Chapter 235 Two DNAs
"What?" Zhou Yi was stunned, trying hard to recall what he had said that made Wu Yongcheng say that.
"Do you remember? After we recovered Zhang Hui's body parts from the septic tank in Donghai Community, you were the one who suggested we go to the provincial capital to inquire about the latest DNA technology for identification. Do you remember?"
Zhou Yi nodded: "Of course I remember."
I proposed this to Wu Yongcheng because I remembered that the provincial capital seemed to have started planning to build a special DNA identification laboratory in 1997.
However, he did not know what happened afterwards. He only knew that Wu Yongcheng asked Director Xie to inquire about it, and later the forensic department seemed to have prepared test samples and sent them to the provincial government.
However, Xu Jiaguang confessed everything later, so there was no need for the DNA test results.
He didn't pay any more attention to the matter.
Wu Yongcheng asked: "Do you remember what you said at that time?"
"Captain Wu, I don't remember anything about that. I said so much."
"You said, 'What if these body parts aren't from the same person?' I even called you a bad-mouthed jinx."
"It seems... there is such a sentence." Zhou Yi was suddenly startled, his expression instantly becoming serious. He asked, "Wu... Captain Wu, it can't be what I think?"
Wu Yongcheng said in a deep voice, "Your bad mouth really hit the mark."
Oh shit!
Zhou Yi swore that he had just said it casually at the time and had not thought about it in that direction at all.
"Captain Wu, what's going on?" Zhou Yi asked hurriedly.
The last time he handled the Zhang Hui case, Wu Yongcheng asked Xie Guoqiang to come forward and ask whether the provincial department had support for DNA technology identification.
His original intention was that if the province didn't have it, then he would ask the province for help and ask a few municipalities. After all, their economies were more developed and they had more talent pools.
Unexpectedly, Director Xie revealed that the province was indeed planning to build a specialized DNA testing laboratory, with funding already approved. The dean of Hanzhong University's Medical School would lead the province's most advanced talent in pioneering the technology. He had previously reviewed a report on the related work during an internal meeting at the provincial department, but he wasn't sure how far along the project was or when it would be officially operational for criminal investigations.
So Xie Guoqiang took the initiative to ask. The laboratory had not yet been officially established, but the talents and technical equipment were almost in place, it was just in the debugging stage.
After hearing Xie Guoqiang's story about this extremely vicious dismemberment case, the head of the laboratory, Dean Zeng of the Handan University Medical School, said that it was worth a try. It would also be a good opportunity for them to train their troops. After all, the condition of the body parts was so bad that it was impossible for them to happen in normal experiments, and the data had a high reference value.
Therefore, Wu Yongcheng arranged for Song Yiming and Xu Nian to send the slices of the body tissue to the provincial capital. In order to make the test data more technically valuable, the laboratory required as many slices as possible from different parts of human tissue and with different degrees of decay and contamination.
After the case was solved, Xie Guoqiang did not withdraw the DNA test. After all, it was not fair to ask for help when there was a need and then withdraw it when there was no need.
Because there are too many slices, the DNA testing speed is actually very slow. It may take one or two months to get the complete results.
But Wu Yongcheng happened to stay in the provincial capital these two days because of Long Zhiqiang's case, and met Dean Zeng at a meeting.
After the meeting, Dean Zeng pulled him aside and asked him a question: "Is the deceased pregnant?"
Wu Yongcheng felt very strange. Not to mention that there was no information about Zhang Hui being pregnant during the investigation, the fact that Zhang Hui's uterus had been surgically removed made it impossible for her to be pregnant.
Wu Yongcheng answered truthfully. Dean Zeng's expression did not change much, but Wu Yongcheng's heart was beating fast.
Dean Zeng said that they have conducted DNA tests on eleven of the fifty-four biopsy samples sent, and found that ten of the samples came from the same person. They compared them with the blood sample of Xu Xinxin sent as a reference, and found that the similarity was as high as 99.9%, which basically confirmed that the body parts belonged to Lai Zhanghui.
However, the test results of one of the samples found that the DNA sequence was different from the other ten samples and also different from the reference sample.
So it is very likely that these body parts did not come from the same person.
Director Zeng said that they will continue to test the 54 samples submitted, but it will take a lot of time and it is currently impossible to confirm how much of the DNA in them belongs to another unknown deceased person.
Dean Zeng also said that even if Zhang Hui was pregnant and had a fetus in her belly, theoretically the fetus would be the same as Xu Xinxin, and the DNA sequence comparison with Zhang Hui would be infinitely close to 100%.
However, since they lacked skills and experience, to be on the safe side, they first asked him whether the deceased was pregnant.
Dean Zeng suggested that Wu Yongcheng seek assistance directly from the provincial department's forensic medicine department to conduct a comprehensive re-autopsy on all body parts found in the Zhang Hui case.
Wu Yongcheng was so shocked by the news that he stood there in a daze for a long time before he realized what was going on and went to find Xie Guoqiang.
Xie Guoqiang was also shocked and immediately reported the situation to Director Xu.
Just before Wu Yongcheng called Zhou Yi, he had just finished calling Song Yiming and told him that the forensic experts from the provincial department would arrive early Monday morning and asked them to fully cooperate in redoing the autopsy.
Then Wu Yongcheng thought of the joke Zhou Yi had made at that time.
As he pressed the phone, he muttered to himself, "Hey, this Zhou Yi, it's impossible not to let him go out for a stroll. Even a word he says can cause a tantrum."
Zhou Yi was also dumbfounded after hearing Wu Yongcheng's explanation on the phone.
"Captain Wu...Captain Wu, this is really not my fault."
"Nonsense, of course I don't know that." Wu Yongcheng leaned against the window, smoking a cigarette and said, "Now, the situation is like this. The forensic doctor from the provincial department will be coming over. This time, he's the best and most powerful forensic doctor in the province."
Zhou Yi immediately knew who he was talking about, Qin Beihai, the true leader and pioneer in the province's forensic field, and everyone respectfully called him Old Qin.
Calculating his age, Mr. Qin should be over 60 this year. In fact, he has reached retirement age a long time ago. However, it is said that due to the shortage of forensic talents, Mr. Qin worked until he was 76 years old before he actually retired.
In his previous life, when Zhou Yi was transferred to the provincial capital, Old Qin had already retired.
But Zhou Yi was fortunate enough to witness the charisma of Mr. Qin, an octogenarian nearing eighty, his hair whitening but still in good spirits. In less than half an hour, he uncovered a subtle flaw in the autopsy that became a key clue, ultimately allowing them to solve the case.
Wu Yongcheng continued, "However, the workload of restarting the autopsy is enormous, and it will definitely take time to produce results."
"I know. We'll start the criminal investigation here, and do the autopsy simultaneously."
This kid is smart.
"Zhou Yi, you and Xiao Qiao will be in charge of this matter. I've already asked Biaozi and Chen Yan to escort Meng Dahai and the other two to the provincial capital. If you're short of manpower, please contact Shi Tao."
After hanging up the phone, Zhou Yi felt a chill.
Is this Donghai residential complex some kind of ominous place? Two dismembered bodies were found in a septic tank—crazy! Will anyone still dare to live in this complex?
But a problem also arises. In the missing persons records, apart from Zhang Hui, there are no other missing persons related to Donghai Community.
Previously, because of the Zhang Hui case, the city launched the Searchlight Project, which specifically conducts review and investigation into missing persons and clears up backlog cases.
The Searchlight Project synchronizes data every week. At least Zhou Yi has no impression of any missing persons in the Donghai Community.
It seems that for now we can only start from the missing persons records, and then conduct a door-to-door investigation in the Donghai community.
After all, we didn’t find any clues when we handled the Zhang Hui case last time, which means that the things behind this are even deeper than the Zhang Hui case, so we can only use the most time-consuming and labor-intensive method.
Thinking of this, Zhou Yi called Shi Tao and explained the situation.
When Shi Tao heard that a second person's DNA was found in the body parts sent to the provincial government for examination, he was so shocked that he used seven "whats" to express his feelings.
Shi Tao said that they should work overtime tomorrow to give the brothers a break. They were almost killed by the waves because one wave after another was coming.
Zhou Yi naturally agreed. It would take him at least a day or two to investigate the matter, and he also wanted to relax for a while. His body was fine, after all, a 23-year-old's young body could withstand all the hardship, but he did need a break in his mentality and spirit.
After hanging up the phone, Shi Tao suddenly came to his senses, "Hey, how come my Second Brigade has become the vanguard of his Third Brigade?"
"Brother Zhou, don't you want to play with us?" Lu Xiaoshuang was having a lot of fun playing with the children and ran over happily.
Zhou Yi looked at the beads of sweat on her forehead, smiled and said, "I'll just watch. You're too old to jump."
Lu Xiaoshuang thought he was joking and asked with a smile: "Old man, do you want me to help you cross the road next time?"
Before Zhou Yi could say anything, a little boy behind her shouted, "Sister, come and play Eagle Catches Chicken."
"Okay, little potato, wait for sister."
Zhou Yi looked at Lu Xiaoshuang's back as she ran over happily and couldn't help but laugh.
She probably hasn't been this happy for a long time, right?
At noon, Zhou Yi and Lu Xiaoshuang had a meal with the children under the arrangement of several teachers from the welfare home.
Zhou Yi found that these children were all very sensible and would say thank you to the teachers and volunteers who served the food. No one wasted food and everyone ate up all the food on their plates quietly.
At this age, most children are acting like spoiled brats under the protection of their parents, but they have to face their fate.
After dinner, Lu Xiaoshuang took a fairy tale book and went to tell stories to the children.
Zhou Yi helped several volunteers wash the plates and dishes.
"Are you Police Officer Zhou Yizhou?" a young volunteer next to him suddenly asked excitedly.
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