Chapter 8: A Couple’s Quarrel and Murder Case (8) Another Suspect…
Hearing the news, Xie Ling'er looked serious, but Yuan Xiaohu was a little confused. He thought that the truth of the case was right there, and Sang Luo was making a fuss. However, he did not say it out loud, but just complained silently in his heart.
Ma Shi Tu gathered everyone to sit down at the desk, piled the documents related to the case on the table, and made himself a cup of tea: "Let's rethink our thoughts, Sang Luo, tell me what you think."
Sang Luo said fluently: "The nails of the woman who had an argument with Du Lingfeng were very long, but the nails of the hanged woman were very short. I have reason to suspect that they are not the same person."
Yuan Xiaohu questioned: "Can't long nails be cut short? What if Shen Xueyao cut her nails herself after returning home? This alone doesn't prove anything!"
Sang Luo asked back: "Why does she cut her nails short?"
Yuan Xiaohu said without thinking: "Of course it was to evade the police. There was blood and flesh left in her nails, which could be used to test for DNA. She didn't want to be found out by the police, so she cut her nails on purpose."
Sang Luo asked again: "Our previous conclusion was that Shen Xueyao committed suicide out of fear of punishment. If this conclusion is true, Shen Xueyao was about to hang herself in a few minutes. Why would she deliberately cut her nails short? If she wanted to cover up her crime, it would be even more unreasonable. Her clothes were stained with blood, and it would be useless to just clean her nails."
Yuan Xiaohu spread his hands: "How do I know what she was thinking? Only she herself knows her logic. Anyway, she just had a sudden impulse and cut her nails off. Is that okay?"
"If it's the case you described, we should be able to find clipped nails in that house," Sang Luo picked up a document on the table. "This is the physical evidence report issued by the Technical Department, which records all the physical evidence at the scene. There is a trash can near the female corpse, which contains socks, vegetable leaves, egg shells, needles, and biscuit packaging bags, but no clipped nails. Apart from the trash can, no nails were found anywhere else in the house. There is not even a nail clipper in the house!"
Yuan Xiaohu stopped talking. Xie Ling'er followed Sang Luo's thoughts and thought: "Sang Luo, are you saying that the one who quarreled and fought with Du Lingfeng and accidentally killed her was a woman, and the one who hanged herself in the room was another woman?"
Sang Luo nodded: "Shen Xueyao is most likely not the real murderer. After killing someone, the murderer entered the grain and oil family building, changed his clothes on Shen Xueyao, and somehow faked that she had hanged herself, then left the family building and escaped successfully."
"But there was an old man watching downstairs at the time," Xie Ling'er reminded, "Didn't the old man notice the murderer walking out of the building?"
Sang Luo emphasized: "Uncle Huang's original words were that he made sure the murderer did not come out of the building during this period of time, but other people had entered and exited. If the real murderer changed his clothes, changed his hairstyle, put on a mask, and disguised himself, it is possible that he could have escaped Uncle Huang's eyes."
Yuan Xiaohu flipped through the eyewitness transcripts again and placed them in front of Sang Luo: "Several witnesses at the time said that the murderer looked like the hanged woman. How do you explain this? You're not going to say it was a disguise, are you?"
Sang Luo had to admit: "I can't give an explanation for this at the moment."
Yuan Xiaohu looked at Ma Shi Tu: "Master, do you agree with her?"
Ma Shi Tu shook his head: "If this is true, there are too many things that don't make sense, but we must continue to investigate this case. The problem with the nails cannot be explained clearly, there must be something strange."
Yuan Xiaohu sighed: "What else can we do? We have searched all the places that should be searched and questioned all the witnesses that should be questioned. What else is there to investigate?"
Ma Shi Tu was thinking, and Sang Luo asked the question that he had always wanted to ask: "Have you ever tested the DNA in the female corpse's fingernails? The murderer pinched Du Lingfeng's face so deeply. If the murderer was really the hanged female corpse, then there must be Du Lingfeng's DNA in her fingernails."
From the time the case occurred to now, the technical department has not sent any DNA report. If it can be tested that there is no Du Lingfeng's DNA in the nails of the female corpse, then Sang Luo's guess can be confirmed - the murderer and the hanged female corpse are not the same person!
Hearing Sang Luo say this, everyone was a little surprised, and Yuan Xiaohu looked embarrassed:
"You're new here and don't know the situation here. Where can we get a DNA tester in this small place? If you want to do a DNA test, you can only go to the Municipal Bureau, and you have to file reports at every level, which is very troublesome. If it is really an unsolved case, it must be worth doing, but this case has obviously been solved, is there any need to do it..."
Sang Luo then realized that he was living in the 1990s, when DNA technology had just entered the country. Only a few units had testing equipment, and many people had never even heard of the term. If they wanted to do a DNA test, they had to go through layers of reporting. The technology that was commonplace before was now considered a luxury here.
Sang Luo couldn't help but click her tongue. It was so inconvenient to do DNA testing. One could imagine how difficult it was for criminal police to solve cases in this era. She once again felt deep admiration for this profession.
Ma Shi Tu thought about it and made up his mind: "Go to the Municipal Bureau, Ling'er, you write the application."
Xie Ling'er also looked a little troubled: "But Captain Liao..."
"I'll go talk to him."
After saying that, Ma Shi Tu pushed the chair away, stood up, turned around and entered Liao Guantian’s office next door.
"Oh, that's terrible." Yuan Xiaohu showed a sympathetic expression. Sure enough, after a while, a loud roar came from next door.
"For a case like this that has already been successfully resolved, why bother going to the city?"
"You spend three days and three nights studying a case that others can finish in half a day. Don't think I don't know what you want to do. You just want to fish in troubled waters and drink tea in the office!"
"Is this how you set an example for the new recruits? Leaving the new recruits to you is the worst decision the bureau has made. What can they learn from you? They can only learn to be sneaky and cunning!"
Sang Luo's ears were numb from the shock. She rubbed her ears and asked Xie Ling'er in confusion: "Is Captain Liao sick? It's just such a small matter, is it necessary to scold him so harshly?"
Xie Ling'er shook her head: "He was not targeting this matter, but Master. They had a feud many years ago. He would criticize any suggestion made by Master."
"What festival?" Sang Luo asked in a low voice.
Xie Ling'er also whispered: "I don't know. Anyway, the older generation in the unit are very secretive about it, so don't ask."
Sang Luo nodded, still a little puzzled. Since the company knew that the two of them didn't get along, why did they still put them in the same team?
After a while, Ma Shi Tu returned to the office and nodded to everyone: "He agreed. Ling'er, you write an application now, I will ask the leaders to sign it immediately, and then you take the physical evidence and Xiao Hu to the Municipal Bureau for testing. You must hurry up."
It seems that after a dispute, the master finally got the upper hand.
After getting Captain Liao's approval, Xie Ling'er breathed a sigh of relief and returned to her desk to start writing the application. Sang Luo suddenly had an idea and said to Ma Shi Tu:
"And fingerprints, Master, take the knife with you and have it checked for fingerprints!"
Since DNA testing is so difficult, fingerprint identification is probably the same. While they are at the Municipal Bureau, they can also do a fingerprint identification. The knife is the murder weapon, and there must be the murderer's fingerprints on it. If the fingerprints on the knife do not match the fingerprints on the female corpse, then it will further verify Sang Luo's guess.
Ma Shi Tu nodded and asked Xie Ling'er to add this content. Xie Ling'er quickly finished writing the application. Ma Shi Tu took the application and went out. After some negotiations, he returned to the office again. The paper already had the signatures and seals of Captain Liao and the director.
Xie Ling'er and Yuan Xiaohu did not dare to delay and they immediately set off for the city. In order to protect the physical evidence, they had to go together for this identification. Sang Luo stayed behind to wait for news.
Seeing Sang Luo's expectant look, Ma Shi Tu said, "Don't be too anxious. The results won't come out right away. The journey they have to take to get to the city and back, plus the waiting time, they'll be lucky to be back before get off work ends this afternoon."
Since she had to wait for a day, Sang Luo was unwilling to waste the day. While she was alone with her master, she boldly expressed her thoughts:
"Master, I think there is a suspect right before our eyes."
"Oh?" Ma Shi Tu was surprised. "Tell me about it."
Sang Luo analyzed: "If my hypothesis is correct, the murderer is another woman. After killing someone, this woman entered the grain and oil family building, found an excuse to knock on Shen Xueyao's door, killed Shen Xueyao, disguised it as suicide out of fear of crime, and then disguised herself and left the grain and oil family building. Then there is one very important point - this person must be an acquaintance of Shen Xueyao."
"The three of us went to the scene together, and we all saw that the door was very solid, and there was no sign of damage to the door lock, which means Shen Xueyao opened the door voluntarily. Ling'er also asked Shen Xueyao's college classmates before, and they all said that she was withdrawn, had no friends, and was indifferent to others. Such a person would not easily open the door to a stranger in the middle of the night. The fact that she opened the door means that the person who came was most likely her acquaintance."
"Shen Xueyao's family is from the countryside. She lives in Baiyun County just to get engaged. It can be said that the only people she knows in Baiyun County are Du Lingfeng's family. The person who knocked on the door that night might be someone from the Du family—"
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