Detective: From the Police Academy

Chapter 112 Fire
Huajing International, No.103.

It was already early December, and the sky was covered with low clouds.

The sudden drop in temperature caused the crows in the trees to chirp continuously.

Luo Rui and Cai Xiaojing stood in front of the ruins, looking at the buildings that were horribly burned by the fire.

It is like a black beast, which collapses and becomes barely alive.

The fire has been put out, the firefighters have left, and the police are setting up cordons to prevent people in the community from entering.

This place belongs to Gu Dayong's jurisdiction. After seeing Luo Rui and Cai Xiaojing, he walked over with a bitter face.

"The police have already visited the community. The fire started in the early morning when everyone was asleep. A resident got up in the middle of the night to comfort his child and called the police after seeing the fire."

Luo Rui: "Early morning?"

"That's right. I don't know much about the other things. I received news that someone had died inside, so I rushed over to maintain order. The body had been sent to the autopsy room. It was burned horribly and there was a burnt smell."

Cai Xiaojing looked inside: "Captain Du called and said that the two people were suspected to be murdered. They must have been killed before they died, and then the scene was set on fire."

"Let's go in and take a look."

Luo Rui set up a cordon and let Cai Xiaojing in. Then he lowered his head and went in.

The inside of the door was dark and a mess.

This garden house has four floors in total, including the basement.

As soon as they walked into the front hall, they saw Du Feng coming down from upstairs.

"Now that you're here, how's the investigation into the missing persons going?"

When Cai Xiaojing was out, she reported the case on hand to him, so he asked this question.

Luo Rui: "There is no clue yet."

"Then can we put the missing persons case aside for now? As you know, two people just died and the situation is quite serious..."

"We'll follow the arrangements."

On the day Wei Qunshan and Du Feng took office, such a major homicide case occurred. They had to mobilize forces to conduct a thorough investigation as soon as possible, and the missing case had to be put on hold.

Du Feng's expression relaxed. Wearing blue latex gloves, he pointed to the second floor.

"The first female victim was found dead in a bedroom on the second floor. She was stabbed five times."

"The second male victim died in the basement. He is a male and his cause of death is currently unknown. Both bodies have been sent back for autopsy and the results will be known later."

"The police have visited the community before. There is only one person living in this building. His name is Huang Biao and he is an unemployed vagrant."

Luo Rui nodded: "Captain Du, let's take a look at the scene first?"

"No problem, let's go to the second floor first."

As Du Feng walked, he explained: "The initial judgment is that it was arson."

"It started in the basement, then the first floor, then the second floor. The third floor wasn't badly burned."

Luo Rui sniffed his nose: "Did you use gasoline?"

Du Feng glanced at him and said, "Yes, we found the gasoline barrel on the second floor."

"The murderer had made preparations?"

“I don’t know about that yet.”

Of the three rooms on the second floor, the other two were intact, but the master bedroom was burned beyond recognition.

There were obvious signs of arson.

In the master bedroom, there were traces of people working inside, with yellow number plates placed around.

Luo Rui and his friends walked in cautiously.

He found that the mattress was gone, leaving only an empty bed, with both feet collapsed and sunk to one side.

Du Feng explained: "The person was burnt and stuck to the mattress. It was not easy to tear them off, so they had to be carried away together."

Thinking of that scene, Luo Rui couldn't help but shudder.

……

Compared to the second floor, the situation in the basement is even more tragic.

This place has been burned beyond recognition, but it can be seen that it is a place to store sundries and tools.

A tool board hangs on the wall.

There was a metal table in the corner, and underneath the table were several metal barrels, which had been shriveled and twisted by the fire.

There was a sofa in the corner, which had also been burned.

Du Feng said: "The male victim died here."

At this time, Zhao Ming finished his work and stood up: "Although the scene was severely burned, after preliminary investigation, the amount of bleeding here is very large."

Du Feng asked, "Is there a lot of bleeding? We checked the body and there were no obvious wounds on the victim."

"I don't know about that."

Zhao Ming only cared about his work at hand. It was not his turn to say anything about other matters, nor did he want to say anything.

……

Haijiang Branch, in the conference room.

After trace detection and preliminary forensic investigation, all clues have been collected.

Wei Qunshan sat on the stage and Du Feng stood in front of the big screen. This was the first major case they had just taken office, so both of them attached great importance to it.

Two photos of corpses were projected on the screen. It could be seen that the bodies of the two people were burned horribly and had turned into a ball of charcoal.

Du Feng began to explain the case.

Three o'clock in the morning on December 12nd.

A fire broke out in Building 103 of Huajing International, and the person who called the police was the resident of Building 102 next door.

When the firefighters arrived, they immediately started a fire-fighting operation, but because the fire was too large, it was difficult to put it out in a short time.

After the fire was extinguished, two bodies were found in the building.

A male body was found in the basement. After the trace examination, there was a lot of blood at the scene. The forensic report pointed out that there were no obvious wounds on the body of the deceased, but a large piece of flesh was missing from the neck of the deceased.

So we concluded that the murderer must have bitten off the victim's artery, which explains the heavy bleeding.

In addition, the deceased's pants had been taken off before his death.

The second female body, aged between 20 and 26, was found in a bedroom on the second floor with five stab wounds, the fatal wound being in the chest, which pierced the heart.

……

We speculate that the murderer first bit off the male victim's neck in the basement, causing him to die from excessive blood loss. Then the murderer took a knife, ran straight to the second floor, and stabbed the second victim to death.

Judging from the wound, the blade is two centimeters wide and is suspected to be a fruit knife.

After the murder, the murderer poured the gasoline stored in the basement into the basement, then poured it all the way to the second floor, and finally set a fire, burning the entire scene.

The identity of the male deceased has been found out. He is the owner of the garden house No. 103. His name is Huang Biao. He lives alone and is unemployed. His father has passed away, his mother lives in the countryside, and he has no brothers or sisters.

The identity of the female deceased has not been found yet. According to residents of the community, Huang Biao has lived alone all year round and has never brought a woman back.

Next is the case analysis. Each police officer involved in the criminal case here has a copy of the information.

The clues at the crime scene and the collected evidence are clearly written on it.

Luo Rui looked carefully for a while and suddenly saw something familiar.

It had been burned beyond recognition.

He was shocked and looked at Zhao Ming.

"Brother Zhao, take a look at this."

Zhao Ming was sitting next to them. He took a look and asked, "What happened? This was found in the basement. It should be a hat. Not only that, we also collected some clothes that were burned."

"Clothes?"

Zhao Ming nodded: "Yes, most of the clothes were burned, leaving only ashes."

Luo Rui suddenly stood up from his chair: "Take me to see it."

His actions immediately attracted the attention of onlookers.

Du Feng looked at him: "What's wrong?"

Luo Rui's pupils shrank slightly: "Maybe the missing girl has been found!"

……

Soon, the group arrived at the trace examination office, where the collected evidence was placed on the table.

A hat was placed in a transparent bag.

Luo Rui pointed at the hat and asked, "Can you test the original color of the hat?"

"Let me give it a try."

As he spoke, Zhao Ming took the evidence bag containing the hat to his own workshop.

In addition, there was a backpack placed in a large transparent bag, but it had been burned beyond recognition by the fire.

However, the things taken out from it were put into a small transparent bag and placed aside.

There are keys, bank cards, bus cards...

There weren't many things, and it wasn't clear whether they were women's stuff.

It is very easy to find out whether these are Xue Qiao's. Just take the key and open the door of Room 1506, and everything will be clear.

Not long after, Zhao Ming walked out of the workshop.

"Yellow. It's a yellow cap."

Hearing this, Luo Rui and Cai Xiaojing looked at each other.

Xue Qiao was wearing such a hat when she left home four days ago.

Cai Xiaojing quickly found Chu Yang and Su Mingyuan. She handed the keys to the two and told them to go to Luteng Community and try to open Xue Qiao's rental house.

The two nodded and turned to leave.

Is that female corpse Xue Qiao?

Now this is the key question.

Luo Rui and Cai Xiaojing hurried to the autopsy room.

Forensic Doctor Zhao was sitting in a chair, drinking tea slowly.

Yesterday's storm didn't seem to affect him at all.

Seeing the two of them, he raised his head and said, "Hey, Captain Cai, Team Leader Luo!"

When Luo Rui's name was called, he took a deep look at him.

There are no secrets in the bureau. We are all police officers. No matter how small the personnel changes are, they cannot escape the eyes of these old hands.

Luo Rui saw two charred bodies placed on two dissecting tables. Their lower bodies were covered with white cloth, but their abdominal cavities had been cut open.

"Uncle Zhao, which body is the female one?"

Old Zhao stood up and walked to the second dissection table.

"That's it. She was stabbed once in the abdomen and once in the chest, and then three times in the back."

Luo Rui murmured, "She must have fallen asleep and was suddenly stabbed. She woke up in pain and turned around to escape. Then the murderer stabbed her in the back three more times."

"Your guess is correct."

There was a look of praise in Old Zhao's eyes. He remembered that the body was delivered together with the mattress, and the deceased was lying on the bed at the time.

He couldn't help but think that with the addition of fresh blood to the Haijiang Branch, it might be able to wipe out the previous problems.

Luo Rui looked at him: "Uncle Zhao, can you restore her original appearance?"

"Do you think I'm a plastic surgeon? If you want to know what she looks like, it's best to find a portrait artist. They can draw it based on skull reconstruction technology. But portrait artists are very precious. Even the provincial government may not be able to find such talents."

"Then let's do a DNA test."

Luo Rui suddenly remembered the bloodstains Xue Qiao had left on the wall. It would not be long before he knew whether the body was hers.

(End of this chapter)