Detective: From the Police Academy

Chapter 303 Copycat Case

Pingyang County, inside the meeting room.

The pale beam of the projector was projected onto the screen.

Three photos of murdered women appeared on the screen one after another, all of them were young women.

Tang Kai stood under the curtain with the remote control in his hand.

His figure flickered in and out, and he spoke in a sonorous voice: "On December 97, 12, the body of the victim Zhang Feng was found in the back hills of this high school. She was 25 years old and had just graduated from high school and was about to start working.

She was murdered between 10 o'clock that evening and 8 o'clock the next morning. This time was chosen because Zhang Feng's body was found a week later.

The medical examiner at the time did not give an exact time.

The report was made by a group of students from the high school at the foot of the mountain. They accidentally discovered the body while hiking on the weekend..."

Having said that, Tang Kai pressed the remote control.

Photos of the crime scene immediately appeared on the big screen.

The scene was a slightly flat piece of mud, surrounded by trees and thorn bushes.

Zhang Feng was naked, with messy hair and dilated pupils.

Her face was pale, and her right neck was stabbed several times by a sharp knife. Blood spurted out and soaked in the brown soil.

In addition, there was a piece of corn cob stuffed in her mouth, and the same was true in her lower body...

There were bruises on the thighs and inner thighs, and black blood was clotted.

There are hundreds of photos of the scene, all taken from different angles by the investigating police officers.

Luo Rui narrowed his eyes slightly and asked, "Is there any sign that the body has been moved?"

Tang Kai looked at him in surprise: "How did you figure that out?"

"Lividity." Luo Rui explained: "The location of the lividity is not right, because the blood is sinking..."

"That's right." Tang Kai nodded slightly and interrupted him, as if he didn't want Luo Rui to show off.

"After the reporter called the police, the police on the scene rushed over and found Zhang Qin's body in a mountain cave. The murderer also cut the surrounding thorns to cover the body. But the crime scene was not there, but on the hillside..."

Before Tang Kai finished speaking, the gray-haired old man stood up and interrupted him: "Captain Tang, you just got here and don't know the situation at that time. It's better for me to explain it."

Hearing this, Tang Kai was choked for a moment. He looked at the deputy director and the instructor who were sitting at the top.

But the two remained indifferent and just said to the old man politely: "Uncle Pang, it's best if you tell the story. You were the one who followed this case before, so you know it best."

"Thank you." The old man stood up and walked under the screen.

Tang Kai coughed twice awkwardly and handed the remote control to him.

"Take it. I don't know how to use it." The old man shook his head and looked at Luo Rui who was sitting next to him: "Let me introduce myself. My name is Pang Zhong. Before I retired, I was the deputy captain of Pingyang County."

Luo Rui quickly called out, "Captain Pang."

Pang Zhong looked serious and just glanced at him, then took out an old-fashioned notebook with worn edges from his pocket, a cowhide cover and cracked edges of the paper.

Pang Zhong licked his fingers, opened his notebook, and then glanced at everyone, saying, "On January 97, 1, we received a call saying that a female corpse was found in the back hills of Pingyang County High School. When we rushed there, we found that the scene had been destroyed, and at least dozens of students were surrounding the corpse.

These people heard about the discovery of a body and came over out of curiosity, so this greatly increased the difficulty of our investigation.

However, from the on-site investigation, we extracted a stranger's footprint, and a size 41 shoe. At that time, there was no surveillance and no eyewitnesses. We also checked Zhang Feng's social relations, so this footprint was the only evidence.

We asked an expert from the city to identify the shoe. Through the patterns on the sole, they traced it to be a pair of Nike shoes. This type of shoe was only found in our county, and it was produced in 97. This clearly proved the identity of the murderer.

So we quickly looked for the owner of the shoes, and then found a suspicious person, his name is Li Yang! "

Speaking of this name, Luo Rui noticed that Pang Zhong's tone was a little lower, and several other leaders touched their noses.

Luo Rui quickly asked: "Who is Li Yang?"

The deputy director of Pingyang County took over the conversation: "He also graduated from this high school, but because his academic performance was too poor, he studied at a medical college in this county."

Luo Rui smiled and said, "I heard that he is the only son of someone?"

The deputy director touched his nose again, but Pang Zhong said bluntly: "That's right, but it has nothing to do with the case. We took Li Yang into the interrogation room at the time. According to his confession, he did go to the back mountain at the time in order to meet Zhang Feng.

The two were classmates, but he left at 12pm on December 25th. His family lived one kilometer away. He left on a bicycle, and on the way home, he also went to the store to buy a pack of cigarettes. There were eyewitnesses to prove it, but he also did not admit to killing anyone. "

Luo Rui narrowed his eyes slightly and asked the key question: "Pang Da, what I want to ask is, is the time of the victim's death in the forensic autopsy report accurate?"

Hearing this, the faces of the detectives in the conference room suddenly turned serious.

Especially the forensic doctor in a white robe, who stood up and said, "What do you mean? Are you questioning my master's ability? Let me tell you, the body was found a week later and had already begun to rot. There was no particularly advanced equipment at the time, and it was impossible to do the same as with a fresh body, with an accuracy of less than two or three hours."

Luo Rui didn't care about his half-angry, half-defensive words and said, "So you used the time of death to rule out the suspicion of Li Yang?"

Hearing this, Pang Zhong shook his head: "I'll explain this later, let me talk about the next case..."

Seeing Luo Rui frowning, Pang Zhong quickly said, "In 98, also on December 12, another woman, Zheng Xueqing, was murdered in a small alley at the Pingyang County Grain Bureau.

The incident happened at 5:30 in the morning..."

Lin Chen on the side asked in confusion: "Five thirty in the morning?"

During this time, she had been taking notes and only looked up at this time.

Pang Zhong said: "This is related to Zheng Xueqing's job. She is a sanitation worker, so she has to get up at five in the morning to go to work."

Tang Kai on the side immediately pressed the remote control, and the victim's photo appeared on the screen.

This was behind a trash can. A thin layer of snow could be seen on the ground, but the scarlet blood covered the white snow.

Zheng Xueqing and Zhang Feng died in exactly the same way. They were naked, their necks were stabbed several times, and corn cobs were stuffed in their mouths and genitals.

Looking at the photo, Pang Zhong sighed: "Zheng Xueqin was 35 years old at the time, and the person who reported the case was her colleague, but the person working with her was a -year-old woman.

At that time, the lady was clearing snow in another neighborhood. Because she had an ear problem, her hearing was very poor.

She was also the person who reported the case. According to her, when Zheng Xueqin was killed, she did not hear any sound and there were no pedestrians on the road.

It was not until six in the morning, when she finished her work and was about to ask Zheng Xueqin to go to another block to clean up the garbage, that she found Zheng Xueqin's body behind the garbage can.

"Is her confession credible?" Luo Rui asked.

Pang Zhong nodded: "It's credible. We have found a special doctor to test her hearing. She can only hear you if you shout at a distance of ten meters.

Moreover, when Zheng Xueqin was autopsied, she had a contusion on the back of her head. The murderer must have knocked her down first, making her unable to move, and then killed her.

Both Zhang Feng and Zheng Xueqin were assaulted. The forensic doctor concluded that the murderer used a mask, but no biological traces or hair were left behind, and no fingerprints were collected. It is estimated that the murderer was wearing gloves when committing the crime.

Lin Chen asked: "Where are the footprints? There should be footprints, right?"

She asked this because it was snowing on the day Zheng Xueqin was murdered, and it was very early in the morning so there were no passers-by.

Pang Zhong nodded immediately: "We did find footprints at the scene where Zheng Xueqin was killed. They were very common rain boots, and the footprints were size 41."

At this point, a photo of the footprints appeared on the big screen.

Seeing this, Lin Chen exclaimed: "Isn't this Li Yang!"

Luo Rui narrowed his eyes slightly, and everyone in the criminal team, including others, stood up straight and became more alert to the police officers from Pingyang County.

Pang Zhong licked his lips, as if he wanted to say something but hesitated.

Luo Rui saw that he was a little confused and said, "Pang Da, if you have any unspeakable secrets, you can speak up."

"Okay then." Pang Zhong said, "When Zhang Feng was murdered in 97, we had always suspected Li Yang and had not cleared him of suspicion.

But on the morning of Zheng Yuqing's murder in 98, we thought he was the one who committed the crime, so we found him. When he couldn't provide an alibi, we forced him to..."

Pang Zhong opened his mouth and said, "Because the murderer used the Cloud Avoidance Set, it must be..., so in order for Li Yang to prove his innocence, we will..."

Seeing that he didn't make his words clear, Lin Chen blinked and looked at Luo Rui curiously: "Team Leader, what does he mean? Why don't I understand?"

Luo Rui glanced at her and said, "It's meaningless. It's good that I don't understand it."

But Tian Guanghan at the side coughed and said in a conscientious manner: "It's that one...that one!"

Lin Chen opened his clear yet stupid eyes wide: "Riddler, please explain clearly so I can record it."

Tian Guanghan curled his lips and didn't dare to continue speaking.

To put it bluntly, it is sexual harassment.

But Lin Chen was not stupid. After putting the context into context, he immediately understood.

Her pretty face turned red. "Hateful. They are so smart to come up with this method."

She didn't notice the current occasion, and in order to hide her embarrassment, she unconsciously raised her voice a few notes.

When the police officers on the scene heard this, their faces turned pale.

The new police officers who joined the police force after the millennium have no idea how difficult it is for the older generation of detectives to solve a case with unclear clues under extremely poor conditions.

Pang Zhong and his team did this out of helplessness, but at the same time it was also out of a desire to solve the case.

Pang Zhong sniffed and continued, "At that time, Li Yang was indeed a little bit of a suspect, but we did not let down our guard against him, and he was kept in the detention center.

We found a group of experts from the city and the province to compare the footprints at the scene where Zhang Feng and Zheng Xueqin were killed. Because they were both size 41 footprints, and because of Li Yang's identity, we did not tell the experts the specific case information. The two groups of experts gave the same opinion on this footprint. Although they were both size 41 footprints, the height and weight of the owners reflected in the footprints did not match, which means that the two footprints came from different owners.

In order to be more precise, we swapped the order of the footprints and had experts identify them, and the results were consistent.

In this way, we re-screened the footprints at the scene where Zhang Feng was murdered. Because the scene was destroyed at that time, it was extremely difficult to screen, and the scene had also been cleaned up by the murderer.

After a week of screening, we did find another size 41 footprint, but this one was trampled by the footprints of the onlookers.

After experts restored and compared it, it was found to be exactly the same as the footprints at the scene where Zheng Xueqing was murdered in 98, so... this person is the real murderer. "

Luo Rui didn't expect that the case in Pingyang County would be so complicated.

Indeed, two footprints of the same code number, and the scene was destroyed, make it easy to confuse them.

Pang Zhong said this and sighed: "If we hadn't made a mistake at the beginning, we wouldn't have taken so many detours. We might have found out the identity of the murderer in 97. This is also a regret for me."

Luo Rui didn’t think his sigh was regrettable, because Zheng Yuqing was murdered in 98, but the murderer was never caught, right?

The meeting lasted two hours and it was almost noon.

Pang Zhong looked at Luo Rui: "What do you think of these two cases?"

As soon as this was mentioned, everyone in the conference room looked over.

Luo Rui coughed and said, "My speculation may not be accurate, but I tend to think that these two cases are copycat cases..."

Upon hearing this, leaders of Pingyang County, including Pang Zhong, breathed a sigh of relief. After all, if it was linked to the cases in Shahe County in 95 and 96, then the murderer was really too rampant. Not only that, his influence would be even greater.

At this time, Tang Kai made a timely statement: "First of all, the time doesn't match. The two cases that occurred in Shahe County in 95 and 96 occurred on January 1nd of each year, while the two cases in our county occurred on Christmas Day every year.

Second, the circumstances in which the victims died were different. Although the victims' necks were stabbed, the victims in Shahe County were all killed with one knife, while the necks of the victims in our Pingyang County were all stabbed with random knives, and the method of committing the crime was more crude.

Third, the crime scene was different. For your convenience, I marked the scene with a number. Victims No. 1 and No. 2 were not completely stripped naked, but victims No. 3 and No. 4 were. It is obvious that the murderer of this copycat crime is more obsessed with the female body. "

Seeing that all the leaders nodded, Tang Kai wanted to continue his analysis, but Luo Rui frowned and interrupted him:
"The details of the 122 major serial murder case were not made public, especially the corn cob feature. People outside the case were completely unaware of it. How did the murderers of the two copycat cases in 97 and 98 know this detail?"

"Ah?" Tang Kai was surprised. He was still analyzing the differences in the case, but Luo Rui had already moved forward with the case.

For a moment, everyone in the conference room was silent.

Lin Chen said: "We, the police, are the only ones who know about the case. Could it be that..."

Hearing this, Tang Kai immediately retorted: "That's also the police from your Shahe County. The first case happened in your jurisdiction."

Fang Yonghui couldn't sit still anymore, so he stood up and asked, "What do you mean?"

Yang Bo also stared at the other party, looking eager to try.

Tian Guanghan and Chu Yang didn't have a very strong sense of belonging, but since they were all family, they glared at each other.

Luo Rui glanced at them and said calmly: "Don't rule out the murderer."

Lin Chen was surprised and asked: "Team Leader, what do you mean..."

Luo Rui did not answer. He looked at Pang Zhong and said, "Pang Da, tell me about the case in 99."

To express his gratitude for extinguishing the tension between the two sides, Pang Zhong quickly said: "The victim in 99 was named Duan Xia, and she is still alive.

She was attacked on January 99, 1, late at night. She was on her way home when she was dragged into an alley by the murderer and hit on the back of her head with a sharp weapon. Because the injury was so severe, she immediately passed out and woke up while the murderer was raping her.

She was smart and did not scream. After the murderer finished the crime, he stuffed a corn cob into her mouth and found that she was awake, so he stabbed her in the neck, but her head shifted a little and no vital injuries were caused.

Moreover, passers-by in the alley heard her cry for help and when they rushed over, they found her curled up in the corner with a bloody head. After rescue, she survived but had mental problems.

At this crime scene, because it was drizzling, we still did not extract any footprints, hair or fingerprints.

However, Duan Xia provided us with a very important clue, that is, the murderer was wearing a green military coat..."

A picture of a military coat and a picture of the crime scene appeared on the screen.

After Lin Chen looked at it carefully, he approached Luo Rui and said, "Team Leader, could this case and the two cases over there be committed by the same murderer?"

In fact, if a comparison is really wanted, it is necessary to wait until the murderer has successfully committed the crime before comparing the differences and similarities at the crime scene. This is more intuitive and more accurate, that is, to commit the crime first and then compare.

Luo Rui and his colleagues now understood why Pingyang County didn't care much about Shahe County Bureau back then.

First of all, they just don’t agree that the crime was committed by the same murderer. Secondly, in the 99 case, the victim survived.

But Luo Rui didn't think so. He immediately said, "It's the same murderer."

After hearing this, Tang Kai asked, "How did you figure that out?"

Luo Rui pointed at the victim's clothes in the photo.

Tang Kai smiled and said, "You mean the victim's clothes were not taken off?"

Luo Rui pondered and said, "That's right. In the three cases in Shahe County in 95 and 96, and in your Pingyang County in 99, why didn't the murderers take off all the clothes of the victims? Look carefully, their pants were all pulled down below the knees.

The murderer is very smart and is not on the same level as the copycat murderers. Because only in this way, if the victim wakes up, stands up and wants to escape, he will not be able to run far.

But by taking off the pants, the victim's movements will not be restricted."

Lin Chen imagined this scene and couldn't help but shudder: "It seems to be true."

Luo Rui continued, "If I have to speculate, I tend to think that the two murderers are a master and an apprentice, which means they knew each other. The master taught the apprentice, the master is smarter, and the apprentice is a little clumsy."

As soon as these words were spoken, the criminal police present were stunned.

Just now, they separated the two cases and breathed a sigh of relief, feeling calm, but now, Luo Rui has linked the two cases together again.

Pang Zhong opened his mouth and lost control of his expression: "Captain Luo... Captain Luo, do you mean to investigate these five cases together?"

Luo Rui stood up and shook his head, "Not five, but six. A young woman was found in Longshan Town, Fukang County last night. She disappeared on January 2000, 1, and her body has not been found yet. It is speculated that she is also related to this serial murder case."

Pang Zhong swallowed his saliva and his expression immediately fell.

Tang Kai also knew the seriousness of the matter and did not dare to continue to think highly of himself. He lowered his voice and asked, "So what should we do now?"

"Let me meet this Duan Xia first and see if I can get anything out of her."

Pang Zhong immediately said, "You can't ask her. She is afraid of strangers. I visit her every year and I know her situation. Besides, her family is against us going."

"Let's meet him." Luo Rui requested.

"Okay, then I'll take you there." Pang Zhong agreed.

……

……

An hour later, in Duan Xia’s hometown, a private house on the outskirts of Pingyang County.

Duan Xia was locked in the room with an iron chain around her ankles, restricting her freedom.

Many mentally ill patients in rural areas cannot receive treatment and their condition cannot improve, and this is the result they face.

The family members were afraid that they would run away, so they had no choice but to resort to this last resort.

Duan Xia was no exception, but her conditions were slightly better, at least her family did not abandon her.

There was nothing in the room except a bed.

Duan Xia was sitting on the edge of the bed, with disheveled hair, pale face, and wearing a men's cotton jacket.

When she was attacked in 99, she was only 27 years old, but now, she doesn’t look her age anymore. Ten years later, she seems to have aged to years old.

Duan Xia's family, including her husband, stood by the door with their bowls in hand. While eating, they said in dissatisfaction, "You come here every year, but what's the point? After so many years, you haven't caught the murderer."

Pang Zhong touched his nose, coughed twice, and handed the bucket of oil and a bag of rice to the other party: "It will be soon. We will catch the murderer soon."

"Blow it, you guys."

When the man saw what he had in his hand, he was not very happy, but just pointed to the corner.

Pang Zhong had no choice but to put the things in the corner.

Luo Rui took a step into the door and stared at Duan Xia.

At this time, Duan Xia raised her head, her eyes were filled with fear and her face was pale.

Lin Chen on the side whispered: "Team Leader, did you see what she is holding?"

Luo Rui looked closely and saw that Duan Xia was holding a corn cob in her hand.

"Ah...ah...don't come over here, don't come over here, I'm very obedient, I'm very obedient..."

Without any warning, Duan Xia suddenly started screaming wildly.

Lin Chen was startled and quickly took a step back.

Luo Rui stood still, watching with his own eyes as the only surviving victim, a woman named Duan Xia, opened her mouth wide on January 2000, 1, and stuffed the corn cob in her hand into her mouth...

She stammered and shouted, her eyes were red, she was trembling with fear, tears and snot were flowing...

Seeing her like this, the police officers present felt a chill in their hearts.

(End of this chapter)