Attending ex-girlfriend's wedding, arresting the groom's officer on the spot

"Which direction did the impact sound come from?" After receiving feedback from his team, Wang Shuai immediately rushed to the resident's home. "It should have come from the back of the building, in the direction of the drainage ditch," the resident pointed out the window. Wang Shuai's heart tightened. This time point highly matched the preliminary estimated time of death, and the impact sound was likely made when the suspect was moving or disposing of the body. He immediately arranged for his team to conduct a thorough re-examination of the area, looking for any missed traces or physical evidence.

The third team went to the local police station to retrieve missing persons registration information from the past month. After initial screening, they identified four missing persons who met the criteria of "male, aged 45 to 55." The team members immediately compiled the information of these four missing persons into a booklet, including their name, age, height, weight, time of disappearance, physical characteristics, and clothing, and took it back to the community to compare it with the information of the deceased collected from the crime scene investigation.

At 2:30 PM, the preliminary investigation results from the three groups were compiled and handed over to Wang Shuai. Regarding surveillance footage, apart from the suspicious man in the black jacket and baseball cap, no other unusual individuals or vehicles were found. Regarding interviews, apart from the suspicious impact sound, no other valuable clues were found. Regarding the missing persons comparison, two of the four missing persons were temporarily ruled out as suspects because their disappearances exceeded one month, which did not match the estimated time of death. The remaining two missing persons—Li Jianguo and Zhao Weidong—require further verification.

"Immediately contact the families of Li Jianguo and Zhao Weidong to verify their detailed information, especially their height, weight, clothing habits, and activity patterns before their disappearances," Wang Shuai decided immediately. The team quickly contacted the families and arranged to meet at the community police station. At 3 p.m., Li Jianguo's wife and Zhao Weidong's brother arrived at the police station one after the other.

“My husband, Li Jianguo, is 52 years old, 168 cm tall, and weighs 55 kg. He went out to buy groceries 10 days ago and hasn’t come back. He was wearing a blue jacket, black pants, and brown leather shoes,” Li Jianguo’s wife said, sobbing uncontrollably. Wang Shuai compared the deceased’s information: the deceased was 175 cm tall, weighed 62.5 kg, and was wearing a gray long-sleeved T-shirt, dark blue work pants, and black cloth shoes. There were significant differences in height, weight, and clothing, initially ruling out Li Jianguo as the deceased. To ensure accuracy, Wang Shuai still extracted a DNA sample from Li Jianguo’s wife to compare with the deceased’s DNA sample.

Zhao Weidong's younger brother stated, "My brother, Zhao Weidong, is 48 years old, 175 cm tall, and weighs 63 kg, which is basically the same height and weight as the deceased. He went missing five days ago, wearing a black jacket, blue jeans, and white sneakers." This information caught Wang Shuai's eye; Zhao Weidong's height and weight were highly consistent with the deceased's, and the time of his disappearance was also close to the estimated time of death. However, after carefully checking the clothing, Wang Shuai discovered a problem: Zhao Weidong was wearing white sneakers when he disappeared, while the deceased was wearing black cloth shoes, and the styles of clothing did not match.

"Did your brother usually wear work pants before he went missing? Did he ever wear black cloth shoes?" Wang Shuai pressed. Zhao Weidong's younger brother shook his head: "My brother works in construction. He usually wears sportswear or casual clothes, rarely wears work pants, and never wore black cloth shoes." To further confirm, Wang Shuai had Zhao Weidong's younger brother identify a photo of the deceased's clothing, which the brother clearly stated was not Zhao Weidong's. Subsequently, Wang Shuai also extracted a DNA sample from Zhao Weidong's younger brother for further comparison.

At 4 PM, Zhang Kai's preliminary autopsy results came in: drowning, fatal injuries, common poisoning, and pathological death were ruled out. The preliminary cause of death was determined to be mechanical asphyxiation, and the time of death was narrowed down to between 11 PM the night before last and 2 AM the next morning. This result further narrowed the scope of the investigation, and Wang Shuai immediately adjusted the investigation strategy, focusing the investigation on "people who were active in and around the Jianshe Road community between 11 PM the night before last and 2 AM the next morning," as well as "people related to the method of mechanical asphyxiation."

"Expand the scope of the surveillance search. We need to check not only the community's internal surveillance cameras, but also the surveillance footage of all shops, malls, and companies along the three surrounding streets—Jianshe Road, Xingfu Road, and Guangming Road. We should focus on analyzing the movement of people and vehicles during those two key time periods," Wang Shuai told the first team member. At the same time, he instructed the second team member to intensify their visits to shops around the community, especially convenience stores, snack shops, gas stations, and other establishments that operate at night, to inquire if any suspicious individuals had appeared during the key time periods.

The investigation proceeded methodically, but progress was not smooth. Because the area surrounding Jianshe Road community consists mostly of old shops, many lack surveillance equipment, and even those with cameras suffer from blurry images and short storage times. By 6 PM, the team had retrieved surveillance footage from 23 shops, but found no one matching the man in the black jacket and baseball cap, nor any electric tricycle or small truck matching the tire tracks found at the scene.

In the evening, Wang Shuai convened another team meeting to analyze the current difficulties in the investigation. "The main problems at present are insufficient surveillance coverage, no results yet for missing persons comparison, and the trace evidence collected at the scene has not yet been examined, which cannot provide more directions for the investigation," Wang Shuai said. "Next, we need to change our approach and start with the deceased's clothing. The deceased was wearing a gray long-sleeved T-shirt, dark blue work pants, and black cloth shoes. This kind of clothing is likely the work uniform of a certain profession. We can focus on the key clue of 'work pants' and investigate nearby factories, construction sites, property management companies, security companies, and other units that require work uniforms."

This approach was unanimously approved by the team members. They immediately divided the work and conducted a comprehensive investigation of factories, construction sites, property management companies, security companies, and other entities within a 5-kilometer radius of the Jianshe Road community. Wang Shuai personally led two team members to focus on investigating security companies, because security personnel need to patrol at night, and their activity time may overlap with the time of the incident. Furthermore, some security positions require security personnel to wear work pants, which matches the deceased's clothing characteristics.

At 7 PM, Wang Shuai's team checked three security companies, but found no missing persons matching the description. When they arrived at the fourth company—"Chengxin Security Service Co., Ltd."—the situation took a turn for the better. After reviewing photos of the deceased's clothing and physical description, Manager Liu, the company's manager, frowned and said, "This person's attire somewhat resembles a security guard from our company who resigned recently, named Zhang Fenglu." (End of Chapter)