National Forensic Doctor

Chapter 1307: Chapter 1233: Patrolling the Streets

Mu Zhiyang led the way with the imposing manner of six horses, guiding Jiang Yuan and the others along the road.

On the other end of the road, several Criminal Police Brigade officers were staring at the street vendors, hoping that the suspect couldn’t withstand the pressure and would turn and run.

In fact, this kind of roadblock work is often handed over to the police officers of the police station, or arranged for two teams of non-special case police officers to handle it.

But this was the last step, and it was time to capture, so who would want to give up the achievement now just to save a bit of effort?

On the contrary, the police officers of the Zhengguang Bureau’s Criminal Police Squad were more eager than ever.

Solved murder cases were no longer surprising to Jiang Yuan and Jiang Yuan’s Accumulated Case Team, but for the regular Criminal Police Brigade officers, capturing murder suspects was always a rare opportunity.

In fact, even Mu Zhiyang found it quite interesting.

He led the charge, chest out and head held high, arriving at the meat sandwich stall on the street, staring at the knife in the vendor’s hand while saying, "Boss, we are from the Criminal Police Squad. We need to ask you a few questions."

"Did someone die?" The boss, a short and thin man, slammed the knife into the chopping board, instead questioning Mu Zhiyang.

"Where did you hear that?" Mu Zhiyang didn’t answer, his sharp eyes fixed on the boss and his knife.

Wen Yong stepped forward, grabbed the handle of the knife, and took it into his own hand.

The short and thin meat sandwich vendor laughed, "You guys are nervous... we have a group chat, heard you were doing inspections or something, was going to run, but then heard you’re not the urban management. By the way, do you want a sandwich? Eight bucks each, I’ll add extra meat for you."

"Not now." Mu Zhiyang lifted the tent fabric under the stall, asking, "Do you have any other knives?"

"No, we conquer the world with just one knife..."

"No boning knives or anything like that?"

"I use the finest pork belly, see..." The short and thin meat sandwich vendor picked up a spoon and scooped some meat from the pot to show them.

Jiang Yuan stepped forward, saying, "Where were you last Tuesday morning?"

Lab reports were coming out one after another, and Jiang Yuan reopened the "temporary +1" to judge the time of death.

So far, Jiang Yuan could narrow the victim’s time of death to within two hours in the morning, meaning the murder happened shortly after the phone signal disappeared. In other words, the phone was likely disposed of by the murderer, and the time the victim was held hostage was also very short.

To put it less pleasantly, the murderer was probably in a state of busy activity throughout the few hours of holding the victim hostage.

No matter when the body was dumped, just the acts of murder and body disposal, as well as phone handling, would take a lot of time. So an alibi for Tuesday morning is crucial and is key for the police to screen these food sellers.

The meat sandwich vendor laughed nonchalantly, "Where else would I be, just selling meat sandwiches here." noveldrama

"What specific time from when to when?" Mu Zhiyang turned back, took out a notebook to make notes, as he was also a criminal investigator.

"I usually get here by past six in the morning, start if there’s business, if not, tidy things up a bit, then open online sales, then chop meat, and keep busy until the afternoon for a break before continuing in the evening. My wife buys and cooks the meat at home, it’s tiring..."

"Was it from 7 AM to 1:30 PM? Or 6:30 AM to 1:30 PM?"

"6:30 to around 2:30, sometimes deliveries come really late now..."

"Who was with you at the time, and which other vendors did you notice were open?" Mu Zhiyang continued to ask. These questions would be asked to every vendor, and later, the records would be compared to detect any inconsistencies or lies easily.

Correspondingly, if several people could confirm someone’s alibi, they would likely be crossed off the suspect list.

For the police, listing suspects is important, but narrowing down the list of suspects is even more crucial. If the wrong method is used and a suspect is mistakenly filtered out, the whole list might be useless. Such mistakes happened in past high-profile cases.

Mu Zhiyang asked a few more questions and marked a star next to the record in his notebook.

This basically ruled out suspicion, but it was just Mu Zhiyang’s judgement. Subsequently, Wang Chuanxing and Liu Jinghui would each give their evaluations and decide on exclusions.

The current suspect list consisted of over 60 households, roughly under 200 people. If a highly suspicious individual could be identified from the screening, the whole process would conclude perfectly, and someone could even write an article about it later.

But if nothing was found, other methods would have to be used. For example, technical investigation of phones, image investigation of surveillance, all requiring the suspects to self-report their locations.

Nowadays, people rarely part with their phones, and in Beijing, the number of base stations is sufficient to triangulate almost all locations. Information like being in a certain area at a specific time is the simplest task for technical investigators.

Similarly, finding suspects using surveillance without specific times and undetermined locations is hard, but letting each suspect report which intersection they passed, at what time, makes it much easier to verify through investigation.

If anyone refuses to say, or their reported times and places cannot be matched with surveillance, then the suspicion level is raised.

Ordinary cases might involve two detectives, or a few people from a division and brigade to investigate, but for 60 suspect households, there is some workload. However, in Jiang Yuan’s Accumulated Case Team, the squad already had over 30 members, plus a random allocation of around a score more. Even deploying half, with some stationed to block intersections and do on-site investigations, there’s not much left. So, pairing off in twos or fours, not many suspects remain for each team.

Jiang Yuan followed Mu Zhiyang to investigate the meat sandwich vendor, and then another vendor selling fries and fried chicken. Before they could move forward, they realized the whole street had been questioned, and the remaining two or three vendors were surrounded by multiple police officers.

"Switch to another street?" Jiang Yuan asked.

"No, it’s small, and we all came out at the same time. A small market three kilometers away has almost been fully questioned," Liu Jinghui kept track of the progress from all sides.

Jiang Yuan frowned and looked at Liu Jinghui again, asking, "Not food-related? Related to pharmaceuticals? Chemical plants?"

The benzene acid and acrylamide found before were also used in pharmaceuticals, but in low quantities. It’s unlikely that a person consuming drugs would directly contact it, let alone contact it again with the plastic bags. Jiang Yuan wasn’t sure about the chemical plants either, as even small workshops now knew to wear gloves when handling these chemical materials.

Liu Jinghui replied, "I checked, there are no chemical plants near Jin Mountain using both these raw materials. Even if used together, not necessarily a single person would come into contact with both. I also checked industrial supply stores, none nearby. We can broaden the scope if needed, looking into their sellers and suppliers, but no rush for now..."

"Why not?"

"For vendors who haven’t set up stalls, I’ve sent people to check them out."

"Good." Jiang Yuan nodded. Vendors not showing up on time raised their suspicion levels significantly.

"Stand aside, is this your box?"

In the distance, Xiao Si’s voice rose several notches, carrying across to them.

Jiang Yuan and the others couldn’t help but look over.

They saw Xiao Si standing in front of a pancake stall, just pulling out a box tied with a pale blue plastic bag from under the vendor’s tricycle cover.

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