You're supposed to be a security officer, what case are you solving?

Chapter 143 The Death Was Horrific!

Early the next morning.

Criminal investigation teams from the North City Branch, South City Branch, and Jiaxing Third Branch gathered in the city bureau's conference room.

The very location of the meeting demonstrates the importance the Municipal Public Security Bureau attaches to this case.

Yang Jinwen and Maozi still had no seats. Like the other criminal police officers, they stood behind their captain and deputy captain, like underlings of some gang.

He Jinbo and Zheng Kang; Yan Bin from Chengnan; and Chai Tao from Jiaxing, were like gangsters from a Hong Kong gangster movie, staring at each other, as if they were just missing a hot pot in the middle of the table.

The difference is that the gangsters in the movie don't need to take notes, but He Jinbo and his gang have notebooks and documents neatly placed on their desks, ready to record anything at any time.

Wen Ling, dressed in a white robe, covered her mouth and yawned. She stood in front of the slides and began to introduce them.

"After a night of hard work, we have now preliminarily determined the cause of death of these seven victims."

The seven victims consisted of five men and two women. The cause of death for all was a severe blow to the head…

Wen Ling pointed to the back of her head and forehead and continued, "The wounds are mostly in these areas. Because the body was burned in a fire, the surface contusions are not visible."

After performing craniotomy, through examination of the skull and based on the condition of the wounds, we determined that the murderer's weapon was likely a round-headed hammer.

We observed that several of the bodies had concentric bone fractures on their foreheads, leading us to conclude that the murder weapon was a round-headed hammer.

That's for your criminal investigation team to determine. The perpetrator might have also used a claw hammer during the crime.

He Jinbo clicked his tongue and said, "Killed someone with a hammer? Not a knife? Were there any gunshot wounds?"

If a shooting can be proven, it's easier to find the gun by examining the bullet caliber or ballistics, and finding the gun will lead to finding the person.

Moreover, if it is a shooting, it can also narrow down the range of perpetrators, since only a small group of people would dare to illegally possess firearms or to counterfeit or sell them.

Wen Ling shook her head: "They didn't have gunshot wounds, only blunt force trauma marks."

Sitting next to him, Ma Boming also said, "No bullet casings were found at the scene, so it wasn't a shooting."

Yang Guochang glared at He Jinbo: "Let forensic doctor Wen finish speaking first. Don't interrupt. Ask him later."

He Jinbo nodded quickly, then turned around and saw Chai Tao winking at him.

He Jinbo grinned and mouthed, "Get lost!"

Wen Ling glanced at Yang Jinwen standing in the corner, rolled her eyes, and continued, "After we found the cause of death last night, we performed craniotomies on the seven bodies to conduct forensic examinations."

The following seven bodies will be discussed starting with hotel room number 202. Body number 1 is male, the one lying at the door.

The fatal wound was on his forehead, then his brow bone and nose bone, all of which were shattered. He was struck five times by the assailant, and his entire face collapsed.

Body number 2, female, is the body wrapped in a quilt on the bed.

We removed the quilt that had been burned from her body and found that she had been stripped of her clothes before she died.

The clothes were inside the quilt, so we speculate that she may have been assaulted before her death, because the clothes had been burned in the fire, making it impossible to extract bodily fluids or other biological samples.

Her fatal wound was in the occipital bone, what we commonly call the back of the head. She was struck twice by the assailant, both blows landing precisely on the same spot without any deviation.

As Wen Ling spoke, she noticed that Yang Jinwen was listening attentively while quickly taking notes, occasionally glancing up at her.

In the entire conference room, only Yang Jinwen wrote the fastest with his pen. The other seasoned veterans, such as He Jinbo and Zheng Kang, were like poor students in an exam room, always pausing for a few seconds when they put pen to paper. Some, like Chai Tao, would just write a few sentences and call it a day.

Wen Ling picked up the water glass on the table, tilted her head back and took a sip, waiting for Yang Jinwen to finish writing.

But Yang Jinwen didn't even put pen to paper; he was still writing.

Wen Mo, who was standing to the side, looked up at her precious daughter and said, "Go on."

"Oh." Wen Ling nodded and took another sip of water.

Only when Yang Jinwen looked up did she put down her water glass.

"The third body, which is the body of Yan Dahong that Captain He asked us to find, was identified because he had his teeth extracted at a clinic three months ago. The extractions were his wisdom teeth and molars on the left side of his mouth."

In addition, his height and bone age also match his identity.

His fatal wounds were different from those of the other corpses. In addition to a heavy blow to the forehead, we also found blood on his teeth, teeth marks on the back of his tongue, broken molars, and bloody foam in his mouth.

A suffocating hematoma formed between the hyoid bone and tongue muscles, and the alveolar bone fractured.

In other words, it was a mechanical death; the cause of death for body number 3 was strangulation.

At this moment, Yang Jinwen raised his head and asked, "Forensic Doctor Wen, I have a question."

Wen Ling nodded: "Please go ahead."

"Body number 3 was found in the storeroom..." "Yes."

Yang Jinwen gestured: "At the time, the five bodies were piled together and burned. My question is, where was body number 3 located?"

“At the very bottom,” Wen Ling replied.

Yang Jinwen nodded, wanting to ask more questions.

Wen Ling said, "We numbered the bodies from the bottom up, so body number 3 is at the bottom, and bodies number 4, 5, 6, and 7 are above it."

We've performed craniotomies on all these bodies. Bodies number four, five, and six all suffered severe blows to the forehead, resulting in facial collapse. Bodies number seven were women; they suffered severe blows to the back of the head.

"Another important point is that the murderer poured gasoline on each body before burning them to ensure they were charred. So when we were moving them, the bodies were stuck together and very difficult to separate."

He Jinbo clicked his tongue: "Going to such extremes? This is something only a desperate criminal would do. Who could do something like this if they've never killed anyone or committed a crime?"

Yang Guochang ignored him and looked at Ma Boming: "Old Ma, what did your technical team find out?"

Ma Boming stood up, holding a document, and said, "We carefully examined the scene. The fire started on the second floor. The place where the fire first started was the storage room, and then it spread to every room on the second floor."

The perpetrator poured the most gasoline on the storage room and room 202 before setting the fire.

Gasoline was spilled all the way down the stairs to the first floor and then to the main entrance. It can be concluded that the murderer set fires all over the Dongfeng Guesthouse!

Furthermore, the guesthouse's ledgers and counter were all burned, and we couldn't find any gasoline cans; no trace of anything was preserved.

Yan Bin from the Chengnan Criminal Investigation Brigade asked, "How much gasoline would be needed to burn such a large area?"

"Huh?" Ma Boming frowned and looked at him, realizing he was someone he didn't know, and asked in return, "Should I burn down another guesthouse for you to see?"

"You..." Yan Bin was speechless after being rebuked.

He Jinbo turned his head, covered his mouth and chuckled, and Jiang Jianbing and Xu Guoliang, who were standing by the wall, almost burst out laughing as well.

Ma Boming is known for his sharp tongue; he's the kind of person who criticizes everyone and everything. After all, he's about to retire, and apart from his superiors and acquaintances, he'll criticize anyone he sees without holding back.

However, with the city bureau leaders present, Ma Boming didn't dare to be too presumptuous. He cleared his throat and said, "Yesterday at the scene, Comrade Yang Jinwen and I calculated that it would take about 10 liters, and possibly more."

He Jinbo asked, "Where did these people get such a large quantity?"

Wen Mo said, "Gas stations, all the gas stations in the city need to be thoroughly investigated. If necessary, we should also request assistance from other counties and cities. Secondly, there are fuel thieves. These people steal gasoline from trucks and resell it; they make money very quickly."

Yang Guochang nodded and pointed with his right index finger in front of him.

"What Wen said makes a lot of sense. This is a very important direction for investigation. Wen will assign you tasks in a moment."

Listen carefully to what I'm about to say. In terms of nature, this case is more serious and heinous than the bus robbery and the murder of female students at the nursing school. It concerns the safety of people's property and must be solved!

The provincial and municipal authorities are giving us a deadline to solve the case, and they're only giving us one week!

If the murderer is not caught within a week, the budgets of our municipal bureau and your branch bureau will be halved, and bonuses and last month's salary will be deducted from the leaders of our municipal bureau and the leaders and captains of your branch bureau.

At that time, personnel from the provincial department will come down to form a special task force to take over the investigation!

Upon hearing this, He Jinbo, Yan Bin, and Chai Tao all looked extremely unpleasant. Yan Bin and Chai Tao, in particular, were not involved in the case, but if they dared to argue now, they would probably be immediately humiliated by Yang Guochang.

Yang Guochang scanned the crowd and continued, "Of course, there will be rewards and punishments. If this case is successfully solved, no matter which captain led the investigation, I will apply to the organization for the position of deputy branch captain of the municipal bureau."

As soon as these words came out, the whole hall was in an uproar.

You should know that promotions are never announced in public; they are always decided in private.

But Yang Guochang was determined to take the risk. The municipal bureau had discussed the position of deputy branch captain for a long time, but the people below him were not qualified, and the higher-ups had no intention of temporarily transferring someone.

As long as all the leaders of the municipal bureau agree, they can still apply to higher authorities to promote someone.

Chai Tao and Yan Bin were already eager to get started. At this moment, they didn't care whether the case was in their jurisdiction or not; after all, they were serving the people.

He Jinbo was as if he had been injected with chicken blood, his face flushed red and his heart was beating faster.

The position of deputy head of the municipal bureau—what an irresistible temptation!

As soon as the meeting ended, the people from the three branches hurriedly left and returned to their units, where they held a mobilization meeting overnight.

He Jinbo was no exception. He started cracking the whip at the old guard of the Chengbei Brigade. He had no choice but to crack it. If the Chengbei Branch could produce a deputy detachment leader, the position of brigade leader would be vacant.

In the conference room of the Chengbei Branch, He Jinbo was giving a passionate speech, making grand promises to everyone, and taking out Zhonghua cigarettes from his pack and tossing them to his subordinates.

Yang Jinwen sat alone in the corner, silently studying the autopsy report that Wen Ling had photocopied for him...

(End of this chapter)