1995, Starting as a Criminal Investigation Expert

I went to work early the next day.

Xu Qiang carried a bunch of breakfast items into the room, cheerfully saying he wanted to reward the technical team.

"Especially Li Shu, you deserve the most credit for solving this case."

Xu Qiang smiled.

No one present had any objection to this.

In fact, Li Shu managed to extract the fingerprints from the body and confirm the deceased's identity.

I can't help but complain about Xu Qiang a couple of times.

"Chief Xu, you're really not putting in any effort. You think a few steamed buns are enough to get rid of us?" Wei Dejun teased.

Zhao Yong nodded in agreement, saying, "You should have said so earlier! I skipped breakfast this morning and was waiting for your steamed buns."

Han Jianjun was even more direct, saying, "Xu Qiang, Jufengyuan."

Xu Qiang was startled and quickly said, "Eating out is too expensive. Here, what would you like to eat? I'll have my wife cook it for you."

"You're so stingy." Han Jianjun pushed the people out and told everyone to get to work.

In the morning, Zhao Yong and his team finished up the remaining tasks.

Seeing that things weren't too busy, Li Shu dragged Tan Guoxiong and Peng Rong along to the municipal bureau's archives to help him with his work.

"We found fingerprints at the scene, but none matched."

My forte is fingerprint comparison, so to solve old cases, I can only start from this direction.

The three of them worked together to search, and those that met the criteria were set aside for later study to see if there were any fingerprints that could be compared.

The city bureau has a total of 729 unsolved cold cases.

a lot of.

However, this data is accumulated across the entire city and spans a long period of time.

The earliest cases date back to the 1960s, and the papers in the files are all yellowed.

Secondly, not all of these cases are murder cases.

If there were more than 700 unsolved murder cases in the bureau, Tang Weidong probably wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

Of the more than 700 cases, only 16 remain unsolved murder cases.

The remaining cases were mostly burglaries, robberies, and intentional assaults.

Suspects randomly select targets, commit the crime, and then flee, making it the easiest way to turn a case into an old one.

After two days of screening, a total of 273 items met the criteria.

Fingerprint collection has long been a routine investigative method, so fingerprints are collected whenever possible.

Therefore, even after screening, the number is still quite large.

"Li Shu, let's start with these 16 murder cases," Tan Guoxiong suggested.

He still wanted to solve the murder case.

It's worth noting that his father's case was one of the 16 unsolved murder cases.

Unfortunately, no fingerprints were collected at the scene.

Peng Rong nodded in agreement, picked up a file and said, "This is it, the forensic report issued by Captain Han. If you manage to crack it, Captain Han will have to thank you properly."

He also felt that if they were to solve a case, they should solve a murder case, a major case.

Li Shu, however, had a different idea.

The main reason is that I didn't expect so many old cases to accumulate, and behind each case is a victim.

This reminded Li Shu of Qiao Suqing.

Perhaps behind every case, there is a pitiful victim waiting for justice to be served.

There is no reason for me to give up on these so-called "small cases".

"I think we should just bring them all. Anyway, now that we have computers, it's just a matter of electricity."

Unlike before, when it all relied on hand-rubbing and comparison could drain a person dry.

Nowadays, with computers, it's as simple as moving your fingers; you can easily research and compare things during breaks from work.

Peng Rong's eyes widened: "Nearly three hundred cases, you're kidding me."

"Who's making a scene?"

Li Shu casually flipped through a few documents, selected one directly, and said, "This one will do."

This is a burglary case.

On August 12, 93, a vicious burglary occurred in Defu Garden, Chongning District. The suspect climbed onto the balcony late at night, wore a mask, broke into the victim's home, tied up the couple, and stole cash, jewelry, and other valuables worth more than 8 yuan.

After on-site investigation, a whorl-shaped fingerprint was scanned with carbon powder on the lower frame of the balcony window.

The fingerprints are in good condition.

Unfortunately, after comparison, no match was found.

Now that two years have passed and the fingerprint database has been updated, it might be able to match.

They thought they could get off to a good start with a small case, but in the end, they couldn't find a match.

Li Shudu considered whether the suspect's fingerprints were deformed due to excessive force, and made some adjustments and compared the fingerprints by dividing them into zones.

There are no results yet.

"What a bad start," Li Shu said, slightly annoyed.

Peng Rong leaned against the table and said, "It's normal. Nine times out of ten, these kinds of cases are committed by itinerant criminals who do one heist and then run away. Where are you going to catch them? So let's stick to murder cases."

As he spoke, he slammed a file in front of Li Shu and said, "Overlapping and blurry fingerprints, that's what you're good at."

Li Shu opened the case file and carefully read the materials.

This was a case of burglary that turned into murder, which occurred on September 4, 1992.

The crime occurred in the suburbs, in the staff quarters of the Nanjiang Machine Tool Factory.

The victim, Zhang Yichao, was the deputy director of a workshop in a machine tool factory. Two days before the incident, he accompanied his wife back to their hometown of Peng'an to attend the funeral of his mother-in-law.

The suspect must have scouted the area and learned about the situation before making his move.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Yichao had something to do at the factory and returned alone ahead of schedule.

Zhang Yichao had just returned home that afternoon on the night the suspect committed the crime.

This means that the suspect only realized Zhang Yichao was home after he broke into the house.

It was late at night when a neighbor reported hearing some noises, but they were too drowsy to hear clearly.

Anyway, Zhang Yichao was stabbed seven times and was brutally murdered.

According to the wife's subsequent investigation, the suspect stole more than 700 yuan in cash, as well as dozens of antiques such as porcelain, jade, and coins.

Zhang Yichao's biggest hobby is collecting antiques.

The task force analyzed that the reason he was being targeted might be because of this.

Numerous fingerprints were collected at the scene.

On the handle of the glass cabinet in the living room, there were incomplete and blurry latent fingerprints of sweat, and on the bedside table and other cabinets in the bedroom, blurry latent fingerprints of blood were also extracted.

This means that after the suspect committed the murder, he remained at the scene and searched the bedroom for money.

The overlapping fingerprints that Peng Rong mentioned came from the inside handle of the door.

After committing the murder, the suspect went to the bathroom, washed his hands, and dried them with a towel.

But blood is something that obviously cannot be easily washed away.

So when he opened the door to leave, his thumb left a bloody latent fingerprint on the doorknob.

He must have opened the door, then returned to the bedroom and searched for money.

When I turned the handle to open the door again, I left my thumbprint in almost the same spot once more.

This case is the scene that Han Jianjun led the team to investigate.

Using traditional methods, this overlapping thumbprint was extracted from the door handle.

The study confirmed its absolute value.

The fingerprints left in other locations inside the house were either incomplete, blurry, or incomplete.

Ultimately, the fingerprints didn't match, and after several twists and turns, the case remained unsolved and became a cold case.

Li Shu picked up the enlarged photo and examined it carefully.

Because they were in almost the same location and the way they opened the door was the same, the fingerprints left behind looked like double images.

Moreover, after rinsing, there was very little blood left on my hands, which resulted in some loss of fingerprints.

"Okay, this one will do."

Li Shu nodded.

This case does have some similarities to Qiao Suqing's case.

Multiple fingerprints were left at the scene, but they were blurry and incomplete, and a single fingerprint was insufficient.

However, one can use their own methods to infer and piece together a complete fingerprint, and then define a suitable partition for comparison.

This was no easy task; Li Shu had to carefully study each fingerprint.

No one can help you; you have to do it yourself.

In the computer room, undisturbed, Li Shu sat down and before he knew it, it was time to leave work.

Tan Guoxiong told Li Shu to leave work, but Li Shu had just made some discoveries and decided to let him go home first.

He got him some food, which Li Shu quickly finished before continuing his research.

Fingerprints are a fascinating thing to study, and before you know it, it's past midnight.

The fingerprints have been pieced together.

Using the same thumbprint, Li Shu started with overlapping fingerprints and then looked for features from other incomplete fingerprints to fill in the thumbprint.

Finally, a relatively complete fingerprint was pieced together.

Having had experience before, the speed was considered fast; starting in the morning, it only took about ten hours.

Stretching, Li Shu collected his fingerprints into the system and performed the first comparison.

Shortly after, the system displayed the results.

Li Shu narrowed his eyes slightly, instantly becoming much more alert.

Based on intuition, this fingerprint looks the most likely.

They quickly retrieved the files for comparison.

After a long pause, Li Shu confirmed that it was indeed him.

I was quite surprised; I hadn't expected to solve an old case so easily.