Chapter 3
The investigation lasted until 6:30 p.m.
In the Beihai City Criminal Police Team meeting room, all the police officers gathered together, seemingly discussing something.
"Dead No. 1, Chu Mo, female, Beihai, 25 years old, a clerk in a gold shop. At 7:30 pm on January 23, she was found dead at home by Zhang who came to visit his daughter."
"When the body was found, there were severe bruises on the neck, but there were no signs of a fight. The time of death was around 5 a.m. on January 23."
"The second victim, Wang Lin, was a 23-year-old female from Dongming and a student at Beihai University. She was found dead in the woods near the school at noon on March 9. The cause of death was asphyxiation due to hanging. It rained the night before her death, but there were no footprints on her body except for the victim."
"The third victim, Tang Shuang, was a 26-year-old female from Beihai who worked as a receptionist at a business hall. She was found dead at home by a neighbor at around 9 a.m. on May 23. Like Chu Mo, her neck was severely bruised. There were no signs of a fight around her. Her time of death was basically the same as Chu Mo's."
After listening to Jiang Nan's report on the two cases, the atmosphere in the entire lecture hall became terribly depressing.
The chair at the head of the conference room suddenly turned half a circle, revealing Jiang Aichen hiding in the shadows.
His eyes were dark and deep without any ripples. He looked around and asked, "Any ideas?"
He was greeted by silence.
After a while, Jiang Nan, who had just finished reporting the case, couldn't help but say to himself: "Captain Jiang, to be honest, after investigating for a whole day, I really don't think there is any connection between these three cases. There is no condition to merge the cases at all."
Police officer Du Lan also echoed: "That's right, Captain Jiang, although they all committed suicide, this doesn't prove that they were killed by the same murderer."
Jiang Aichen knocked the tip of his pen on the table a few times, and no one knew what he was thinking.
After a while, he spoke. He did not continue to dwell on the issue of merging the cases. Instead, he asked, "What did Tang Shuang find?"
Meng Qirang, who was standing by, glanced at the paper report in front of him and answered rigorously, "After our forensic examination, we found that the deceased had an obvious dark purple groove on his neck, located between the thyroid cartilage and the hyoid bone, which sloped upward from the lowest point in the middle to the left and right sides. The groove was deepest at the lowest point and disappeared at the point of hanging, which meets the basic conditions of suicide."
"We did not find any traces of drugs in the deceased's stomach or other digestive organs, and there was no damage to the organs or skin, ruling out other possibilities of death."
"But what is strange to our forensic department is that the deceased showed no signs of resistance or struggle before his death. This is extremely inconsistent with normal suicide behavior."
Sitting next to Meng Qirang, Tang Jianyue was curious: "What should normal suicide behavior be like?"
Meng Qirang was also patient. She explained: "Normally, when a person is extremely suffocated, the body will struggle physiologically. This is the survival instinct of the organism. Even if a person has a strong will to die, when he is on the verge of pain, his body will react uncontrollably."
"For example, when a person is uncomfortable being strangled, he or she will twist the body frantically to relieve the discomfort caused by a single rope groove. At this time, the rope strangling the neck will jump up and down on the neck, causing a slight dislocation. However, this kind of struggle lasts for a very short time and the strength is not very strong, so the marks left by this kind of marks will be much shallower than those left by the rope groove."
"If the will to survive is strong, the dying person will try to use both hands to push the ropes apart to make himself more comfortable."
Tang Jianyue: "But this way, there will be traces of friction from the rope on the palms of your hands."
"Yes, this is also what we feel is strange. Whether it is the marks on the hands or the dislocation of the rope groove on the neck, Tang Shuang has none of them," Meng Qirang thought hard about the wording, and then said, "She seems to be accepting death with extreme enjoyment."
Enjoy death?
Several detectives present couldn't help but shudder.
"Is she mentally perverted?" a criminal police officer shouted from somewhere in the corner.
Meng Qirang looked at Jiang Aichen and continued, "In this case, the only explanation is that the deceased had a strong desire to commit suicide, and when her body was reacting as it should, she tried to control her body. Of course, this situation is basically impossible. In particular, judging from the traces of the deceased's life, the desire to commit suicide was not very strong, or it can be said that she had no desire to commit suicide at all."
Jiang Aichen was silent for a long time: "What if there is some kind of drug left in her body, which gives her pleasure far exceeding other pains in her body. Have you checked the residue in her stomach?"
Meng Qirang seemed to agree with Jiang Aichen's words. She said, "After checking, there was no trace of other drugs in the deceased's stomach except for a moderate amount of sleeping pills."
Tang Jianyue: "Is it possible that the deceased was fascinated by the feeling of being on the verge of death? He often experiences it, so he doesn't resist?"
Meng Qirang said: "This situation is not impossible. If you train your body for a long time and make your body accustomed to the feeling of pain, you can indeed control your body when you are on the verge of death."
Jiang Nan, who had walked to his seat at some point, said, "But during the interview, we did not hear from other people that the deceased had this special fetish."
In a word, the case has once again reached a dead end.
Jiang Aichen, who was sitting at the head of the conference room, continued to ask, "How is the investigation of the deceased's interpersonal relationships going?"
Jiang Nan: "The deceased was a kind person, but she liked to be alone. Several colleagues who got along well with her said that they had never seen anyone come to the company to look for her before she died. We just heard that she had a boyfriend who was a fitness coach. We plan to go find him tomorrow to ask about the situation."
Jiang Aichen didn't know what he was thinking about writing. He knocked on the table a few times with his hand and asked, "Li Tang, did the reporter find anything?"
Li Tang glanced at his notes and answered, "The person who reported the case said that after returning from shopping in the morning, he passed by the deceased's window and found a body hanging there. The body was pale and the tongue was hanging out, just like a hanged ghost. She said she had never seen such a scene before and was so scared that she broke her eggs. Eggs are very expensive now, one dollar each..."
Before Li Tang finished reading, there was a burst of laughter all around, and the tense atmosphere in the conference hall was instantly relieved.
Li Tang also gave up and complained, "Captain Jiang, this witness is a chatterbox. She kept talking about how old she is and how difficult it is to buy groceries, or how it was a pity that she bought so many eggs and dropped them on the ground. I talked to her for half an hour, but nothing was useful. The only useful thing was that she said the deceased only took out the garbage once a week..."
Puff——
After Li Tang finished complaining, everyone in the conference room laughed even harder.
Li Tang felt embarrassed and said, "Stop laughing. Next time, if there's a difficult reporter like this, you guys should go interview him. I won't go."
Jiang Aichen restrained his expression and ordered, "The person who reported the case said that the deceased cleaned his house around 9 o'clock the night before his death, which means that the deceased was preparing to meet someone important at home, or he was occasionally diligent. This means that at least until around 9 o'clock the night before his death, the deceased's desire to die was not strong."
"From 9pm to 5am, what on earth did the deceased go through during these eight hours that caused her to be killed or to suddenly become so depressed that she wanted to commit suicide?"
Jiang Aichen raised a question, and the entire lecture hall was silent again.
Jiang Aichen: "Tomorrow, Jiang Nan will ask the person who reported the case for the specific details at the time, and ask other neighbors if there are any suspicious people around the community in recent days."
Jiang Nan responded: "Yes."
"Tang Jianyue, you and Du Lan go investigate all the deceased's social relationships and who the deceased had conflicts with before his death, with a focus on investigating the deceased's boyfriend."
Tang Jianyue immediately agreed: "Yes."
Jiang Aichen continued to delegate tasks: "Li Tang, go to the nearby community and copy all the surveillance footage in the surrounding area. Meng Qirang, go to the police stations in each jurisdiction and bring back the autopsy reports of the other two deceased and the photos taken at the scene. Re-analyze the similarities between the three and see if there is anything that can be combined into one case."
Meng Qirang: “Yes.”
As if he suddenly thought of something, Jiang Aichen continued, "Jiang Nan, after the meeting, notify the technical department immediately and ask them to crack the password of the deceased's phone as soon as possible and confirm whether there are any clues in it."
"Others should conduct a blanket check of all the residents in the surrounding area and not let go of any suspicious person."
"Yes." The people around responded in unison.
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