At 10:30 p.m., Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou arrived at the crime scene together.
Local police had cordoned off the area with police tape. Yu Hanjiang was only allowed entry after showing his police ID. The town is a subordinate unit of Binzhou City. The Criminal Police Officers present at the scene had heard that Binzhou City... Everyone was shocked to learn that Captain Yu Hanjiang of the Criminal Police Department had come in person. No one expected that a murder case in a small town would alarm their top superiors.
The young Criminal Police Officer in charge of the investigation Li Xinyang immediately stepped forward and respectfully said, " Captain Yu, what brings you here in person?" He glanced at Xiao Lou, who smiled and extended his hand: "Hello, Captain Li, I'm from Binzhou City." Xiao Lou from Forensic Identification Center. "
The other person politely said, "So it's Professor Xiao. You came with Captain Yu too?"
Yu Hanjiang explained simply, "We happen to be here today investigating a case. The deceased, Xu Kai, is connected to a murder case that our city's Criminal Police Department is currently investigating. Xiao Li, please compile the deceased's detailed information and transfer the case to me."
Li Xinyang nodded: "Okay, Captain Yu, please go and take a look at the scene first... This scene is a bit strange."
Yu Hanjiang put on his gloves and readily followed Li Xinyang upstairs.
Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou followed Captain Li into the crime scene, where they were surprised to find that Xu Kai's death scene was very similar to Lin Yiyan's death scene.
However, Xu Kai was probably murdered while taking a shower, and he was naked.
He lay in the bathtub, his eyes wide with horror. His entire body was covered in cuts, and he was surrounded by ice blocks. However, since the heating was on in Xu Kai's room, some of the ice had already melted.
The water from the melting ice mixed with the blood on the deceased, turning the entire bathtub blood red. Xu Kai lay in this pool of blood, his eyes wide open in death. The scene was truly horrifying.
Li Xinyang said, "We just arrived at the scene. It was Xu Kai's cousin, Zhang Xiaoyu, who reported the case."
He shifted his gaze to the side and pointed out Zhang Xiaoyu's position to Yu Hanjiang.
Zhang Xiaoyu, the manager of "Whale Internet Cafe," was someone Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou had met earlier that day. At that moment, he was sitting on the bed next to them, trembling and holding his head. Upon seeing him, Yu Hanjiang winked at Xiao Lou and whispered in his ear, "You perform the autopsy first. I'll go find the person who reported the incident and ask them about the situation."
Xiao Lou nodded, put on gloves, and bent down to examine the body.
In the blood-soaked bathtub, the body was already somewhat swollen from soaking. This time, the murderer was still very meticulous after committing the crime; the blood on the surrounding walls had been wiped clean, leaving not a trace of blood splatter. All the blood had flowed into the bathtub.
Xiao Lou turned on the water valve under the bathtub, draining most of the bloody water and exposing the body completely before carefully beginning his examination. Beside him, the town's forensic doctor readily handed him his toolbox. Some of the younger, intern criminal police officers, probably never having seen such a gruesome scene, ran downstairs to vomit, earning a fierce glare from Li Xinyang.
Xiao Lou suddenly said, "Give me a pair of tweezers."
The forensic doctor next to him assisted him and immediately handed him clean tweezers.
Xiao Lou pulled a long hair from the bathtub and placed it in a sterile, sealed bag for safekeeping. He couldn't yet determine if the hair belonged to the murderer, but he knew he had to take the evidence found at the scene back for careful testing.
There weren't many clues on the deceased's body. The method of murder was similar to the Lin Yiyan case, with the fatal wounds all located in the heart area. However, the wounds were slightly different from those in Lin Yiyan's case. Xiao Lou helped the deceased's body up, examined his back, and understood what was going on.
The deceased's fatal wound, like Lin Yiyan's, was in the heart. However, Lin Yiyan's wound was from the front, while Xu Kai's wound was from the back. Therefore, the wound would appear wider on the back and narrower on the front of the heart.
Xiao Lou carefully examined the body. Yu Hanjiang walked around the scene and came to the person who reported the case, Zhang Xiaoyu, asking, "What time did you come to your cousin's house and find his body?"
Zhang Xiaoyu said tremblingly, "Ten, ten o'clock at night."
Yu Hanjiang asked, "Have you contacted your cousin since 2 PM today?"
Zhang Xiaoyu nodded: "Around six o'clock in the evening, I called him, but he didn't answer. I thought he had gone to that KTV club to see his lover again, so I didn't pay attention to him."
Yu Hanjiang: "Then why did you suddenly come to see him at ten o'clock at night?"
Zhang Xiaoyu said, "I want to borrow some money from him. I'm a little short on cash lately, so I thought I'd try my luck at his house."
Yu Hanjiang asked sternly, "He was already dead then, so how did you get in?"
Zhang Xiaoyu hurriedly explained, "I have a key to his house because my brother sometimes goes out of town for business, and there's no one to take care of the fish and flowers he keeps at home. I live nearby, so he gave me the key so I could take care of them for him when I have free time."
Yu Hanjiang nodded and asked, "Did you see any suspicious people or vehicles in the neighborhood when you came in?"
Zhang Xiaoyu thought about it carefully, then shook her head and said, "No, I... I didn't notice."
When answering questions, the younger cousin avoided Yu Hanjiang's eyes, appearing flustered and his gaze darting left and right, clearly feeling guilty. He might be hiding something, but Yu Hanjiang didn't believe he was directly involved in Xu Kai's murder.
After reviewing Zhang Xiaoyu's case, Yu Hanjiang returned to Xiao...
He stood beside the building and asked in a low voice, "What were the autopsy results?"
Xiao Lou said, "The fatal wound was still to the heart. A sharp long knife pierced his heart directly. Judging from the marks on the wound, the murder weapon should be the same long knife that killed Lin Yiyan. The other knife marks on the body should have been left after death."
Yu Hanjiang frowned: "So, after killing him, the murderer then desecrated his corpse?"
Xiao Lou nodded: "Same as the Lin Yiyan case."
He lifted the corpse's head, carefully examined the pupils and the lividity on the body, and said, "Judging from the lividity and the degree of muscle stiffness, the time of death should be around 6 hours."
Yu Hanjiang looked at the wall clock in the bedroom.
The current time is 22:35, and the time of death is approximately four hours. This means that Xu Kai's time of death should be around 16:30 in the afternoon. Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou left Xu Kai's house at exactly 4:30.
Upon realizing this, both of them felt a chill run down their spines!
In other words, no sooner had the two of them left than Xu Kai was brutally murdered in the bathroom by the killer.
Yu Hanjiang took a deep breath and whispered in Xiao Lou's ear, "When we interrogated Xu Kai, it's very likely that the murderer had already sneaked into Xu Kai's residence and was preparing to murder her. It's just that she was hiding in a corner, and we didn't notice her."
Xu Kai's villa has a basement, a living room, dining room and garden on the first floor, a master bedroom and study on the second floor, several guest bedrooms on the third floor, and a rooftop terrace on the fourth floor.
It would be difficult to find someone hiding in such a large villa without a thorough search.
When Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou came to investigate him, the current suspect, Qiao Xuening, was filming at Binzhou City Cinema, and was being watched by her teammates, including Qu Wanyue. Neither of them expected the killer to strike again, or to come and murder Xu Kai ahead of time. Therefore, they did not conduct a thorough search of Xu Kai's residence at that time.
Moreover, searching a resident's residence requires a "search warrant" approved by higher authorities.
For example, Zhou Yuanyuan had an extremely strong motive for committing the crime, and a search could only be conducted after he was identified as a criminal suspect.
Xu Kai is only an acquaintance of Lin Yiyan's case, not a criminal suspect. Search warrants are not easily granted. Even if Yu Hanjiang is a police officer, he cannot arbitrarily search someone's home.
At the time, the murderer was likely hiding in Xu Kai's house and may have even overheard Yu Hanjiang questioning Xu Kai.
When the two arrived at Xu Kai's house, Xu Kai had just woken up, probably because he was woken up by Yu Hanjiang's incessant doorbell ringing. He walked straight from the bedroom to the living room, still sleepy-eyed, with his hair a mess, clearly having not washed up.
One can imagine that after Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou left, the first thing Xu Kai would do was take a shower.
His cousin, Zhang Xiaoyu, mentioned that he had come home drunk the previous night, and it's normal for someone with a hangover to take a bath to sober up. He went into the bathroom, took off his bathrobe, and prepared to run the water for a shower.
Unexpectedly, at that moment, the murderer, who had been hiding in the villa, suddenly took out a sharp long knife and stabbed him through the heart!
Xiao Lou pointed at the corpse and said, " Unlike the Lin Yiyan case, this time, Xu Kai's heart wound was stabbed from behind. The murderer attacked him from behind and killed him instantly."
Yu Hanjiang nodded: "After all, the murderer is likely to be a woman. If she were to fight a tall and strong man like Xu Kai head-on, she might not be able to gain the upper hand. At that time, Xu Kai had taken off his clothes and was about to take a bath. He should have been more relaxed at that moment. If attacked from behind, it would be difficult for Xu Kai to defend himself."
After all, no one would expect that there would be someone hiding in their own bathroom!
No wonder Xu Kai's eyes were wide open, almost popping out of their sockets. Clearly, he had just stepped into the bathtub when he was stabbed in the back, and he must have been extremely shocked to see the sharp blade piercing his chest.
Captain Li listened intently to their conversation, his face filled with bewilderment.
Yu Hanjiang suddenly asked, "Did you bring any luminescent ammonia?"
Li Xinyang immediately said, "I brought it. Xiao Qi, go and get it for Captain Yu."
A young police officer immediately went over and brought the luminescent ammonia, handing it to Yu Hanjiang. Yu Hanjiang turned on the equipment and carefully examined the scene—although the murderer had cleaned up the bloodstains, the luminol in the luminescent ammonia could detect bloodstains.
Even if the murderer wipes away and cleans up the bloodstains, the heme in the blood will still remain. When luminol reagent is sprayed on the heme, it will react with reactive oxygen species to produce a blue-purple fluorescence.
Yu Hanjiang sprayed it in the bathroom, and soon, a large number of blue-purple fluorescent traces appeared on the walls and floor.
Xiao Lou looked at the part with the most fluorescence, walked to that spot, and said, " Xu Kai was stabbed in the back here by the murderer, and blood splattered on the wall. Xu Kai struggled for a moment, then died quickly. The murderer then moved his body to the bathtub, surrounded him with ice, and desecrated his corpse."
Li Xinyang felt a chill run down his spine: "This... what kind of deep-seated hatred is this?!"
Yu Hanjiang said, "The murderer in this case is psychologically twisted. Moreover, she is very clever, able to sneak into the target's house in advance and kill the target unexpectedly. I guess she may have learned lock-picking skills, otherwise it is hard to explain how she could sneak into Lin Yiyan's house and Xu Kai's house one after another."
They secretly sneaked into the target's home, then stabbed the person to death while they were taking a shower...
This murderer is no less skilled than a professional killer!
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