According to his experience, when encountering someone on a narrow road, taking advantage of their hesitation and restraining them first can avoid 90% of the danger. Moreover, surprise attacks often have miraculous effects, making it easy to break through the opponent's psychological defenses. He has more than once "blown up" the other party's secrets in the moment of taking someone.
But this time, Sheng Ge made a mistake.
The suspicious worker took the initiative to explain before Sheng could speak up.
During the interrogation, he said that he had returned to the rental house after dinner the day before, and three colleagues who were with him could testify. And his movement trajectory is completely opposite to the direction of the crime scene.
He admitted that he had fantasized about being with Xia Xiaolan, but at most he joked with other colleagues and never dared to talk to girls alone. He said, 'I know they don't like me.'"
Why are you panicking when you see me? "Sheng Ge asked with some frustration.
There are rumors in our hometown that people who have been to the scene of a murder may be accompanied by ghosts. I'm afraid Xiaolan will come after me
This statement made Sheng Ge feel a bit ridiculous, but he couldn't laugh. Mistakenly identifying the suspect is a significant blow to his previously valued intuition in handling cases.
Perhaps it was precisely because of this failure that Sheng Ge increased his efforts and began a real "big move" - he included nearby homeless people and drug addicts in the scope of investigation in one breath. According to the conventional investigation approach, there are no direct suspects, and suspects with similar criminal records are the focus.
But as a result, the investigation becomes increasingly difficult. Because many of these people carry criminal records, they always evade answering questions.
My master once told me that investigation and forensic experimentation are different. The essence of investigation lies in speed and striking hard. We need to be slow, and when conducting experiments, we must follow the steps step by step. Every step cannot be omitted, and doing it well in one go is the true speed"
After extracting the physical evidence from Xia Xiaolan, I immediately began the inspection. The most crucial physical evidence in this case now is in a small glass tube, which contains the answer I am looking for.
Add water, stir, and insert the test strip. The liquid gradually infiltrated the test strip, and two deep purple bands slowly appeared - positive, with semen stains left behind.
Great, everything is just as I thought. Male sperm spots were found in the girl's vagina, and DNA from the same male was also detected in her chest.
Through the mask, I felt like I was exhaling and my body relaxed. Next, as long as you compare this result with the DNA database and find the corresponding person, the case will be closed.
But when I entered the test results as usual, there was only a blank space on the screen: there were no matching people.
The killer's data is not in Curry, this guy actually has no criminal record.
My comparison failed, I can only rely on Sheng Ge's investigation.
I told Shengge this news. On the other end of the phone, he scolded the interrogation subject to speak softly, then pulled the receiver closer and said that he would find the suspect as soon as possible and send me samples for comparison. After that, he hung up the phone.
What Sheng Ge didn't tell me is that he also encountered big trouble - his intuition for handling cases seemed to have malfunctioned, and he found nothing in the investigation.
Sheng Ge decided to expand the scope of investigation.
He drew a circle on the map, with a radius of 2 kilometers covering almost the entire furniture factory industrial area, and hundreds or thousands of rental houses nearby, involving nearly ten thousand people.
This kind of investigation is like searching for a needle in a haystack, and the case is gradually deviating from our expected direction.
As we approach the end of the year, the two previous rape cases have yet to come to an end, and this murder case using the same method has also reached a stalemate, with everyone holding their breath.
The more clueless he is, the more Sheng Ge seems to have gone crazy. He started using police small vans to pull people back one by one, as if he was going to turn the entire factory area upside down.
Checking the rental houses in the factory area is probably the worst time of the day for Sheng Ge's temper. Most of the people living in the rented house are workers, and Sheng Ge has to rush them to check when they are at home, either getting up early or staying up late at night.
Those days, these big men who were clearly police officers were living like thieves. They were squatting downstairs in the rental building, knowing as soon as they turned off the lights that they were asleep, they were sure to be inside. Sheng Ge knocked on every door with his little brothers.
The workers who are being investigated often have a lot of resentment, and those who go to bed early are not only woken up, but also thrown into the car one by one, feeling dizzy and disoriented.
They were taken back to the police station for fingerprint collection, and even had their fingers pricked and blood drawn, which was a slow and tedious process. The police station is a distance away from the factory area, and there are no buses available in the late night. The factory area is remote, and there is not a single taxi in sight for half a day. After the investigation, the workers crowded at the entrance of the police station and asked tremblingly, "How can we go back"
I asked Sheng if he could arrange for someone to send them back. After finishing speaking, Shengge finally realized and called on the security team to send the person away.
During that time, almost all the males within the scope of investigation were brought back, and I had to stab the hands of forty to fifty workers overnight.
In previous cases, I only needed to compare with the suspect, and investigation has always been the job of Sheng Ge and his team. Now, the increased workload out of thin air is making me very exhausted, and to make matters worse, I have noticed a gradual change in my mindset: the more samples I test, the more anxious I become.
The "complete" suspect data in my hand helped me solve 26 murder cases, why is it now malfunctioning?
I always think that a murderer who can commit a serial crime should have a criminal record and should be recorded in the database. Sometimes I would suddenly be stunned, worried that the killer might have been missed during the initial investigation, otherwise why hasn't there been a result for so long.
Unintentionally hearing news can also make my heart beat. A forensic colleague made a mistake in testing and mistakenly identified the suspect. I quickly turned over the physical evidence of Xia Xiaolan's case and re examined it one by one. The results were exactly the same as before, but I was not happy.
More and more people are being recruited for collection. Everyone understands in their hearts that the more suspicion they have of themselves, the less confidence they have in the case, and we have started to be blind.
Just as we were struggling, a sudden alarm gave us a boost.
One evening, in a small park near the scene of Xia Xiaolan's murder, another girl was robbed and raped. Fortunately, she is still alive!
The murderer who has been tormenting us in the dark for so long is finally about to show up.
When we arrived at the park, the sun had already set, and the sparse and dim yellow street lights made the small paths in the park appear particularly quiet.
Following the lead security officer, I saw the girl who narrowly escaped death by the edge of the forest.
That is the calmest person I have ever encountered. The girl looked only sixteen or seventeen years old, with red eyes, sitting quietly on the stone steps. Her clothes were covered in dust, and she was slowly picking weeds and fallen leaves from her long hair.
I crouched down and inquired about the details of the case.
In the evening, the girl was taking a walk alone in the park when three young people around 20 years old stopped her. After stealing cash and her phone, one of the men dragged her deep into the woods and violated her. When the other two attempted to continue, they were discovered by passersby and the three subsequently fled the park.
Is it actually a small gang that committed the crime? Are there three people?
The girl described in detail the clothing characteristics of several criminals, even remembering the letter pattern on one of the men's clothes clearly.
In a state of panic, it is not easy to remember a person's general appearance and clothing, but it is rare for a girl to remain calm after being violated. Although there is a public restroom not far away, she did not go to clean up any traces on her body, so all the physical evidence was well preserved.
When my female colleague and I took her to the hospital for examination, she held the girl's hand and told her, 'The evidence is there, these bastards can't escape.'"
That evening, based on the video at the entrance of the park, Sheng Ge and his team found the whereabouts of those three people, and then caught one of them in an internet cafe.
Three young people are from the same hometown. After coming from their hometown, they haven't found any formal jobs and don't have any other skills. They wander around the urban village all day long.
Before Shengge could demonstrate his interrogation skills, the person we caught shouted for a confession, not only confessing the entire crime, but even revealing the incident of secretly watching a girl take a shower in a rented house.
He didn't mention a word about the murder case of Xia Xiaolan.
The last stick is in my hands again, and everyone is waiting for the DNA comparison results. I silently pray in my heart, hoping that this time it can be like the previous 26 times
When inputting data into the database, my hands trembled a bit.
But the result disappointed everyone, as the DNA of the suspect caught did not match the one left by the perpetrator at the scene of the murder. This was just a rape case unrelated to the Xia Xiaolan case.
No matter how urgent, evidence is evidence. We let the murderer slip away.
The smell of smoke on Sheng Ge's body is getting stronger and stronger, his beard is scruffy, and his dark circles are layered one after another. I know, we are worried about the same thing.
As the end of the year approaches, all the workers have to go home. If the killer escapes at this time, we may never have a chance to catch him in our lifetime.
That is our final deadline and also a hurdle we must overcome.
The New Year's atmosphere is getting stronger and stronger, factories are gradually shutting down, rental buildings are also closing down one after another, and workers returning home with large bags of luggage are coming one after another.
The workers returning home dispersed in groups, and I even wanted to stand at the forefront of the crowd, open my arms, and stop them. But the crowd couldn't see the end at a glance, and I couldn't do that either. I could only watch helplessly as the hope of solving the case was taken away with the crowd.
All I can do is try my best to see and remember every face.
They are not sure if they will return to this place next year, and we are not sure if the killer is mixed in with the returning crowd and will never come back.
The time left for us is getting less and less.
Sheng Ge has already set his sights on people with "red eyes", and every now and then he goes out to investigate, picking up "DNA" that has been left behind everywhere.
The most typical incident was when a group of workers walked out of the shed with their front foot, and then he pulled me into the house with his back foot, packing up the cigarette butts that the workers had just thrown away one by one.
I calculated the quantity of these physical evidence and couldn't help but ask Sheng Ge, 'Do you mean to bring them all back for comparison?'"
The number of DNA samples tested in this case has exceeded 300. If we continue to do this, even if we invest all the technical funds of the team for the whole year, we cannot persist for three months.
Sheng leaned against the door frame and watched as I put cigarette butts into the evidence bag one by one. He said, 'Others are already dead, can we not fight hard? I'll talk to the captain about the money.'"
We all know that the case has reached a dead end, and the effect of our actions is minimal, but we cannot stop.
There are only four people left in the Xia Xiaolan case investigation team, and the end of the year is just around the corner.
Sheng Ge registered almost all the information of the people near the crime scene, and the list was thick with thousands of names on it. He plans to check the list of workers who have returned home after the New Year, to see which ones have not returned, and then focus on investigating. This needle in a haystack like approach became our only choice at that time.
We have repeatedly depicted the image of the killer and speculated on his physical characteristics, but the more we study, the more blurry the killer's appearance becomes. He is just an ordinary person with an ordinary face.
As soon as the Spring Festival holiday ended and the factory had just started construction, Sheng Ge began to check against the large list compiled before the New Year. However, after checking two factories, he was stopped by the team leader.
The external investigation brothers who followed up on the Xia Xiaolan case have all been involved in new cases, except for him who still holds onto the old case from last year.
Last year's case was a problem, but this year's case is not a problem. There was a car robbery in this district today, and someone was killed in that district yesterday. Xia Xiaolan's case needs to be dealt with, but Li Xiaolan's case doesn't? We're all focusing on old cases, how can we solve new ones
Sheng Ge stuffed the list under the cabinet, and there were more truths waiting for him to uncover.
Later, Sheng Ge invited me to dinner and after three rounds of drinking, he suddenly leaned over and rested on my shoulder, staring in confusion and saying, "That kid will definitely show his head again! I believe you, I can definitely catch him!" After finishing, he looked up and drank half a bottle.
The reality is, no one can say for sure whether a case can be solved or when it will be solved. The murderer did not appear as we expected, he disappeared.
But the method proposed by Sheng Ge may be correct.
Three years have passed in a blink of an eye. When I was studying at the Forensic Examination and Appraisal Center of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, there happened to be a rape and murder case in their jurisdiction, and the perpetrator left semen stains on the scene.
The police have designated a range and deployed thousands of police officers to collect DNA samples from 5000 males within the investigation area.
Every night at 10 o'clock, forensic experts will receive the DNA samples collected on the same day on time and test the results overnight. Thousands of people worked tirelessly to cooperate, which was unimaginable to me before.
The 'DNA Crowd Strategy' has been effective. On the fourteenth day of testing, after comparing over 3800 samples, the perpetrator appeared.
I am moved by their persistence and dedication. Before this, I thought that investigating hundreds of DNA samples in the Xia Xiaolan case was already a great effort. Now it seems that our courage is far from enough.
I began to believe in Sheng Ge's proposal for a comprehensive list screening plan.
Actually, I had already started trying his plan before this. Once I happened to pass by the pedestrian bridge near the scene of Xia Xiaolan's case and saw more than ten movers squatting at the bottom of the bridge waiting for work. These people are active in the factory area, but they are not permanent employees of the factory and are not registered with the factory, resulting in high mobility.
After thinking for a while, I started to look at the motorcycle workers and small truck drivers at the intersection like Sheng Ge did when he was investigating: their eyes were not right, could they have also entered the factory area?
As I watched, I suddenly felt the need to quickly call Sheng Ge and ask if he had investigated such personnel. After listening, Sheng Ge just smiled and said, "You're stunned. Everyone looks like a murderer
After returning from Beijing, I was the only one still following up on the Xia Xiaolan case. I have re examined all the physical evidence clues in the case: the DNA information of the murderer was verified by me, the data was recorded in the database by me, and even the contact phone number left in the database is mine.
This case has become my true 'Tianzi No.1 case'.
In 2015, we began to systematically clean up unsolved cases, and those thick kraft paper file bags were able to be seen again, including mine.
The intermittent cleaning work has led to the detection of more than ten unsolved cases, most of which were solved through DNA and fingerprint comparison.
As one murderer after another was arrested, I issued authentication certificates for each file.After the case was closed and archived, the file bag of Xia Xiaolan's case was slowly pushed to the back of the long list of unsolved cases, and then I moved it to the front again.
The parties will lie, witnesses will forget, videos will be overwritten, but the DNA information of the killer will not change. As long as it is there, even if it is 10 or 20 years later, I can still find him out.
I am waiting for an opportunity.
In those years, I devoted more energy to solving minor cases to accumulate more DNA samples and constantly update the data of investigation personnel.
The area near the crime scene has become my primary focus for collection. Whenever there are similar cases of highway robbery and rape in the surrounding area, I will immediately compare them.
Later, whenever the brothers who were on a business trip to other provinces were on a business trip, I would ask them to bring the information to the local comparison. I always worried that the data of the murderer had not been entered into the database in time.
Every time a new DNA testing technology is applied to forensic work, I will also try this case.
I always think of what Brother Sheng said: the murderer will still come out.
That day, it finally came.
One day in March 2019, I just came back from a short nap, and the phone on my desk kept vibrating. It was a call with a call-out location of Guizhou.
After briefly introducing his identity, the person on the other end of the phone said something that I had been waiting for 10 years - "We have physical evidence of a series of robberies and rapes, which is more similar to the DNA of the killer in the Xiaolan case in 2008."
I suddenly put down the cup and asked about the case while quickly opening the webpage of the DNA database.
It has been 10 years, 4 months and 8 days since Xia Xiaolan was killed.
The case that repeatedly appeared in my dreams finally turned around.
Although his specific identity is still unknown, the Guizhou police have already locked in the range of the killer's residence and determined the killer's appearance and body shape. The key details of the always-blurred face have finally been outlined.
I asked about the case in Guizhou in detail, and the other party simply sent the DNA profile of the physical evidence.Upon seeing the DNA profile, I was finally convinced that the DNA information detected from the physical evidence at the scene had not let me down.After 10 years of waiting, I finally touched his tail.
I held back my excitement and dialed Sheng's phone, shouting, "The DNA of the killer in the Xiaolan case in 2008 matches the case in Guizhou!"
There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone, probably because he was still chewing on my words, and then suddenly came a voice with a two-tone rise from Sheng: "That case? It's solved?"
Before I could reply, Sheng had already hung up on me. Within two minutes, the door to my office was pushed open and he rushed in.
Sheng took the file from me and found my own investigation notes written at the bottom of the cabinet, as well as the thick list.
Ten years later, we once again embarked on the road of chasing the killer, this time it was just me and Sheng.
Sheng flew to Guizhou at the first time, he felt that his intuition was back.
He and the local police, in plain clothes, found the small farmhouse on the hillside.The courtyard gate of the stone wall was slightly ajar. Sheng stood by the gate, his handcuffs in his pocket causing his pants to droop slightly. He took two deep breaths and tightened the belt around his waist.He has been waiting for this moment for 10 years.
Gently pushing open the courtyard door, a dirty-faced little boy turned his head and stared blankly as Sheng and his friends entered.At the door of the main house, an old man was dozing off. The house was empty and there was no one else.
Sheng and his team were disappointed.
The old man said that his son and daughter-in-law had just left home two days ago to go back to Guangdong to work, leaving him and his little grandson alone at home.
Sheng suddenly felt a bit funny. He had flown thousands of miles to Guizhou, but the killer left here on the same day and took a train to Guangdong.
Afterwards, they collected the DNA of the suspect's father and tested it overnight. The results of the information comparison showed that it was a perfect match.
The data that had been lying quietly in the database for 10 years finally became a shackle around the murderer's neck.The male head of this family is the murderer who killed Xia Xiaolan by the river 10 years ago.
Sheng took a flight back the next day, but it seemed that this case was destined to leave him some regrets.He had just gotten off the plane when he received news that the murderer had been arrested by the colleagues of the criminal police team.The place where the person was arrested is less than 4 kilometers away from the place where Xia Xiaolan was killed.
The murderer not only didn't leave at that time, but also worked in that industrial area for most of the past ten years.
That year, after killing Xia Xiaolan, he remained in the nearby furniture factory to work because he did not manage to steal any money.Sheng investigated the furniture factory where he worked, but he was mixed in with the workers and did not attract Sheng's attention.