I started out as a criminal, and the police relied on me to solve countless cases.

Chapter 169: The Third Team

Less than two days.

Jiang Hanwen's crew was ready and booked a flight to Spring City.

Before boarding the plane, Lao Zhao and Jiang Hanwen had a phone call and recalled the details of the case in detail.

He was not worried about whether Jiang Hanwen could solve the case.

"Brother Jiang, Brother Zhao, I owe you a big favor this time. Don't worry, if you need me in the future, I will definitely not hesitate."

Old Zhao made a solemn promise.

Although he also knew that this guarantee was of no use given Jiang Hanwen's current status, his attitude was more important than anything else.

"I just hope to help a few good brothers fulfill their wishes. Of course, the victim girl must also be punished."

"Old Zhao, I understand what you're thinking." Jiang Hanwen didn't say much. Old Zhao was an honest man, and there were some things that didn't need to be said.

Lao Zhao's call was very timely. Jiang Hanwen had no idea how much this case differed from his script.

He held the script in his hand and asked Lao Zhao to recall the situation carefully.

"On August 8, seven years ago, I was on duty at the Criminal Police Brigade Headquarters, and the Third Brigade next door received a report that a girl in the jurisdiction had an accident at home," recalled Lao Zhao.

That day, Lao Chen was the police officer on duty. When they arrived at the crime scene, the scene inside made everyone present feel angry: a 17-year-old girl was lying naked on the bedroom floor with an obvious wound on her head, and blood and brain tissue were all over the floor. After the 120 doctor who arrived later sent the girl to the ambulance, the technical team police continued to investigate the crime scene.

According to the girl's parents, the couple went out to visit relatives that day, but the girl said she was not feeling well and wanted to stay in bed and rest, so she did not go with them. The couple played cards at a relative's house until the early morning and did not want to go home until they found that their daughter had an accident at home.

The crime scene was located on the 4th floor of a residential building in a relatively remote location in the community. After investigation, the technical police found that there were two suspects in total. They cooperated with each other to climb over the anti-theft net and the air-conditioning unit on the 2st floor to reach the 4th floor and then pulled open the screen window to enter the room.

It was later confirmed by the victim's family that all the property in their home was looted that night, with economic losses of around 6 yuan. What saddened them the most was their daughter - after the hospital's full treatment, the girl's life was saved, but she suffered severe brain damage and became a vegetable.

This is a typical case of burglary that turned into robbery and rape resulting in serious injury. Judging from the method used in the burglary, it should have been committed by a habitual criminal.

"When Lao Chen was listening to the case report in the brigade meeting room, he was not in a good state. His face was livid, his eyes were glaring, and he kept clenching the cigarette box in his hand. The cigarettes were twisted into a doughnut, and he spoke to people as if he was arguing..."

All the police officers present could see the anger in Lao Chen's heart. At that time, Lao Chen also had a 10-year-old daughter at home, who was doted on by him like the apple of his eye. Perhaps the tragic condition of the murdered girl reminded him of his own daughter - that kind of anger came from both the police and the father.

At that time, Lao Chen made a military order to the director in charge of criminal investigation to solve the case within 5 days. The director was worried that there was not enough time and wanted to extend the time, but Lao Chen insisted that it would only take 5 days. If the case was not solved within the deadline, he would voluntarily resign from the position of captain and go to the police dog base to raise dogs.

"Old Chen issued the military order like that at that time because he knew what was going on!" Old Zhao sighed.

Chen became a policeman after graduating from the Provincial Public School at the age of 21. He started as a household registration and section policeman. By 2002, he had been a policeman for 16 years and had accumulated a lot of experience in handling cases. That time, based on the way the suspects climbed through the window to break into the house, he determined that it was a thief gang from Sichuan.

"Back then, there were many roaming thief gangs in our city. Gangs from different places had their own methods. Gangs from Henan liked to sneak in, gangs from Guizhou were good at picking locks, and those who used to climb through windows to break into homes were basically from Sichuan."

The forensic doctor extracted semen stains from the victim's body and collected fingerprints from the balcony window frame. After comparison and verification, the fingerprints matched the suspect Wang Dayong, a Sichuan criminal suspect who had a history of theft and had been cracked down by the public security organs, and the DNA matched the suspect Wang Dayong's younger brother Wang Eryong.

Wang Dayong, then 32 years old, had been sentenced for theft; his younger brother Wang Eryong was also a habitual thief. The two brothers had worked as air-conditioning installers and were good at climbing windows and breaking into houses to steal.

The Public Security Bureau immediately issued a wanted notice for Wang Dayong and his brothers. Just two days later, news came from their brother unit that the two brothers had continued to commit crimes, and Wang Dayong was caught on the spot. That day, after he and Wang Eryong climbed through the window to steal, they also attempted to assault the hostess. Unexpectedly, the hostess's husband and brother suddenly returned home. Wang Eryong escaped in the chaos, and the victim's relatives caught Wang Dayong, beat him up and called 110.

"When Wang Dayong was brought to the Third Brigade, he had been beaten beyond recognition by the victim's family. We looked at the photo for a long time before we confirmed it was him," said Lao Zhao. The public security organs have long required "civilized law enforcement", but facing Wang Dayong, none of the police officers on the scene could keep their bottom line, especially Lao Chen, who punched Wang Dayong's "greeting gift".

"At that time, there were no interrogation rooms with simultaneous audio and video recording, and the interrogation of suspects was conducted in the police officers' offices," Lao Zhao continued.

That day, Lao Zhao was assigned by Lao Chen to work in the duty room next to the office, and he did not personally participate in the interrogation of Wang Dayong. But from the screams and curses coming from next door, he knew that his colleagues were "using force" to "trick" Wang Dayong.

"I went to the next door to deliver some materials. Wang Dayong was standing on the window with his back on his back. A policeman holding an electric baton asked him where his brother Wang Eryong had gone, but he didn't say anything..."

Old Zhao said that he didn't know if he was lucky that night - Wang Dayong died later, and all the police officers from the Third Brigade who participated in the interrogation of Wang Dayong were punished. The lightest punishment was being transferred out of the public security agency. Only he was transferred to the police station after the Third Brigade was abolished because he did not participate in torture.

"It's a good thing you didn't join. You are the only one left among the three teams..."

But Lao Zhao sighed: "In one case, the suspects were not caught yet, and the brothers who handled the case went to jail first. The police officers all have families, and none of them have any personal grudges against Wang Dayong. But when he died, the entire Third Brigade was written off. I have been in the Third Brigade since I started working, and now that the team is gone, although I am still a policeman, I always feel like an 'abandoned child'..."

Wang Dayong died at 23:10 on the night he was interrogated. Lao Zhao said he remembered that time very clearly.

"Wang Dayong said he wanted to go to the toilet and was taken out of the office. After he finished using the toilet, he sat on the sofa in the hall, sweating profusely, shaking all over, and looking very painful. I have seen suspects who did not cooperate being 'dealt with' before, but I have never seen such severe punishment. I reminded them to be gentle, but the colleague was also angry and said that three mop rods were broken, but Wang Dayong refused to speak and even made sarcastic remarks in front of the police..."

The police originally planned to let Wang Dayong "calm down" for a while and then continue to "deal with" him. Unexpectedly, Wang Dayong, who was sitting on the sofa, not only failed to "calm down", but shook more and more violently, and later gradually turned into convulsions, and slid from the sofa to the floor.

Seeing this, the two policemen dragged Wang Dayong to the sofa again and scolded him, "Stop pretending", but soon Wang Dayong slipped to the ground again and began to foam at the mouth.

The police from the Third Brigade quickly reported to Lao Chen. Lao Chen came to Wang Dayong and took a look. He felt something was not good, so he asked the police to lay Wang Dayong flat on the ground and quickly notify the hospital to send someone.

Unfortunately, Wang Dayong didn't make it until the doctor arrived. A few minutes later, he screamed a few times, convulsed violently, and then died.

"Later, the forensic identification organized by the procuratorate showed that Wang Dayong died of severe head injury and liver and kidney failure..." said Lao Zhao.

"They hit Wang Dayong on the head?" I felt a little unbelievable.

Old Zhao smiled helplessly and said he didn't know, but it was probably not the case. Because in that era, the police had to be skilled in "using means", and no one would beat someone to death. The most likely possibility was the beating Wang Dayong received from the family of the previous victim.

But Wang Dayong died in the Public Security Bureau, and the purple bruises on his back made it impossible for Lao Chen and others to explain. So, seven hours after Wang Dayong's death, Lao Chen and the entire police team of the Third Brigade were taken to the Procuratorate's Occupational Crime Investigation Section, except for Lao Zhao who was on duty that day.

"At that time, there were two squadrons under the Third Brigade, and together with the office staff, they occupied a total of four offices. Before they were called away by the procuratorate that day, they told me to help tidy up the office, and that they would have to undergo a major internal inspection by the bureau after they returned. I was busy in the team for a whole day, but in the end, none of them came back, but several waves of people from the procuratorate came."

Looking at the empty office area, Lao Zhao felt very upset. Later, he was also called to the procuratorate for questioning. And his colleagues from the Third Brigade never appeared in the office area as police officers again.

After the incident, the leaders of the Public Security Bureau and the families of the victims of the two burglary cases went to the procuratorate to plead for leniency. The leaders of the bureau pleaded with the procuratorate to consider Wang Dayong's case and give leniency to Lao Chen and others, but the procuratorate refused. The parents and relatives of the victim girl in the "August 8 case" also knelt at the door of the procuratorate and requested that Lao Chen and others be exempted from criminal punishment, but the procuratorate also refused.

"Later, they were sentenced for intentional injury resulting in death. Five people were sentenced in total. Lao Chen got 5 years, Xiao Liu got 8 and a half years, Zhang Haizi got 5 years and 3 months, and Lao Xu got the heaviest sentence, 9 years. Others who didn't commit criminal offenses were also 'stripped' after disciplinary sanctions." Lao Zhao sighed helplessly and lit another cigarette.

That year, the case in which Lao Chen and others tortured and extorted a confession, leading to the death of criminal suspect Wang Dayong, caused an uproar in the entire Public Security Bureau and even the city's political and legal circles. After Lao Chen and five others were sentenced, the director in charge of criminal investigation work in the bureau also resigned, and then the bureau began to study documents and discipline education on a large scale.

The cases of burglary, robbery, and rape resulting in serious injury involving Wang Dayong's brothers were taken over by other brigades. Although the police are still doing their best to investigate, no one dares to mention the "solving the case in 5 days" again.

After Wang Dayong died, the Public Security Bureau tried every means to contact his relatives and even sent people to the Wang brothers' hometown in Sichuan. However, Wang Dayong's parents had already passed away, and he only had an aunt who married and moved to the northeast in her early years and had lost contact with them. After searching for a long time, the Public Security Bureau still could not find him.

The whereabouts of Wang Eryong has also become a mystery.

(End of this chapter)