Chapter 3 The Headless Truth

Du Yu's instinct as a policeman acted before his brain. The moment he digested Xu Yiqing's meaning, the walkie-talkie was already at his lips.

"Attention all units, intercept all the food delivery drivers around Huimin Garden! Get the surrounding surveillance for me, quickly!"

As he spoke, Du Yu led his men out of the crime scene and went downstairs.

Lin Sheng asked Xu Yiqing worriedly: "Can Captain Du catch the murderer? It's been so long, the murderer must have escaped long ago, right?"

Xu Yiqing shook his head gently: "That's the job of the criminal police. Our mission is to do a good job of the autopsy... Let's go back to the bureau."

Lin Sheng was still driving, and Xu Yiqing was sitting in the back seat.

He closed his eyes and rested in the car, while Lin Sheng drove and used the car phone to notify the bureau to prepare to receive the body and prepare for the autopsy process.

Normally he was the one who did all the chores to give Xu Yiqing more time to rest.

After returning to the bureau, all the procedures were ready and the body was delivered soon after, so the autopsy could begin immediately.

Lin Sheng helped Xu Yiqing with all the logistical work. It can be said that Xu Yiqing only needed to be responsible for the operation, and the rest was left to Lin Sheng.

Given Xu Yiqing's status, Jiangcheng and even the province have suggested assigning him better and more experienced assistants, but he has rejected them all.

Lin Sheng was the one who was brought up by him, and the two of them have such a tacit understanding that Xu Yiqing doesn't need to say much, Lin Sheng can handle everything, so Xu Yiqing doesn't need to worry about anything else except making use of his own strengths.

Looking across the country, they are the best partners and master and apprentice.

Xu Yiqing put on protective clothing, gloves and a mask, and Lin Sheng turned on the video and began the autopsy on the headless female corpse.

"The fatal wound was on the chest. The wound was flat, 20 centimeters deep and 5 centimeters wide at its widest point. It was identified as a single-edged weapon wound."

"The chest ribs were intact, with no injuries or fractures. The weapon avoided the ribs and pierced the heart, piercing the right atrium."

Xu Yiqing gave a serious conclusion: "If an inexperienced person stabs with a dagger, the blade will get stuck in the ribs because it is upright. The murderer was able to avoid the ribs and stab into the chest cavity. He knows the human body very well."

"153 ml of gastric residue was sent for preliminary examination."

Mr. Lin took the test tube filled with solution handed to him by Xu Yiqing and quickly submitted it to the laboratory department.

Xu Yiqing continued the autopsy. "The spine showed varying degrees of hyperplasia and scoliosis, and severe lumbar muscle strain. The skin on the inside of the fingers of the right hand was rough and calloused..."

Having said this, he paused, looked up at Lin Sheng who was in charge of recording, and asked, "What does this mean?"

Lin Sheng thought without hesitation: "The deceased sat for a long time before his death. Maybe he was... a teacher?"

Xu Yiqing continued to analyze the situation with his head down: "Yes, nowadays, teachers are the most likely candidates for jobs that require long periods of sitting and writing on the blackboard. But she should not be on the payroll, so she is probably a teacher at an off-campus tutoring institution. The house she rented is old and cheap. Public schools have teacher dormitories with better environments."

Lin Sheng immediately recorded Xu Yiqing's inference. Any subtle conclusion could become the key for the criminal police to solve the case!
Time passes by every second. Dissection is very meticulous and slow, and it is a very physically and mentally demanding task.

Even though Xu Yiqing's knife skills were still steady, the fatigue from several days of staying up all night swept over him.

"The preliminary test results of the stomach residue have come out."

News came from the laboratory department, Xu Yiqing stopped his work and decided to take a break.

"Let me see..." Lin Sheng read the test results, "Preliminary tests have confirmed that most of the residue is meat. As for various data, the glycogen content is only about half of that of beef."

He was confused, "What kind of meat? Chicken, pork? The glycogen content is wrong."

Xu Yiqing closed his eyes and said casually, "It's dog meat."

Lin Sheng suddenly realized: "It turned out to be dog meat."

Xu Yiqing said, "Asheng, what do you think? Is it possible that the skeleton is from the dog... the deceased ate the dog?"

Lin Sheng immediately shook his head: "Definitely not."

The dog's skeleton was also sent to the autopsy room along with the deceased's body.

He picked up two pieces of dog tibia and tapped them gently. "The sound shows that the dog has been dead for some time. Combined with the degree of dryness and the signs of bone fracture, I infer that the time of death is at least 40 days. Moreover, the bones fell out naturally through decay, not through cooking and slaughter."

Xu Yiqing was very pleased that Lin Sheng was already capable of dissecting things on his own. "I'll leave it to you next. I'll take a break."

Xu Yiqing stepped aside with confidence, leaned against the side and continued to rest with his eyes closed.

Lin Sheng was a newcomer to the Forensic Department at the beginning. After a few years of growth, he made rapid progress. Even when he performed autopsies alone, the results were credible.

So Xu Yiqing decided to close his eyes and take a short rest to recover his energy for the subsequent autopsy analysis.

After a long time, Xu Yiqing vaguely heard Lin Sheng talking to himself in confusion.

He opened his eyes and looked at Lin Sheng, who looked suspicious, and asked, "What's wrong?"

Lin Sheng said, "Brother Xu, you have to come and take a look."

Xu Yiqing walked over to Lin Sheng to check the records.

"Look, Brother Xu, the internal blood congestion is consistent, but..." Lin Sheng pointed out the suspicious points to Xu Yiqing: "The rest of these conflict with the cause of death."

Xu Yiqing looked at Lin Sheng's record and whispered to himself, "Acute emphysema and spleen anemia."

Mr. Lin added: "These are all symptoms of death from mechanical asphyxiation, but you have already confirmed in the autopsy that the fatal wound was the knife to the heart. This..."

Xu Yiqing's face was solemn and his brain was spinning rapidly.

Suddenly a flash of inspiration came into his mind.

"I understand why the murderer took the risk of cutting off the victim's head." Xu Yiqing suddenly realized: "It has nothing to do with the victim's face...it's the neck! The key point is the neck!"

"Neck?" Lin Sheng was puzzled.

Xu Yiqing pointed to the symptoms of mechanical asphyxiation that he had recorded and said firmly: "It's because the murderer was afraid that the police would see the marks on the victim's neck at a glance... There were two people who wanted to kill the victim!"

Xu Yiqing continued to reason: "Captain Du played the recording of the deceased for us. She was not injured before her death, but was almost strangled to death. She just recovered from the shock. And the person who wanted to strangle her must be an acquaintance!"

Lin Sheng asked: "How...how do you know if this is an acquaintance?"

Xu Yiqing explained: "Because there are no signs of struggle on the body, it means that he was strangled easily, which can only be done by an acquaintance. And because it is autumn now, the other party was wearing long-sleeved clothes, so when the deceased struggled, there was no trace of the suspect's skin tissue left under his fingernails."

"But the first person who wanted to kill the victim was obviously inexperienced. Out of fear, he mistakenly thought he had succeeded after the victim fell unconscious and fled the scene in a hurry. In fact, it takes at least five to six minutes to cause a person to die of acute suffocation."

"The deceased suffocated and went into shock, then woke up again. He called 120 based on his survival instinct... That's the recording we heard."

Lin Sheng's fingers were rapidly tapping on his laptop, recording the autopsy analysis of Xu Yiqing. At the same time, he frowned and asked, "But how do you explain the fruit knife at the scene that was covered with fingerprints but no blood?"

Xu Yiqing immediately replied: "So there is a second murderer! The deceased was in an extremely weak state and did not wait for 120 ambulance, but waited for another person - a person who was hostile to the deceased at first glance, wearing shoe covers and takeaway clothes. The other party may even have a knife in his hand, just to come and clean up the mess!"

"So she took the fruit knife from the bedside and tried to defend herself, but because she was weak after the shock, the murderer easily killed her with one blow." Lin Sheng also understood, and then continued: "The murderer saw the obvious strangulation marks on the victim's neck, and in order to clean up the mess for his former accomplice, he had to cut off the victim's head to cover up the strangulation marks."

Lin Sheng sighed: "How strong must this relationship be to make the second murderer take such a risk to erase the traces left by the first person? You have to know that there was a 120 doctor rushing outside the door at that time, who could break in at any time."

Xu Yiqing took off his gloves, his eyes sharp, "This is also a matter for the criminal police. I'll go call Du Yu... Ah Sheng, drive me to the criminal police brigade later."

He hasn't experienced such a big psychological fluctuation in a long time.

Lin Sheng knew why this happened and sighed to himself.

The last time Xu Yiqing handled such a heinous dismemberment case, the deceased was his own brother, his only relative.

10.25 Major dismemberment case!
The nature of this crime was extremely cruel. The murderer cut the victim's body into more than 2,000 pieces and threw them all over Jiangcheng, causing great panic in society!

Although the case has been closed and the murderer has been brought to justice, Xu Yiqing firmly believes that there must be another person who helped the murderer escape the crime, assisted in the dismemberment of the body, and escaped the police investigation...

It’s very similar to the current dismemberment case!
But the police did not believe his story, and Xu Yiqing eventually resigned in anger.

For so many years, Xu Yiqing has never given up the investigation, and now there is finally a clue!

(End of this chapter)

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