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

After Li Jian finished speaking, he turned his head and pointed to Jiang Chen sitting next to him:

"The 'expert who isn't an expert' I'm referring to is our forensic doctor—Brother Jiang Chen."

Instantly, everyone's eyes turned to Jiang Chen.

Many veteran police officers chuckled and shook their heads.

Even the new police officers seemed to regard him as an alien, their surprised gazes shifting back and forth between Li Jian and Jiang Chen.

This new police officer, who hasn't even officially started working yet, has somehow become an expert?

This... isn't this ridiculous?

Although Jiang Chen had previously participated in and assisted in solving two cases, and played an important and crucial role in providing forensic technical support during the investigation, in the minds of many veteran police officers, these were things that forensic doctors should do.

Doing a good job is nothing to brag about; doing a bad job is what shows a lack of competence.

Seeing the surprised and puzzled expressions on everyone's faces, Li Jian's lips twitched, and he asked with a smile:

"What, does everyone lack confidence in our Jiang Chen brother's professional abilities?"

"It was thanks to the keen eyes of my brother Jiang Chen that we discovered the clues in the previous two murder cases."

"We have reopened the investigation into this cold case five times in a row."

"Now we've gathered here to revisit these old cases and examine them again."

"If our discussion today does lead to new insights, then we will vote together to decide whether to reopen the sixth investigation of this case."

"If we still can't come up with a good idea after discussion, then we can continue to put this case on hold and bring it up again in the future when the technology is more advanced or the way of thinking about solving cases is improved."

"Therefore, whether or not to restart the investigation of the entire case will depend on our subsequent discussions."

"Of course, it mainly depends on Brother Jiang Chen's experience and insights."

After a brief pause, he continued, "This morning, I arranged for someone to deliver the case file of this cold case to Jiang Chen's office."

"After reading it, he was deeply moved and immediately went to the scene of the crime and the funeral home to re-examine the body and put forward new opinions."

"I think we need to listen to this."

In our work of investigation and solving cases, we emphasize both upholding principles and innovation.

Traditional crime-solving methods should not be discarded, but we also need to listen carefully to new crime-solving ideas—to see if they make sense.

If that makes sense, then let's explore it together;

If it doesn't make sense, then let's put it aside for now.

After the brief opening remarks, the officers on the other side didn't show much interest.

After all, this case has been investigated and analyzed over a long period of time. Many veteran police officers have stayed up all night for this case, sometimes not going home for a whole month.

What kind of thoughts would a new police officer have?

Isn't that utter nonsense?

It's like a math problem that only middle school students can solve, but you're giving it to kindergarten kids. Isn't that insulting the intelligence of middle school students?

At this moment, many veteran police officers felt the same way—they were all getting on in years, and their children were older than Jiang Chen. They never expected to have to listen to a junior express his opinions here; it was simply a waste of their time.

If it weren't for their advanced age and the desire to secure a higher level of benefits before retirement, they probably would have already left.

Nonsense!

This is utter nonsense!

Immediately, they had some reservations about Li Jian's arrangement, but considering that everyone was in a meeting, they didn't say anything to his face.

Then, Li Jian turned to look at Jiang Chen and said, "Brother Jiang Chen, you heard it just now, these are all members of our criminal investigation team."

"The main reason we organized this case discussion is to hear your opinion, because this case is very familiar to most of us, except that you were not involved in the previous cases that were reopened."

"Therefore, you can speak freely. If what you say makes sense, we will reopen the investigation into this case."

"If you haven't thought it through enough, you can go back and study it again, so don't feel pressured."

Hearing this, Jiang Chen smiled slightly and turned to say, "Captain Li, thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my views in front of so many seniors. Please feel free to offer any criticisms or corrections, Captain Li and all the senior brothers."

"Alright, let's not waste any more time. You go first."

Li Jian lit a cigarette and listened with interest, but he didn't take the following opinions too seriously, nor was he particularly excited.

The other officers were just smoking and looking out the window as usual, showing no interest in finding a new breakthrough in the case.

However, Jiang Chen was not affected by their performance.

He began to explain his point of view.

"Captain Li just called me an expert, which is really too kind. I'm just a new recruit and would like to share my humble opinions."

"My main idea is to analyze it through four levels, and each level first presents a conclusion and then analyzes the evidence."

"These four levels are: the nature of the case, the number of perpetrators, the process of the murder, and the characterization of the perpetrator."

I have organized these four aspects according to the progressive relationship of the case investigation.

Regarding the nature of this case, I believe it should be classified as a crime of passion.

Upon hearing this, a sparse murmur of discussion immediately arose from the seats opposite: "This...isn't this ridiculous? We were certain the previous five reopenings of cold cases were revenge killings, so how come the sixth one is a crime of passion? Is there any point in listening to this anymore?"

Everyone instantly became a little irritated.

At this moment, Li Jian turned to look at the police officers and raised his hand to signal everyone to be quiet: "We're all here now, so let Jiang Chen finish speaking first, and then we can discuss it further."

Then, Jiang Chen cleared his throat and said:

"I know that the case was initially classified as a revenge killing."

"I have not completely denied this conclusion."

"However, our previous five investigations, which concluded it was a revenge killing, yielded no results."

"This is enough to prove one thing—it's very likely not a revenge killing. If it were a revenge killing, why haven't there been any investigation results?"

"Of course, this is just looking back at the result; it's hindsight."

"But what I'm basing my reasoning on isn't working backward from the outcome, but rather starting from the case itself and working backward from the beginning."

Upon hearing this, everyone wore expressions of disdain.

After all, the conclusion drawn from the beginning of this case has always been homicide; the possibility of a crime of passion has never been considered.

Could he possibly come up with another new trick?

Soon, everyone's eyes were on Jiang Chen, as if he were the brightest star in the meeting.

Jiang Chen spoke calmly and slowly: "My conclusion is that it was a crime of passion, based on three points."

Article 1: In this case, the methods by which the murderer committed the killings are significantly different.

The male victim clearly died from a violent struggle, with numerous stab wounds on his body.

I have seen the cause of death report; it also states that he died from hemorrhagic shock caused by multiple stab wounds.

However, for the female victims, we only saw signs of compression around the neck, and these signs were very slight.

I suspect that this process was carried out with soft padding.

We frequently encounter deaths caused by neck compression, but unless the perpetrator commits the compression in winter and the deceased is wearing a turtleneck sweater, it is unlikely to be cushioned by a soft object.

Generally, a murderer will not deliberately place a soft object on the victim's neck before pressing it down—firstly, it's inconvenient, and secondly, it takes too long.

But why did the killer seem so gentle in his restraint of the female victim in this case?

I suspect the killer had a particular fondness for female victims, while being extremely brutal towards male victims.

Article 2: In this case, the perpetrator's behavior had a certain sexual undertone. This is mainly manifested in two aspects.

On the one hand, there were repeated cuts to the genitals of the male deceased, and these cuts were made in the same direction and were distributed in parallel.

Judging from the outcome of the injury, the deceased was likely in a calm state when he was injured, or that he was cut after death.

Clearly, the murderer cut the victim's genitals not to kill him, but to vent his anger.

Therefore, from this perspective, he has a natural hatred for male victims, especially for male genitalia.

On the other hand, the murderer squeezed the fetus out of the womb after death.

This fetus is the fruit of the love between the deceased man and woman, a union of sperm and egg.

Therefore, considering his dismemberment of the male genitalia, we can conclude that the murderer also harbored deep hatred for the offspring of their love.

Even if the woman is dead, he will still forcefully squeeze the fetus out of her abdomen.

In addition, there were multiple slap marks on the abdomen of the female victim, which was also a clear act of venting anger.

Therefore, from these two perspectives, the emotional aspect of crimes of passion is very clear.

Article 3: When analyzing motives during a crime, we usually consider crimes of passion, revenge killings, and crimes of money.

There were no signs of disturbance at the crime scene, ruling out the possibility that the murder was caused by theft or robbery.

Furthermore, the distribution of stab wounds on the male victim does not support the possibility of a revenge killing.

Revenge killings are often quick and easy, but the male victims seemed to have fought for a long time before the final outcome.

In this case, the primary crime scene was the victim's living room.

So, what kind of person is allowed to enter the home of the deceased?

I believe that only people who both know each other should be allowed to enter.

After all, how could a stranger be allowed into a home so easily?

Therefore, the process of elimination in point three also corroborates that this case was a crime of passion.

Jiang Chen recited the three points in one breath without any pauses, as if he had memorized them beforehand.

Initially, everyone was somewhat hesitant about this conclusion, but after listening to Jiang Chen's analysis, they suddenly felt that it made some sense.

The voices of strong opposition that were heard before are now nowhere to be heard.

Even several veteran police officers stubbed out their cigarettes and looked at Jiang Chen, awaiting the next analysis.

At this moment, Li Jian turned to look at Jiang Chen, gave him a second look, and said, "Brother Jiang Chen, you continue."

"I think you've thought very deeply about this case, and your analysis from your professional perspective makes a lot of sense."

Following that, Jiang Chen continued his analysis: "The second level, I want to talk about the number of people involved in the crime."

There were two victims in this case. The male victim had many stab wounds, which were distributed relatively irregularly, and there was a lot of blood splatter.

Judging from the number of perpetrators and the balance of power between the victims and the perpetrators, I can draw the conclusion that the power of the deceased and the perpetrators was roughly equal.

It is precisely because of this balance of power that significant resistance can be generated.

If there are multiple perpetrators, the victim is likely to be subdued and dealt with in a very short time, without any struggle or fight.

Therefore, I believe that the perpetrator in this case was a single person.

Aside from the difference in strength, no knife wounds caused by a second weapon were found on the male victims.

Therefore, based on the premise of weapon monism, I believe the killer should be a single person.

Upon hearing this, the police officers present nodded unconsciously.

They were not surprised by the conclusion that it was a single person who committed the crime, because the task force had also reached a very high probability conclusion during the previous reopening of the case.

Then, Jiang Chen continued, "The third level is the process of committing the crime."

First, the incident occurred at night. The perpetrator entered the victim's home late at night, and the process was very calm, with no attempt to forcibly break the locks.

After entering the room, there should have been a brief interaction with the deceased – this can be clearly seen from the location of the bench.

Second, the victim should have been unprepared during the murder.

Because I saw that the first stab wound was in the victim's chest, and that stab wound was very severe, with obvious sliding marks, which indicates that the victim resisted very strongly when the knife was inserted into the chest.

This clearly indicates that the wound was likely in that location first. If the injury occurred later, the ability to resist would be reduced, and the knife wound would be relatively more stable.

After the male victim was stabbed and subdued, the perpetrator likely went into the bedroom and took the female victim out.

I strongly suspect that the female victim died in the bedroom.

The reason she didn't participate in the resistance was probably because she was pregnant and wanted to protect the child, but in the end, she couldn't save the baby.

Therefore, I believe the entire murder process should be as follows: the murderer peacefully entered the victim's home, first killing the male victim, and then killing the female victim.

Furthermore, no obvious signs of resistance were found on the female victim, which strongly suggests that the perpetrator and the female victim were quite familiar with each other, and that the female victim may have even given up resisting, or even exhibited signs of guilt and a desire to die.