Forensic Doctor 2003: I Became a Legend on the Front Lines of Criminal Investigation

"Our on-site investigation confirmed that 29 sleeping pills were missing."

For a moment, the two fell silent, and the atmosphere in the room became increasingly heavy.

After a long silence, Li Jian slowly spoke: "Judging from this, the suspect's confession might be true?"

Then, Wang Hui added, "Captain Li, we found that some sleeping pills had been transferred to a vitamin B2 bottle at the scene. The bottle had the deceased's fingerprints on it, and we also detected another fingerprint."

As soon as he finished speaking, Jiang Chen reached for the phone and said, "Captain Li, I'd like to ask if either of the suspects mentioned how the deceased usually took sleeping pills, and how many at a time?"

Li Jian replied, "The deceased usually took two pills orally before going to bed."

After hanging up the phone, Jiang Chen scanned all the items in the room once again.

No water cups or bottles were found inside the room, only a bowl of unfinished porridge beside the bed.

Suddenly, a thought popped into Jiang Chen's mind: Could it be that the deceased swallowed it whole?

After a long silence, Jiang Chen turned to Jiang Chen and said, "Senior brother, if we assume the deceased took a large amount of sleeping pills, why didn't we see a glass of water?"

Upon hearing this, Wang Hui turned and looked around, saying, "Do you think it's possible that the family felt it was taboo and threw away the deceased's cup?"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Chen shook his head. "That's unlikely."

"The deceased's bowls, chopsticks, and medicines are all here. If the cleanup is for bad luck, why not clean them up together?"

After a long pause, Jiang Chen analyzed, "One or two pills might be hard to swallow, but the possibility of swallowing dozens of pills dry is extremely small."

"You mean through other means?" Wang Hui looked at him with some confusion.

As they spoke, Jiang Chen leaned down to examine the bowl. "Is it possible that this bowl was used to take medicine?"

"A bowl? This bowl contains porridge!"

Wang Hui was taken aback. "Normally, people take pills by drinking water."

Then Jiang Chen said, "If the deceased did not take the medicine voluntarily, but was fed the medicine by someone else, is it possible that the medicine was put into the porridge?"

Wang Hui asked doubtfully, "But if the pills are in the porridge, wouldn't they be easy to see at a glance?"

Just as he was filled with doubt, Jiang Chen had already turned around and walked straight towards the kitchen.

There is a pot on the stove in the kitchen.

He lifted the lid and took a look; sure enough, it was porridge inside.

At this moment, Wang Hui also came in: "The deceased ate porridge for his last meal."

Then, Wang Hui picked up a spoon and stirred it. "There are no pills."

"If it were a whole pill, you should be able to see it in the porridge, right?"

Seeing this, Jiang Chen frowned slightly, glancing at the cutting board next to him out of the corner of his eye.

A small amount of white powder can be seen on the cutting board.

"What is that?"

Wang Hui said, "It looks like flour, but flour doesn't appear here."

Then, Jiang Chen looked at the rolling pin next to him. The middle part of the rolling pin was also covered with some fine powder.

Upon connecting these two points, Jiang Chen was instantly surprised and immediately looked at Wang Hui.

"Is it possible that they used a rolling pin to crush the medicine granules into powder and then mixed it in?"

Wang Hui was suddenly startled by Jiang Chen's guess.

"This...is this even possible?"

At this moment, Wang Hui was amazed by Jiang Chen's wild imagination.

However, on second thought, this is indeed an extremely covert method.

Then, Jiang Chen continued his analysis, saying, "With such a large amount of sleeping pills, it would be very difficult to succeed if the deceased were simply given them orally. The pills were mixed in with the porridge, making them very noticeable."

"However, once it's ground into powder, it becomes much harder to detect."

"You mean... murder?" Wang Hui asked in a deep voice.

Jiang Chen nodded. "From what I can see now, I still firmly believe it was homicide."

Based on the fingerprints on the sleeping pill bottle, I cannot completely rule out suicide.

However, this action alone is enough to prove that he was murdered.

"I ask you, would someone contemplating suicide really need to crush sleeping pills into powder, mix them into their porridge, and then drink it?"

Upon hearing this, Wang Hui said, "We still don't know whether there are sleeping pills in the porridge or not."

Jiang Chen nodded and then said, "We'll immediately send the cutting board, porridge, and bowls to the Municipal Bureau's toxicology lab."

Forty minutes later, the two drove back to the city's Public Security Bureau's toxicology laboratory.

As soon as I entered, I ran into the lab technician who was on duty that morning.

"Why are you here again? The results aren't out yet."

Wang Hui smiled and said, "We're bringing some more physical evidence; could you please take a look?"

He pointed to the porridge, the cutting board, and the rolling pin.

Upon seeing the three pieces of evidence, the lab technician was slightly taken aback and said, "You found all of these? Forensic doctor Zhang Wei's eye is indeed impressive."

As he spoke, he took the physical evidence, turned around, and walked into the laboratory.

Wang Hui glanced at his retreating figure, his lips twitching slightly, before turning to look at Jiang Chen.

"It seems that Dr. Zhang didn't mention any of this when we left this morning, did he?"

Jiang Chen smiled and said, "It's not important."

"Once it's confirmed that the substance contains sleeping pills, the murderer will have no room for excuses."

Upon hearing this, Wang Hui nodded.

The two waited in the laboratory waiting area.

Thirty minutes later, the lab technician came out with the test results.

"Preliminary tests showed that the porridge contained a large amount of sleeping pill ingredients, and the powder was also confirmed to be sleeping pills. In addition, trace amounts of sleeping pill ingredients were also found on the inner wall of the bowl."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Chen and Wang Hui exchanged a glance, their eyes met, and they both nodded slightly.

Wang Hui was overjoyed: "Holy crap, we actually found him! Now we can definitively say that he was the murderer."

Jiang Chen picked up his phone and dialed Li Jian's number.

At this moment, Li Jian was weighing his options repeatedly in the team, with two viewpoints constantly battling in his mind.

On one hand, there's the issue of suicide: the victim suffered from cancer, had sleeping pills, and had fingerprints on the roof beams...

On the other hand, it was a homicide: the elderly man had been ill for a long time and became a burden; his son and daughter-in-law had lied beforehand; and the body was later hung up to disguise the crime...

The scales swayed back and forth, and no conclusion could be reached for a long time.

Just then, his phone rang, and the caller ID showed Jiang Chen.

Li Jian immediately answered: "Feed."

"Captain Li, I have an important report to make!"

"you say."

"We found a large amount of sleeping pill residue in the pot on the stove in the deceased's home, and powder left from crushing sleeping pills on the cutting board!"

Upon hearing this, Li Jian was instantly stunned.

Although he wasn't at the scene, his years of experience as a criminal investigation team leader immediately put him on alert.

With just these few words, he had grasped the key point.

"Is the way you're taking the medication very unusual?"

"We deduce that the sleeping pills were mixed into the porridge and ingested by the deceased."

Then, Jiang Chen said, word by word, "If the deceased had taken the medicine himself, it would never have been done in this way."

Upon hearing this, Li Jian remained silent for a moment, and the scales in his mind instantly tipped towards "homicide".