Detective: From the Police Academy

Chapter 387: Headless corpse!

Fine snow fell in scattered pieces from the low sky, like catkins dancing in the air.

The temperature suddenly dropped several degrees again, and frost condensed in the grass. After a little sunlight appeared in the sky, the ice slowly melted and merged into the earth bit by bit.

Several military green tents were set up on the open space near the well so that the police officers on the scene could take turns to rest. No one could endure working for more than ten hours straight.

The second body found in the well caused a stir in the Yonghe Municipal Public Security Bureau. Li Xu rushed there at one o'clock in the morning. Without even closing his eyes, he wore a military coat and watched the process of salvaging the bodies.

The reason why it took so long was that the body was highly decomposed and in pieces, making it impossible to drag it up with a rope. Yi Chunlin and the young forensic doctor could only collect the rotten flesh and detached bones bit by bit.

This is a painful process that not only requires enduring unpleasant temperatures, but is also extremely physically demanding.

With the cooperation of a young forensic doctor, Yi Chunlin found an arm, a thigh, left foot, and pieces of flesh from the chest of the deceased, but the most important head was never found.

The mud at the bottom of the well is very deep and you need to grope your way through it inch by inch.

Yi Chunlin endured for six hours, but he could not hold on any longer and had to be replaced.

At this moment, he was lying on the camp bed and sleeping soundly.

Although his body exuded a terrible corpse odor and his face was covered in mud, it was nothing compared to the strenuous physical exertion.

So much so that the police officers who originally wanted to go into the tent to rest had to hold their noses and dare not stay in the tent with him.

Luo Rui also took a short nap. When he woke up, he was squatting next to the corpse, carefully observing the feet that had been salvaged.

Li Xu smoked a cigarette outside the cordon. He walked over, squatted down, and sighed, "I'm afraid this was done by a murderer."

Luo Rui countered: "It is not clear whether it was done by the same person."

Li Xu took out a tape measure from the inspection box next to him. He pulled out the tape measure, carefully measured the sole of the foot, and said, "Size 36, the second body should also be a female."

Luo Rui had already figured out the gender of the deceased, but he had never said it because it was a forensic job and he was not a professional, so it was inconvenient for him to speak up.

Furthermore, it is not necessarily accurate to infer that the deceased is a female just because her foot length is size 36.

In the absence of other parts, the simplest and most direct method is to identify the pelvis. It is obvious whether the person is a female or not, and it can also be seen whether the deceased is fertile.

In addition, Li Xu's measurement method is not very accurate, and simply measuring the foot length is not enough.

Luo Rui took the tape measure from him and measured the width. Women's feet are much narrower than men's. After confirming each other and applying the formula, he could give a slightly accurate estimate.

"Let's wait until we find the head." Luo Rui said.

Li Xu's brows were wrinkled into the shape of the Chinese character "川", and he felt annoyed.

If the person is alive, we have to see him; if he is dead, we have to see his body. What we fear most is to find a headless body. Without a head, it is impossible to know the body's name or surname, and its identity cannot be determined at all.

Although DNA technology is mature, it is completely useless when the deceased is an unidentified body.

Furthermore, unless the deceased has a criminal record at the police station, the fingerprint database may be able to match it, but what if the deceased is a clean person?

To make it a little more difficult, if the deceased was not a local and no one reported her disappearance, how could we check her identity?

There is no telling how many unidentified corpses like this are stored in freezers in funeral homes across the country. There are bodies but no identities. The cause of death can be verified, but as for finding the murderer, that is simply nonsense.

You know, more than half of the homicides in the country are crimes of passion or committed by acquaintances. It is said that there is no love without reason, and no hate without reason.

When the police investigate a homicide, they start with the victim's social relationships, and then use surveillance, DNA, mobile phones and other technological advances to help. Ninety-nine percent of the time, criminals have nowhere to hide.

And right now, what is giving Li Xu a headache is the identity of the second corpse.

If the head is really not found, if her death and Zhang Jing's murder were not committed by the same murderer, and the two murderers chose to dump the bodies in this well by coincidence, then where can we find the murderer of this body?
What the hell are you looking for?

People tend to take shortcuts, so when Li Xu first opened his mouth, he wanted to combine the two bodies into one case and guide Luo Rui to investigate the two cases together, but Luo Rui was not stupid and did not fall for his trick.

Seeing that he was not buying it, Li Xu stood up anxiously, walked to the wellhead, and shouted down: "Old Meng, you have been down there for several hours? You still haven't found the head?"

At this moment, the one searching for the body at the bottom of the well was the old forensic doctor sent by the district bureau. He looked up and cried, "Captain Li, how about you come down?

The mud here is too deep, and the bodies are scattered anyway. If it doesn't work, we can use the pump to pump it out for a while. As long as we find the head, the case will be easy to handle. If we can't find it, it will be a headless corpse case. Don't blame me then."

Li Xu had no choice but to go down in person.

He shouted to Feng Jianqiu, "Old Feng, hurry up, get the pump and pump up all the silt. Dig deep into the ground and find the dead man's head for me!"

Feng Jianqiu did not dare to delay and quickly asked people to take action.

With the roar of the machine, a larger drain pipe was used, and water was pumped out gurgling, occasionally mixed with a mass of sticky silt.

In order to avoid losing physical evidence, Feng Jianqiu also arranged two police officers to stay at the water outlet and built a fence at the outlet to see if they could find anything.

As the silt at the bottom of the well decreased, Forensic Doctor Meng felt a lot more relieved. At least half of his body was not stuck in it.

The two people were not idle. One of them was holding a water pipe in his arms, and the other was groping around.

Until the silt at the bottom of the well was almost drained out, forensic doctor Meng's knees were exposed, but he still did not find the victim's head.

During this period, Li Xu and Feng Jianqiu's faces kept appearing at the mouth of the well, constantly looking down.

Li Xu shouted down: "Old Meng, have you found the head?"

Forensic Doctor Meng sighed and seemed to say something, and then a huge echo came to the wellhead: "What the hell, there's nothing down there. The murderer must have left the head somewhere else!"

Hearing this, Li Xu wished he could jump into the well. He stood up angrily and looked behind him, but Luo Rui and his group were gone.

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At this moment, Luo Rui was leading his men down the mountain.

Because the road was icy and slippery, Lin Chen, who was wearing flat shoes, fell on her butt. Cai Xiaojing held her hand the whole time to help her steady herself.

When Luo Rui arrived at the main road, he saw Zhang Yong already waiting on the roadside.

"what's the situation?"

Zhang Yong replied: "In the morning, we conducted investigations and found a suspect."

Luo Rui already knew about this situation from the phone call that Fang Yonghui had just made, otherwise he would not have rushed down the mountain.

Luo Rui ordered: "Lead the way."

Zhang Yong immediately stepped forward and explained, "After eight o'clock in the morning, when we were investigating at the bus station, the owner of a small shop confessed that at around 11:30 in the evening of December 3, a man bought two bottles of mineral water from his store..."

Lin Chen asked, "What's wrong with buying mineral water?"

"It's like this. The store owner said that the man had no luggage and his knees were covered in mud. Not only that, he bought two bottles of mineral water, unscrewed the caps, drank one directly, and threw the bottles into the store's trash can."

Luo Rui's heart sank: "This is very suspicious. The weather in December is not hot. Has anyone seen anyone drink a whole bottle of water in one breath in the middle of winter?

Unless this person had done heavy physical work before and he didn't carry any luggage, it proved that he was not a passenger. Even if he lived nearby, he wouldn't drink a bottle of water in one breath."

After this analysis, everyone understood.

Cai Xiaojing asked: "Is the mineral water bottle he lost still there?"

Zhuo Yong shook his head: "The boss has already sold it as scrap."

As they were talking, the group had already arrived at the store.

There were many plainclothes policemen standing at the door. When Fang Yonghui saw Luo Rui, he greeted him, "Master Luo."

Luo Rui patted his shoulder vigorously: "Well done!"

Fang Yonghui chuckled. He did not explain how he investigated, because one look at Luo Rui's expression and he would have guessed it long ago.

He led Luo Rui into the room and introduced him to the middle-aged boss standing behind the glass counter: "Boss Zhang, this is Officer Luo, the senior police chief of our provincial department."

The boss was in his fifties, with a face full of stories. He was slightly surprised to see Luo Rui so young, then nodded as a greeting.

Luo Rui saw his expression, which seemed to be somewhat resistant to his group, so he comforted him: "Boss Zhang, don't be nervous. We are here to investigate the situation, and the suspect we are investigating has now fled and is no longer in this city. Tell us the police if you know anything. Don't worry about the suspect retaliating."

Businessmen all hope to avoid getting into trouble. The other party is in his fifties and came from the 1980s and 1990s. At that time, if you were not careful, you would be retaliated against, and the police would not be able to handle it.

What's more, they do business in a place with a complicated personnel system like a bus station. The places where most ruffians and hooligans hang out are bus stations and train stations. It's simply amazing, there are all kinds of people there.

Sure enough, when Boss Zhang heard this, his expression relaxed a little and he replied, "Officer Fang has already asked me about this, and I have told you everything I know."

Fang Yonghui handed the transcript to Luo Rui, but he didn't take it. Instead, he handed the wallet to Lin Chen: "Many of our comrades haven't had breakfast yet. I guess we'll be busy until noon. Buy some more food and drinks from this store and have someone deliver them."

Lin Chen didn't take the wallet, so Qiao Xue immediately said, "We don't need to spend our own money, the Municipal Bureau can reimburse us."

Lin Chen called two policemen and asked them to choose food from the shelves.

The store owner felt a little better after hearing what they said.

Luo Rui then looked at him and said, "Boss Zhang, I'll ask you again. Just answer truthfully." Boss Zhang nodded hastily, not resisting like before, "Go ahead."

"On what date did the suspect come to your store?"

"December 3rd, around 11:30 at night."

"Why do you remember so clearly?"

Boss Zhang looked at Fang Yonghui and said, "This is the time the police officer asked me about earlier."

At this point, Cai Xiaojing, who was taking notes, quickly took Fang Yonghui's notebook and took a closer look, but the content on it was written very sloppily and did not show this question.

Luo Rui stared at Fang Yonghui. Although he didn't say anything, Fang Yonghui just felt a chill in his heart.

"Mr. Luo, I..." Fang Yonghui was speechless.

If he really pointed out the time clearly, it would cause interference to the person being questioned, which is misleading.

If the store owner doesn't know the exact time at all, and if he encounters the suspect in his store late at night on some other day, then this is a serious problem.

The direction of the investigation will go in the opposite direction, resulting in the wrong suspect being found.

The most common place for this kind of thing to happen is in court. In order to mislead witnesses, lawyers will use specially trained rhetoric to make the witnesses themselves have blurred memories, thereby influencing the judge's judgment of the case.

It is like someone plants a certain "cause" in your subconscious mind, and over time, you are controlled by others.

The most common thing is to label you, constantly PUA you, mislead your self-cognition, and change your concepts and memories.

Fortunately, Boss Zhang came to the rescue immediately: "The date is correct, it is December 3rd, and that day is my granddaughter's birthday. I stayed in the store that night, and my daughter and daughter-in-law brought my granddaughter and brought me a cake."

He picked up the calendar on the counter, turned to December 3rd, and circled the number "" with a red pen.

"You see, I was afraid of forgetting my granddaughter's birthday, so I made a special note. The third day is the seventeenth day of the lunar calendar."

Hearing him say this, Fang Yonghui breathed a sigh of relief.

Luo Rui looked more carefully. He took the calendar and saw that the red circle was old and not newly drawn. He breathed a sigh of relief.

He looked at the ceiling of the store and found no surveillance camera, so he continued to ask: "Do you remember what the suspect looks like? How old is he? What's his physique like? How tall is he?"

Boss Zhang recalled for a moment: "I don't remember his appearance, but his hair was not long, just like you, with a buzz cut, and he was nearly 1.75 meters tall. I am 1.75 meters tall, so he must not be more than 1.75 meters tall. As for his physique, he was a little fat, but not too fat.

He was in his twenties, dressed very casually, and had a hand-sized stain on his knee.

"Is it one knee or both knees that are muddy?"

“Both knees.”

Hearing this, Luo Rui moved two meters away from the counter, exposed his body, pointed at his knees, and asked, "Is it like this?"

"Yes, yes!" Boss Zhang suddenly became excited: "It's someone like you. How could you be like this?"

Luo Rui did not answer. When salvaging the body, he knelt at the mouth of the well several times to look at the salvage situation at the bottom of the well, which caused his knees to be covered with mud.

The detectives present were cheered up when they saw this.

There is no doubt that the clue to the suspect was finally found.

On the night of December 3, after the suspect dumped the body, he did not leave the scene immediately. Instead, he knelt beside the well and observed the bottom of the well for a while. Then, he came down the mountain, appeared in this store, and bought two bottles of mineral water.

Luo Rui continued to ask: "Have you ever communicated with this person?"

Boss Zhang shook his head: "I didn't talk to him. He drank the water and left. The reason I noticed him was because I was stocking the shelves at that time. If I had stood at the counter, I would not have noticed the mud on his knees, nor would I have noticed that he didn't bring any luggage.

Many of the people who buy things from me carry large and small bags, and even passengers staying in nearby hotels don’t have muddy knees.”

Luo Rui smiled and said, "You have a sharp mind."

Boss Zhang was a little proud: "What else? I have been dealing with people all these years in business. Why don't I consider people's faces when doing things now?

Especially this guy, I can tell at a glance that he is not a passenger, nor a resident nearby, and I know all the hooligans in this area, and homeless people don't dress neatly like him, so who is he?"

Luo Rui nodded: "After buying the water, which direction did he go?"

Boss Zhang came out from the counter, walked outside the store, and pointed to the end of the street: "He went to the right, right there, up a slope, there are alleys inside, and there are many small hotels."

"Okay, thank you. If we still have areas to investigate, I hope you will cooperate." Luo Rui ended the questioning.

Boss Zhang saw the police carrying a dozen cartons out of the shelves, which were filled with instant noodles, mineral water and other supplies. He nodded quickly and grinned, "You are welcome anytime. I will cooperate."

After leaving the store, everyone gathered around Luo Rui.

Chu Yang knew that Fang Yonghui had found out the situation, so he rushed over as well. He stayed up all night watching the surveillance video and used a bottle of eye drops, but still didn't find anything.

Obviously, checking people based on surveillance is definitely ineffective.

Fang Yonghui had made a great contribution. Chu Yang was very envious and asked hurriedly, "Team Leader, what should we do now?"

"Are you going to die? Why are your eyes so red? Go to sleep!"

Chu Yang shook his head: "I can still hold on."

At this critical juncture, seeing that the suspect was about to surface, he certainly refused to rest. According to Luo Rui's speed in solving cases, if he woke up from a sleep, the suspect might have been arrested and the case solved.

Seeing his expectant look, Luo Rui softened his heart and ordered, "Well, take the suspect's physical features and compare them with Peng Tao's testimony. The suspect is most likely related to him. Find out the identity of this person for me!"

"Okay, I'll do it right away." Chu Yang turned and left.

"Hey, don't worry. Sun Zhihao will go with you. You two have been up all night. Don't drive back by yourself. Find someone from the Municipal Bureau to drive you."

Hearing this, Sun Zhihao grinned. He didn't expect Director Luo still cared about him. He immediately assured him, "Director Luo, don't worry. We know."

After the two people left, Fang Yonghui looked at Luo Rui eagerly, but did not dare to speak. After all, he had made a mistake before.

Luo Rui didn't care at all and ordered him: "Take Zhuo Yong to investigate the direction the suspect left. Remember, keep in touch with Chu Yang at all times. As soon as the suspect's identity is revealed, immediately lock down his whereabouts and see where he went!"

"Yes!" Fang Yonghui answered loudly.

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After Chu Yang and Sun Zhihao rushed back to the Municipal Bureau, they immediately began to question Peng Tao.

After being locked up for a night, the boy became much more obedient and no longer took the police lightly as he did before. He also knew that Zhang Jing had been killed.

Given his relationship with this woman, Peng Tao wondered in his heart that he might be treated as a murderer by the police, and he felt extremely uneasy.

Seeing the presiding police officer coming in, he stood up and pleaded hurriedly, "Officer, Zhang Jing's murder really has nothing to do with me. I don't have the guts to kill anyone. Besides, I was with Jiang Mei the night she disappeared. She can testify for me."

Before Chu Yang could say anything, Sun Zhihao slammed the table and shouted, "We haven't asked you yet, why are you talking so much!?
You'd better be honest and think about how you killed someone. If you confess, you will be treated leniently. If you resist, you will be treated severely. We follow the policy, don't you understand?"

This is a typical psychological deterrent, which is not in compliance with interrogation procedures.

Although Peng Tao's physical characteristics do not match those of the suspect, it is possible that he conspired with the suspect or hired the suspect to kill Zhang Liang.

The presiding police officers usually play the good cop and the bad cop respectively. Obviously, Sun Zhihao got into his role very quickly. It seems that he had done this a lot in the Qingyang Municipal Bureau before.

Sure enough, Peng Tao was so frightened that his body shook and tears were about to fall, but he still lacked experience. The police took him into the interrogation room instead of the interrogation room, and he was not handcuffed to restrict his freedom of movement.

If the police really had evidence that he had committed murder, he would not have been treated so well.

Sun Zhihao didn't give him a good look. After going through the procedure, Chu Yang finally spoke: "Peng Tao, answer whatever we ask you."

"Officer, if you ask me, I will tell you what I know."

"Please list some of the friends and acquaintances that you and Zhang Jing know in common. Who are they?"

"Let me think about it. Oh, do I have to tell you everything?"

Chu Yang nodded: "Tell them all, describe their names and physical features in detail, but only for males."

"I understand." Peng Tao licked his lips. "The manager and sales staff of our 4S store all know Zhang Jing. I have also met several of Zhang Jing's old classmates..."

"No, a male friend or colleague who is close to you..."

Peng Tao thought for a while and then gave out a string of names.

Chu Yang quickly operated the keyboard and arranged the heights and weights of these people in detail in a table.

It wasn't until an hour later that a suspect appeared who matched the store owner's description.

Chu Yang glanced at Sun Zhihao, then asked calmly: "Peng Tao, tell me about this man named Lei Xiaojun. How did you know him, and how did he know Zhang Jing?"

Damn, I forgot to thank 2023...8889 boss for the reward of 1200 book coins. I’ll kowtow to him. I’m sorry. I’m still working like a slave in the company and I haven’t figured it out yet. Thank you.

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(End of this chapter)