Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 84 The Case of Burning the Corpse 2
There haven't been many cases of burning corpses in the past two years, and it's even rarer to see one with such a fresh date. After the forensic examination was completed and evidence was collected, the young people from the criminal investigation team and the interns brought by Lao Li immediately surrounded them.

Tan Jia also had a spot, standing next to Zheng Yan with his eyes half-closed and playing with dough in his hands, only his ears were perked up to listen attentively.

"The most difficult part of a cremation case is identifying the deceased, because high-temperature carbonization can cause DNA denaturation, and sometimes the body is burned to bones and cannot be tested at all. In this case, we have to carefully look for any parts that can be tested."

"Whether the body is cremated after death or burned directly, the muscles will involuntarily contract and relax when a person is burned, causing the body to curl inward, similar to the self-protective posture of a boxer. Therefore, the chest and abdomen are more likely to preserve tissues that can be used for DNA testing compared to other parts of the body."

Old Li carefully moved the skeleton with the tools he brought, revealing the part that was touching the ground.

"In addition, the area where the body is close to the ground is relatively unlikely to burn completely unless the murderer evenly sprinkles an extremely large amount of accelerant, or the environment has conditions suitable for high-intensity combustion."

"This place doesn't have the right environmental conditions. Even if an accelerant was sprinkled, some of it would have been chipped off by vines and rocks as the body rolled down. That's why the right abdomen of the body wasn't completely carbonized, and even the ID card and some small items in the right pocket still have some traces."

Everyone nodded along, just like they would in a school class.

Old Li then picked up the deceased's completely carbonized limb bones, revealing more representative parts.

"If the body is unfortunately burned very cleanly, then we can only make inferences through some special parts. For example, the shape of the pelvis. The hardness of the pelvis is second only to the skull. In cases of burning or dismemberment, it can maintain a relatively complete shape. We can distinguish the sex and age of the deceased through this part."

Everyone huddled closer together, and Old Li, always eager to teach, quickly drew his own conclusion amidst their expectant gazes.

"The deceased was male, and his age was initially estimated to be over 45, which roughly matches the age on his ID card."

So the person who died was a middle-aged man old enough to be a grandfather.

Who is the killer? What is the motive?
Tan Jia yawned, turned to look at Zheng Yan, and found that his attention was not on Old Li's forensic class, but on looking thoughtfully at the hillside above.

She looked up at it too.

"Captain Zheng, what are you looking at?"

"From the perspective of the deceased. Burning the body is usually a method used by murderers to destroy evidence in order to avoid being found out. Now that there are surveillance cameras everywhere, fire prevention awareness is deeply rooted in people's minds, and there are so many people, very few people dare to use this method anymore."

Tan Jia: "But there were no surveillance cameras in this place, and no one or any cars were passing by at the time, so it was the perfect location and the perfect opportunity to use this method."

“You didn’t consider the location at the bottom of the slope. It’s ten meters deep. If you just throw the body down there, no one will know. Burning the body might attract attention. A body doused with accelerant will burn brightly and be very conspicuous at night.”

Also.

"But you should consider this point, instead of thinking from the killer's perspective?"

Zheng Yan glanced at her: "You're the one who speaks from the killer's perspective. You can start saying your catchphrases now."

"What?" she asked, puzzled.

"If you are the murderer."

"..." Tan Jia was speechless for two seconds, then said a couple of sentences, "If I were the murderer, I would stay until the body was completely burned before leaving, to make sure it was burned clean. Even if the forensic doctor could find some tricky parts to take samples for testing, at least he wouldn't find something like an ID card."

"Are you prejudging by the fact that the body was burned after death? According to your logic, the murderer should be a cautious person who premeditated the crime, but what if it was a crime of passion? In that case, the murderer wouldn't be so cautious. Considering the victim's age and the fact that the accident happened on a mountain road in the middle of the night, there's another possibility: it was an accident that happened suddenly, and the murderer didn't want to take responsibility, so he hastily poured accelerant on the victim and pushed him off the cliff."

Given the same result, veteran detective Zheng Yan could readily provide several different scenarios.

These are all directions she easily overlooks. "You've watched too many bizarre and major cases, haven't you? Crime dramas are all the rage now, everyone's a master detective, and they love to guess the most outlandish and convoluted scenarios." Zheng Yan patted her shoulder.

"But in actual cases, the motives, methods, and purposes of most cases are very ordinary or even bizarre. For example, the first case your brother encountered when he became a criminal police officer was that the murderer killed someone simply because he lost a game and stabbed the first person who passed by him twice. Afterwards, fearing that the victim's family would expose him sooner or later by searching everywhere, he broke into the victim's house and killed the remaining three people. At that time, your brother was investigating the victim's enemies, and when he was interviewing them, he questioned the murderer as if he were a passerby for more than ten minutes without ever thinking of him."

"Huh?" Tan Jia exclaimed in disbelief.

Just then, Tan Ming returned from searching the surroundings and passed by her. She gave him a sympathetic look.

Tan Ming: "?"

Zheng Yan, pretending he hadn't exposed him, asked seriously, "Did the police find anything?"

"Nothing yet. We only found some car parts, but they look quite old, probably left behind by a car that was in an accident on this road in the past. However, we found traces of gasoline on the slope," Tan Ming said.

“I’ve communicated with the traffic police department. Because there are no surveillance cameras on this section of the road, they can only check the surveillance cameras at intersections four or five kilometers away, and then filter out people and vehicles that have passed through Guilingpo.” Xiao Chen came down the slope, bringing new progress.

Zheng Yan nodded, turned around and saw Old Li collecting the remains. He then called for help to hoist the charred remains and Old Li up together and send them back to the hillside.

He continued, "Leave some people to protect the scene. As for the rest, let's start investigating from the name Zhou Qiao."

……

Identifying the deceased was the first step in the entire investigation, and it was a huge undertaking. The criminal investigation team quickly got busy, checking the system and staring at the screen, turning into frog-eyed aliens.

Tan Jia solemnly declared that she wasn't needed for this step and took the opportunity to go home.

Getting up early is indeed a good way to extend the day. She glanced at her phone as she got out of the elevator and realized that after working for several hours, it was still not nine o'clock.

So when I heard the door open as I stepped into the corridor and turned around to see Lin Zhiyue just getting up, I didn't find it strange.

The other person remained silent as usual. Their slightly disheveled black hair partially obscured their eyebrows and eyes, making their gaze less direct.

He didn't say anything, and Tan Jia didn't greet him either. He just nodded casually and walked past, then went to his front door to unlock it and go inside.

Lin Zhiyue swallowed hard, but couldn't help calling her softly when she opened her door.

“Tan Jia—” The hoarse voice was as light as a breeze.

Tan Jia slowly turned around: "What is it?"

"you……"

"If you want to ask me where I went early in the morning, when I left, and what I did, I won't answer."

"You," he said, his lips almost turning white, before finally uttering the words he wanted to say, "Have you had breakfast?"

There were a few minor changes in the previous chapter. You can read today's update along with yesterday's chapter.



(End of this chapter)