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

Chapter 173 Tragic!

Not only Yang Jinwen, but also several people in the trace evidence team had their blood pressure rise.

Four people died, three of whom were women, two of whom appeared to be students.

For a moment, the room fell into a long silence.

Wen Ling closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, and began to shout, "Begin the autopsy."

Besides Wen Ling, the Municipal Bureau also had a forensic doctor named Zhang Jinkang, who was almost sixty years old and wore black-rimmed glasses.

His assistant was a young man named Tan Yuan, who was his apprentice.

The reason Wen Ling was suddenly transferred to the Municipal Bureau was that Zhang Jinkang, besides being close to retirement, was also physically unable to withstand the strain.

Years of kneeling to perform autopsies have caused herniated discs and a decline in physical function, affecting both her energy and judgment.

Wen Ling's grandfather was a veteran forensic doctor at the municipal bureau and also Zhang Jinkang's mentor. He knew Wen Ling's skill level, so he only came to help out this time.

The first thing I saw was the body at the entrance.

Standing to the side, the county bureau's technician, Gao, held a handwritten statement and said, "The first deceased was named Wang Jian. He was the head of the household and the office director of the fertilizer factory. He was 38 years old."

Song Jun, the chief of the trace evidence inspection, nodded and began to instruct his two apprentices to start working, one placing the number tags and the other taking photos.

Immediately, the sound of camera shutters clicking filled the room.

Taking photos of the deceased requires the use of a ruler and shooting from multiple angles, including items near the deceased.

After the photos were taken, Song Jun called out to Wen Ling, "I'm all done here."

Wen Ling and the others walked over, squatted down next to the first deceased, put on gloves, and gently straightened the body.

Wang Jian wore glasses, but when he was killed, his gold-rimmed glasses fell to the ground, right under the dining table.

Wen Ling carefully examined the wounds on his body, saying, "There are four wounds on his abdomen: one above his navel, one off the midline, and one next to his left kidney."

Judging from the amount of bleeding, the wound is very deep and has likely reached the internal organs of the abdomen.

In addition, neck laceration was the primary cause of death…

Wen Ling looked at the floor next to the dining table; there were obvious bloodstains from mopping.

Looking back, she saw the murder scene in both bedrooms, with a half-meter-wide mop bloodstain connecting to the dining table.

In other words, the murderer wiped away his bloody footprints before leaving!

Wen Ling said, "It is still impossible to determine the amount of bleeding, but the main cause of death should be the sharp instrument piercing the carotid artery and causing massive bleeding."

After she finished speaking, she looked at her senior colleague standing next to her, namely Zhang Jinkang, the old forensic doctor.

They both came from the same master, so their relationship was naturally that of senior brother and junior sister.

Zhang Jinkang frowned: "That should be it, but there's one thing: the body seems to have been disturbed."

Wen Ling was looking around when Yang Jinwen pointed to the doorway: "He must have been attacked at the door."

Zhang Jinkang asked, "What do you mean?"

At crime scenes, especially in cases of stabbing with a sharp weapon, the perpetrator will cause the victim to bleed, or even suffer severe bleeding, while killing the victim.

The extent of bleeding at the scene is one of the important clues for reconstructing the case, which is often referred to as scene analysis in TV dramas.

Experienced detectives with technical skills can deduce the power struggle between the perpetrator and the victim at the time of the crime simply by looking at the bloodstains at the scene.

Yang Jinwen said that the first victim was attacked at the entrance, which is the scene of the crime.

He pointed to the victim's leather shoes: "With such a large amount of bleeding, the soles of the victim's shoes were very clean, without a single bloodstain. So I figured he must have been stabbed three times by the murderer hiding in the house after he entered."

At this moment, Wenling listened as she used scissors to cut open the clothes covering the deceased's abdominal wound.

"There should be more than one murderer. After the victim was injured, he was pulled to the ground by another person, and then the murderer holding the knife stabbed the victim in the throat."

The stab wound was just three meters in front of the door, next to the coffee table. Although the murderer wiped away the marks with a mop, I think that's where the victim died.

And look, the mop marks are the most there too. Up to where the deceased is now, there's a half-meter-wide mop mark, indicating the mop was moved back and forth several times.

Zhang Jinkang nodded: "It should be."

At this moment, Wen Ling was examining the deceased's hands.

His hands were stained red with blood, and scabs of blood had formed. He must have been in too much pain before he died, so he clutched his throat.

If there was a fight, there would definitely be some residue left on the hands and under the fingernails.

Wenling couldn't see anything from the surface, so she took out a horseshoe-shaped mirror, looked at the deceased's fingernails, and then took a look.

Then she looked up: "Tweezers, sterile cotton, evidence bag."

Yang Jinwen quickly took the items out of the survey kit and gave them to her.

While collecting evidence, Wen Ling said, "There are bloodstains under his fingernails, which could be his own or the murderer's. But there are a few strands of hair fibers left, so he must have caught the murderer."

This is good news.

There is a well-known principle abroad called Locard's principle of material exchange, which posits that the process of committing a crime is actually a process of material exchange.

As a physical entity, the perpetrator always comes into contact with and exchanges various kinds of matter and entities during the commission of a crime.

Therefore, material exchange is widespread in criminal cases and is a symbiotic relationship with criminal behavior; this is a law that is independent of human will.

This means one thing: there is no such thing as a perfect crime.

For example, in novels, ice is used as bullets in shooting. Regardless of whether this is realistic, ice used as bullets to kill victims would leave water traces after melting. As for why there are still so many unsolved cases, the reason is simple: due to factors such as the times and technology, plus the killer's incredible luck, the killer has been able to get away with it.

The smarter ones, afterward, dared not continue committing crimes and went into hiding under assumed names, perhaps escaping punishment.

Those who aren't smart might think that the police can't catch them, so they commit another crime. But crimes will always be caught, especially after the millennium, with the widespread use of DNA testing.

Local municipal and county police bureaus are almost always cracking down on suspects in backlog cases, arresting people every day, or on the run to apprehend fugitives. This has caused detention centers to be overflowing.

Wen Ling worked methodically for over an hour, examining the cloudiness of the eyeballs, the healing marks on the body surface, and determining the time of death. Finally, she stood up wearily.

Yang Jinwen quickly helped her up, and Wen Ling smiled and said, "No need, I'm very stable."

Immediately afterwards, Song Jun's forensic team had already taken photos of the bodies in the two bedrooms.

Wen Ling led the people into the first room, which was the master bedroom.

Old Gao from the county bureau said, "Her name is Li Xiumei, Wang Jian's wife. The couple both work. The incident happened yesterday, which was Saturday."

When Yang Jinwen and Wen Ling first entered the room, they saw that the body was covered with a quilt. The quilt cover was trimmed with gold and embroidered with red peonies in the middle. After the forensic examination was completed, the quilt was lifted.

Li Xiumei was lying face down on the bed, her head hanging off the edge.

She was not wearing any clothes, her wrists were tied behind her back with a piece of white nylon strap, and her hair touched the floor.

She lay there quietly, without any bloodstains on her body, but a white nylon bandage was wrapped around her neck.

Wen Ling stepped forward and glanced at the several traces in the room: "Are you done taking pictures? If you're done, why don't you cover them up?"

The leader, holding a camera, stared at Wen Ling with murderous intent and replied, "Weren't you going to perform an autopsy?"

"But we still have to cover them up."

The man's face turned red, and he couldn't answer.

Wen Ling glanced at him again, then walked to the bedside where the deceased's head was hanging low, and carefully untied the nylon strap and put it into the evidence bag.

Undoubtedly, the second victim, Li Xiumei, was strangled. There were dark purple bruises on her neck, and the marks matched the nylon strap.

Wen Ling did not touch the deceased's body. She asked Yang Jinwen to take out a sterile cotton swab and extract bodily fluids from the other side of the bed.

The deceased's legs were not bound, and as for why, there's no need to answer, and no one asked.

It is clear that Li Xiumei had been humiliated before her death.

After finishing this, Wen Ling instructed, "Turn over and take a look."

Yang Jinwen and forensic assistant Tan Yuan quickly stepped forward and turned Li Xiumei's body over.

Wenling quickly covered her body, then walked to the other side, brushed her hair aside, and revealed her face.

Li Xiumei had cyanosis of the face, conjunctival hemorrhage, protruding tongue tip, and petechial hemorrhages on the skin.

These four points alone provide irrefutable evidence of death by mechanical asphyxiation.

Cyanosis of the face is caused by obstructed venous return, coupled with asphyxiation and hypoxia.

Conjunctival hemorrhages are caused by the rupture of high-pressure capillaries.

Tongue biting, near-death spasms causing lockjaw, are unlikely to occur in suicide or hanging.

Another issue is petechial bleeding, which is caused by the rupture of small blood vessels in the dermis. It most commonly occurs behind the ears and on the neck, and is a key indicator of strangulation marks.

Therefore, the cause of Li Xiumei's death is clear.

However, there were large tear stains around her eyes, which were quite shocking to look at.

Next, Wenling began to check the time of death.

The diagnosis is made by examining the conjunctiva of the eye, rectal temperature, and, after dissection, measuring rectal temperature, among other methods.

This busy activity lasted for another hour or so.

Unable to stay awake any longer, Zhang Jinkang went to the corridor to catch his breath and prepare to rest for a while, just as Wen Mo and He Jinbo came up with their men.

Wen Mo asked, "Old Zhang, what's going on?"

"Junior sister is being examined inside. Her death was very simple; it must have been done by an experienced person."

"Junior sister?" He Jinbo didn't know who he was talking about.

Wen Mo replied, "It's Wen Ling."

"Oh." He Jinbo touched his nose.

Wen Mo sighed: "If it were a veteran, it wouldn't be just this one case."

After they put on their gear and entered the room, they saw Wen Ling leading Yang Jinwen and Tan Yuan into another bedroom.

The group walked over and stared in disbelief at what they saw inside.

The two girls were tied together with nylon straps, and their deaths were extremely gruesome.

Wen Ling took a deep breath and looked at Yang Jinwen: "Find two female colleagues over, you don't need to go in and help."

He nodded: "Okay, I have my own things to do too."

Yang Jinwen returned to the doorway and stood there, surveying the entire crime scene, his mind racing.

When he looked down, he saw a brand new pair of Double Star brand women's shoes on the shoe rack...

(End of this chapter)