Chapter 639: Chapter 639: Information from the Analysis Meeting
Early the next morning.
The first case analysis meeting was held in the Criminal Investigation Team’s meeting room.
Compared to previous murder cases, the clues in this dismemberment case are very few.
However, having few clues does not mean that solving the case is more difficult.
Some cases may seem to have many clues, even pointing directly to a suspect, but solving them is not necessarily easy.
For the police, identifying and confirming the suspect’s identity is one aspect of solving a case.
Ensuring the completeness of the evidence chain is another aspect.
This completeness of the evidence chain includes the motive for murder, the process of the crime, the whereabouts of the murder weapon, etc.
Among these, the whereabouts of the murder weapon are especially important.
In many murder cases, because the murder weapon is uncertain and the whereabouts are unknown, even if the suspect is captured and confesses to the murder.
From the perspective of solving the case, the evidence chain is still incomplete.
In the trial process, this can leave hidden dangers in such cases.
In this case, the crime scene is obviously not the initial crime scene.
"From the current situation, the killer used a three-wheeled vehicle to transport the corpse and then incinerated it."
"The purpose is simple, to destroy the corpse and thereby hide the process of the murder."
Zhang Hui first offered his suggestion.
In this respect, everyone was in general agreement.
The crime scene was in an open area of a valley, and because of the overgrown weeds, the killer’s footprints were indistinguishable.
However, the traces left by the three-wheeled vehicle were relatively clear on some exposed soil.
The killer transported the body into the mountains for incineration after the murder, and this process seemed to have no major issues.
"I also suspect that the body was transported quite a distance, and not by someone living around North Mountain."
"The action group hasn’t found anything in their investigations around the area. There’s no one around the spot where the ashes of the body were found, only the forest rangers who reported it."
Sun Jun has already deployed personnel to start investigating the area.
In the remote mountainous forests, unless there are widespread fires, it’s indeed challenging to discover anything being burned.
"The ranger who reported it happened to pass by this time."
"Otherwise, if this winter passed and grass grew next year, no one would find anything."
The ranger’s report was quite a coincidence.
The place where the killer incinerated the body was on the forest path that the ranger traverses every year.
If the killer had incinerated the body just thirty to fifty meters away...
The ranger might not have discovered it.
Overall, the action group’s clues are extremely limited, and Qin Yong turned his attention to Lu Chuan.
Even though the ash residue at the incineration site was very sparse, fortunately, Lu Chuan still discovered some clues.
Qin Yong’s greatest hope was that Lu Chuan could determine the victim’s identity through the analysis and identification of the skeletal remains.
Only after identifying the victim can they further delineate the victim’s social network to sort out the case details.
Lu Chuan turned on the projector and began to introduce the Crime Scene Investigation findings.
"Although the ash from the skeletal remains at the scene is sparse, some details can still provide us with clues to solve the case."
Lu Chuan switched the projection to an overhead image of the entire incineration site.
Over the past six months, the Crime Scene Investigation office had acquired new equipment, a drone.
When taking photos for Crime Scene Investigation, there’s often a need for overhead shots.
Previously, this could only be assisted by other methods.
For smaller scenes, Crime Scene Investigation personnel could directly take photos from above, but larger scenes were difficult.
With the drone, overhead shots become much more convenient.
"The burning traces form an irregular circle, with an average diameter of 0.85 meters."
"As Zhang Hui mentioned earlier, there’s evidence from a Crime Scene Investigation perspective to support that this is not the initial crime scene."
"Before transporting the body, the killer likely dismembered it, then arranged the parts in a heap at the burning site, adding fuel to incinerate it."
"Through soil analysis at the burning site, it’s confirmed that the fuel used by the killer was diesel."
"Additionally, we discovered tire tracks from a three-wheeled vehicle around the crime scene."
"Yesterday afternoon, Old Bai and the second action group compared the tire tracks."
Zhang Hui nodded: "We checked several large three-wheeled vehicle dealerships in Haizhou City."
"We found three types of three-wheeled vehicles that match the tire tracks found at the scene."
"But the sales volume of three-wheeled vehicles is enormous."
"And given the wide time span, trying to track down the killer through the three-wheeled vehicle... is very challenging."
In fact, Zhang Hui was a bit conservative in his statement; it’s not just a matter of difficulty but practically impossible.
The wear on the tire tracks found at the scene suggests they were used for about one to two years.
However, tire wear doesn’t only relate to usage time; weathering and the weight of carried goods also play roles.
Thus, a three-wheeled vehicle purchased one year ago may not necessarily have less tire wear than one bought three years ago.
Generally speaking, in similar outdoor environments, weathering has a negligible impact on tire wear, so it’s mainly judged by the mileage.
Lu Chuan picked up after Zhang Hui: "Currently, we should be able to identify the brands of the three types of three-wheeled vehicles."
"However, there’s likely a considerable margin of error regarding the purchase time, so I don’t recommend pursuing this lead further."
"Compared to analyzing the tire tracks, there are two aspects of clues from the skeletal remains analysis."
"Firstly, we found two residual bones in the skeletal ash, one 1.5 centimeters long, part of a foot bone, and another is a phalange, likely a middle finger, but whether it’s from the left or right foot, or left or right hand, can’t be determined now."
The residual bones indicate a fracture in the limbs, which is a very beneficial piece of information for solving the case.
Any bone in the limbs can be used to calculate the height of its owner.
However, this time, Lu Chuan couldn’t provide a particularly precise range for the victim’s height.
"Most people have different-sized left and right hands, and left and right feet also vary in size."
The same height with different hand and foot sizes means that the formula used to estimate height from these sizes differs.
Since we can’t determine the left or right orientation of the finger and foot bones found in the ashen remains, only a vague estimation can be made.
Of course, not everyone has a right hand larger than the left, or a right foot larger than the left.
Generally, right-handed individuals have larger right hands and feet, while left-handed individuals have the opposite.
