Chapter 241 (1/2)
Chapter 241: 241
Ch241 – Starlight Entertainment 03
Yu Hanjiang had seen many crime scenes but this one was really strange . The bathtub was full of ice cubes and the woman in a dressing gown lay in the middle of them . Her face was horrified and her eyes were wide, her eyeb.a.l.l.s protruding out . She was obviously extremely shocked before she died .
This time, the secret room had a modern urban background and Yu Hanjiang was a police officer . He brought a lot of tools when coming to investigate the case . He put on gloves and whispered in Xiao Lou’s ear . “You examine the body first . I will collect the evidence on the spot . ”
Xiao Lou nodded, put on gloves and started working .
Yu Hanjiang walked out of the bathroom and quickly scanned the scene . There was a two meters wide double bed where the sheets were laid out with no creases . However, the owner was wearing a bathrobe . Perhaps she had changed into the bathrobe after entering the bathroom and was killed before she had time to go to bed . Of course, this didn’t rule out the possibility that the murderer deliberately laid out the sheets neatly .
Yu Hanjiang walked over to open the sheets but found no suspicious traces . The hairs on the pillow were picked up using tweezers and placed in a sterile bag to be taken back for inspection .
There was a dressing table that had a width of around 1 . 5 metres by the bed . It was piled with skin care products and there were dozens of lipsticks alone . There was a fas.h.i.+on magazine on the table and a model in a dress posed on the cover . Yu Hanjiang took a closer look and found that the model was the deceased . The fact that she was on the cover of a magazine showed that the deceased was a model or a celebrity .
Yu Hanjiang frowned slightly and took dustings of the fingerprints inside the house with a portable device .
The urban background was very convenient . He could use various professional instruments to a.s.sist in the investigation . However, to his disappointment, in the entire bedroom, only the dressing table had many fingerprints . According to his speculation, they were probably the deceased’s fingerprints .
A few pieces of cotton makeup pads were found in the trash can next to the dressing table with traces of lipstick and foundation . The deceased should’ve sat here to remove makeup before taking a bath .
Yu Hanjiang immediately took the luminol reagent from a colleague and sprayed it on the ground in a circle . He used the characteristics of blood and the luminol reagent to look for blood stains . There was no blood fluorescence reaction on the bedroom floor . The blood stains were only seen in the bathroom and most of it around the bathtub . Obviously, the first crime scene was the bathroom .
The killer was very professional and might’ve been wearing gloves . They left no fingerprints and cleaned up the scene after the crime .
Yu Hanjiang went to the window . The windows were locked from the inside and the curtains were drawn . There were very few residents around this villa and thick blackout curtains in the bedroom . Even if someone pa.s.sed by just outside the villa at the time of the incident, they wouldn’t see what had happened in the bathroom . It would be difficult to find a witness .
Yu Hanjiang quickly completed the investigation of the first scene and went outside to make a circle around the villa .
He wanted to find out if there were any residual hair or fingerprints . As a result, he found many fingerprints in the living room . Yu Hanjiang collected them and prepared to take them back for comparative a.n.a.lysis .
In addition, the two a.s.sistants he brought searched the living room and kitchen and reported some useful clues to him . “Group Leader Yu, seven or eight empty wine bottles were found in the trash can in the kitchen . ”
Yu Hanjiang took a look and nodded . “Bring it back for testing . ”
He also saw traces of red wine on the couch . It must’ve been accidentally spilled while drinking .
The living room was very clean . Yu Hanjiang’s sharp gaze swept over it . A policewoman was taking photos of the scene . He took the camera from the policewoman and took photos of several suspicious areas .
After searching the whole villa, Yu Hanjiang returned to the scene on the third floor .
Xiao Lou was leaning over the corpse to examine it . There were many special forensic instruments in his box . Seeing Group Leader Yu come in, Xiao Lou lowered his voice . “The fatal wound of the deceased is the knife in the heart . The wound here was very deep . The murderer should hate her very much and cruelly tortured her before death . Since the deceased was frozen in ice, it is difficult for me to accurately determine the time of death . ”
Using a post-mortem examination required testing the liver temperature, algor mortis . This was added to the stiffness of the corpse’s muscles, rigor mortis, and the appearance of liver mortis, discoloration due to gravity affecting the pooling of blood, to determine the time of death .
However, now the deceased was frozen in ice cubes in winter and the temperature of the house was also very low . The liver temperature was greatly affected . It was useless to measure liver temperature . In addition, the stiffness of the muscles couldn’t be accurately inferred because of the ice .
Xiao Lou took out a transparent sterile bag from his carry case . “In addition, I found this . ”
Yu Hanjiang took a look and saw that the sterile bag had an unknown substance in it . Xiao Lou explained, “There was a small amount of skin debris in her fingernails . It is possible that she scratched the murderer in the process of struggling . Taking it back for genetic testing might help solve the case . ”
Xiao Lou examined the body very carefully and didn’t let go of the smallest clue .
Yu Hanjiang frowned at the body in the bathtub . “Don’t you think that this scene isn’t quite right?”
Xiao Lou naturally also found this and spoke tacitly . “It really isn’t right . There might be many cuts on her body but the scene isn’t b.l.o.o.d.y at all . It should’ve been cleaned up . There are traces of a cat’s claws on her body . This should’ve been left by the cat next door when he jumped in and accidentally touched the ice cubes around her . Then he fled in a panic . ”
Having said that, Xiao Lou couldn’t help wondering about something . “Where did so many ice cubes come from?”
Yu Hanjiang answered, “I checked the refrigerator . This villa shouldn’t be where the deceased usually lives . There are only some beer and carbonated drinks in the refrigerator . There is no food and no ice cubes in the freezer . Obviously, these ice cubes were deliberately brought by the murderer .
Xiao Lou mused, “It seems the murderer has been planning this for a long time and specifically brought ice to kill her?”
Yu Hanjiang thought about it for a moment and whispered in his ear, “I want to confirm the ident.i.ty of the deceased and what happened in recent days . Later, you will take the evidence back to the appraisal centre for testing . I will visit some of the surrounding residents to see if there are witnesses . ”
Xiao Lou nodded . “Okay . ”
The two people glanced at each other and went downstairs in tacit silence .
The bathroom was located in the master bedroom on the third floor of the villa . The small bathroom window wasn’t locked . If the cat hadn’t suddenly crawled in through the window, the dead woman in the villa might not be noticed for another month .
The murderer froze her body with ice cubes, deliberately turned off the heating in the house to confuse the woman’s death time and didn’t want her dead body to be discovered by the neighbours…
The murderer was extremely calm . Unfortunately for them, they didn’t find that the bathroom window was just closed, not locked . It would’ve never occurred to them that a domestic cat would destroy their plan .
Yu Hanjiang came to the door of the villa and Xiao Wu, the intern police officer, was chatting with the old lady who reported the case . Yu Hanjiang came over and asked, “Auntie, do you know who lives in this villa?”
The old lady shook her head . “I don’t know . My son, daughter-in-law and I have lived here for a year . I have never seen anyone coming back next door and the curtains of the house are always drawn . I thought that no one was living in the villa…”
Yu Hanjiang asked, “Did you hear anything unusual around three or four days ago?”
The old lady thought about it carefully and suddenly said, “By the way, last Tuesday, a car pa.s.sed by downstairs and stopped next door . At that time, I was going to the bathroom in the middle of the night . It was around two or three in the morning . I heard a noise downstairs and opened the curtains to take a look . There were two private cars . ”
Yu Hanjiang wondered, “Do you have an impression of the license plate number?”
The old lady smiled apologetically . “Ah, I am old and have a bad memory . The cars drove very quickly in the middle of the night . I only saw black private cars driving into the yard next door one after another . I didn’t see it clearly . ”