprehensive and the number of people coming and going was not large, theoretically, it would be possible to pull everyone out and take a look.

Although it is almost impossible in reality, looking for directions from surveillance is also a way.

Cui Qishan shook his head slightly: "Basically, they are all complete, but there are also places not covered..."

"Hmm..." Tao Lu thought for a while, took a deep breath, and said: "In that case, we have to analyze from the beginning. If we can't directly confirm the source of the body, where did the body come from? Did the perpetrator transport the person here, or trick them here..."

"Let's look for it." Cui Qishan was not very optimistic about this direction because he had really looked at the surveillance. There were too many blind spots in the surveillance inside the alley; it basically belonged to luck. As for looking outside the alley, the number was much larger.

"Captain Cui!"

Jiang Yuan shouted from inside the kitchen.

"Coming." Cui Qishan hurried over.

"Captain Cui, please collect a copy of the shoe prints of everyone who entered the courtyard today and passed through the kitchen. I need to exclude them." Jiang Yuan was still squatting on the ground looking at the footprints.

This was a normal request. Cui Qishan immediately arranged for personnel to collect them and then asked: "Have you made a discovery?"

"It depends on the situation of everyone's shoe prints." Jiang Yuan said.

This was not playing hard to get, but if the judgment was wrong, it would be too troublesome and would affect the direction of the entire investigation.

Fortunately, there was no need to wait long. With an order from Cui Qishan, the participating police officers quickly took the shoe soles, and first concentrated the electronic versions.

Jiang Yuan then looked at them one by one. After reading, he squatted on the ground and looked again, saying: "I can see a few points here."

Cui Qishan immediately took out a small notebook to take notes.

"First, there should be two perpetrators. One male and one female."

"The male is about 20 years old, and the female might be slightly older, 21, not exceeding 22."

"The male perpetrator is 173 cm tall with a standard build. The female is 165 cm tall and weighs 50 kg."

"The two perpetrators are very intimate, and the contact distance is very short. It is very likely that there will be hugging actions."

After saying these, Jiang Yuan stood up and said: "As for the time of death, it was yesterday afternoon, around 2 PM."

"Understood, I'll go tell the image investigation team." Cui Qishan closed the small notebook with a *snap*. Not only was there a time of death, but the two perpetrators had the characteristic of hugging. If they appeared under surveillance, it would be very obvious, much easier to screen than just height and weight. ===== CHAPTER 761 =====