Chapter 42 Rope Murder Case (4) Could it be a gangster?
"The rope is here, take a look first." Ma Shi Tu did not answer the question, but took out a large evidence bag containing a hemp rope.
Sang Luo took it, held it in his hand and examined it carefully, and found that it was completely different from the previous one.
Sang Luo had also seen the rope in the first case with his own eyes. It was a thin hemp rope, very old in color, and had been used for a long time. The rope was greasy, with several black stains on it, and it smelled bad.
But now this hemp rope is a completely new rope, without any stains or signs of use, and it even has a smell as if it had just been taken out of the warehouse.
Most importantly, this rope is much thicker than the first one. It may cause harm to people if they hit it, but it will never cut their necks.
"Something's wrong," Sang Luo said to Ma Shi Tu, "It's not the same rope. If it was really the murderer of the first case, why did he suddenly change to such a thick rope? As a murderer, he should know that such a thick rope can't kill people."
Ma Shi Tu nodded: "I think so too. And there is another point. This thick rope did not cause any casualties. It is probably because it was already daybreak and passers-by could see this rope. This means that this rope was hung for a different time than the first rope."
Sang Luo thought thoughtfully: "The first rope should have been hung up in the middle of the night, in order to use the darkness to hide the rope and let passers-by bump into it, thus killing people. The second rope is exactly the opposite. The perpetrator deliberately hung the rope at dawn, as if he wanted passers-by to avoid it."
"I believe that these two cases were not committed by the same person. This is not a serial murder case."
"Could it be a copycat crime?" Xie Ling'er put forward her own idea. "When I was looking through old case files before, I saw someone copycat crime. After the murderer succeeded in committing a crime, there might be others who imitated his method. But the copycat is not the murderer himself after all, and he does not have a good grasp of the details of the crime, so he cannot completely restore the first case, and there are mistakes in the murder weapon, time, etc."
"Take the rope murder case for example. A dog walker first discovered the body. Although our police have tried to keep it secret, the person who discovered the case will inevitably publicize it when he returns. The matter may have spread in the county. Someone knew that hanging a rope in the middle of the road could kill people, so they did this poor imitation.
After listening to Xie Ling'er's analysis, Sang Luo thought for a moment and said, "This analysis makes sense, but if it is true, then the imitator's technique is too clumsy. Even if he has never committed a crime, he should know that thin and long objects are more likely to cut the neck. The imitator chose such a thick rope to put it on, which is simply a lack of basic common sense."
Ma Shi Tu touched his chin and shook his head slowly: "No, it doesn't look like a copycat crime. All signs indicate that the perpetrator of this second case wanted to avoid hurting passers-by as much as possible. He didn't want anyone to die, but he still wanted to place this rope. So there is only one possibility-"
"He put this rope there specifically for the police to see."
"He wants to mislead the direction of the police investigation!" Sang Luo and Ma Shi Tu said this at the same time.
"Whoever put the rope there wanted to mislead the police," Sang Luo analyzed. "Imagine if the police really combined the two cases and treated it as a serial murder case, what would be the main direction of our investigation?"
"The first rope was hung in Suzhai Lane, killing Lan Jianguo. The second rope was hung in Fu'an Lane, harming no one. The two places are far apart, both are remote alleys with few people. Both used ropes to kill passers-by, without targeting. We would think this was a random murder case. The murderer might have committed these two crimes to take revenge on society or out of mischief."
"In this way, when we investigate, we will focus on the homeless, antisocial people and people with criminal records in society, and ignore the investigation of the deceased's interpersonal relationships."
"Yes, that's what the murderer wants," Ma Shi Tu took over. "The murderer wants us to relax our investigation into the victim's interpersonal relationships, but we won't do that."
Sang Luo and Ma Shi Tu looked at each other and reached a tacit consensus that the appearance of the second rope meant that the real murderer was most likely hiding in Lan Jianguo's network of relationships, someone he knew.
Xie Ling'er curled her lips, as if she had different thoughts, but she didn't say it at this time.
With a direction for the investigation in mind, the three decided to return to the crime scene and walk the same path the victim had taken.
At nine o'clock in the morning, the three of them came to the waste recycling station. This time they just stood at the door and did not go in. Ma Shi Tu led everyone to start the simulation:
"The victim, Lan Jianguo, came here every day, including on the day of the crime. After 11pm on the 7th, Lan Jianguo rode his tricycle to the door and found that the recycling station was closed, so he had to go home and come back to sell the waste the next day."
The three of them walked out of the street where the recycling station was located. At this time, there was a fork in the road ahead. One way was to go straight, and the other was to turn left. Ma Shi Tu pointed forward:
"He has two roads to go home. One is the one on the left, which leads to the main road. The road is wide and has street lights on the side of the road, which is safer. However, he needs to go around a big circle to get home, and the journey takes about 20 minutes."
"The other one is the path that goes straight ahead in front of us. A little further ahead is Suzhai Lane, where Lan Jianguo was murdered. This road has no street lights and no residents nearby. It is completely dark at night and has poor safety. Few people walk on it, but it is close to Lan Jianguo's home and it only takes a few minutes to get home."
"That night, Lan Jianguo took this small road in order to go faster--" Ma Shi Tu said, starting the car and driving straight forward. In order to reproduce the situation that night as much as possible, he kept the speed at 20 kilometers per hour, which was the maximum speed of Lan Jianguo's electric three-wheeler.
Lan Jianguo was in a hurry to go home that night and there was no one else on the road, so he must have increased his speed to the highest level, which led to the rope directly hitting him to death.
Four minutes later, the car officially drove into Suzhai Lane. One minute later, the car arrived at the electric pole where the rope was hung. Ma Shi Tu stopped the car and motioned for both of them to get off.
The technical department has collected all the evidence at the scene. The scene has been cleaned up and restored to its original state. Ma Shi Tu pointed to the electric pole on the side of the road:
"It was this pair of electric poles where Lan Jianguo was cut by the rope and then flew forward."
After simulating the entire murder process, the three began to discuss on the side of the road. There was no one else in this alley, so there was no need to worry about leaks. Ma Shi Tu spoke first:
"There are two possibilities in the Lan Jianguo case: one is random killing, and the other is premeditated murder. Combined with our previous discussion, the possibility of random killing is small, and this case is more likely to be premeditated murder."
Xie Linger raised her head and finally said what she had been thinking: "Master, I don't think so. The murderer is likely to kill randomly. You see--"
As she spoke, she took out the photos taken by the technical department at the crime scene. The technical department took photos of the knots tied to the electric pole. The knots were tied in a very messy way, with one knot followed by another, and there were several knots tied closely together.
"The murderer could have just tied one knot, why so many?" Xie Ling'er raised this question.
Ma Shi Tu said: "It shows that the murderer took this murder very seriously. He was afraid that the rope would loosen, so he tied so many knots to ensure that his murder would succeed."
"Or maybe the murderer had a lot of hatred in his heart," Sang Luo also said, "He was very angry, and the hatred and anger affected the movements of his hands, causing him to tie so many knots unknowingly."
Xie Ling'er shook her head: "I don't think so. Master, Sang Luo, please step back and take a look. Do these knots look like the double images that a drunk person sees?"
Sang Luo took a few steps back and looked again, and found that it really looked a bit like it: "What do you mean?"
"The murderer hung the rope after getting drunk," Xie Ling'er analyzed. "He was drunk at the time and his vision was blurry. He was not sure whether he had tied the rope properly, so he tied so many knots."
Hiss——this analysis seems to make sense.
Sang Luo then asked: "Who do you think the murderer is?"
Xie Ling'er: "A person who has nothing to do with Lan Jianguo. I tend to think that this is a random murder. The murderer may be an idle street urchin, or a young man who is involved in society, or an irritable middle-aged man. In short, he drank too much that night and was very depressed. He wanted to find a place to vent his unhappiness. Under the indulgence of alcohol, he chose to vent by killing people."
"The murderer found a rope from somewhere, hung it in the alley, and then left. He ended up killing Lan Jianguo by accident."
"Oh, by the way," Xie Ling'er added, "This alley is dark and sparsely populated, just the right place for those gangsters to hang out."
"Hooligan?" When Sang Luo heard Xie Ling'er say this word, he suddenly shuddered and remembered the hint given by the dictionary last night.
Gangster... Does the dictionary mean that the murderer in this case is a gangster?
If this is true, then it matches Xie Ling'er's analysis, a gangster randomly killing people after getting drunk.
But if this is the case, the difficulty of the investigation will be greatly increased. With so few clues at hand, finding a gangster in the county town is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Besides, if that's the case, then what about the second rope?
Sang Luo's mind was in a mess. Before she could speak, Ma Shi Tu said, "This doesn't make sense. There are too few people passing by this alley. If the murderer wanted to kill people randomly, he couldn't guarantee that he could kill successfully by hanging the rope here. What if no one passed by all night? Wouldn't he have worked in vain?"
Sang Luo also said: "Yes, and can a drunk person really come up with such a method of killing? If he is a gangster and wants to kill someone after drinking too much, it would be much more reasonable to use violence directly, such as taking a knife to stab someone on the side of the road. Using a rope is more like a carefully planned method in advance."
Faced with the two people's questions, Xie Ling'er was a little confused for a moment, but she also questioned them:
"Your explanation is also untenable. If the murderer intended to murder Lan Jianguo, why did he choose to hang him with a rope? Lan Jianguo was not the only one walking in this alley. What if he killed someone else by mistake?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
