Chapter 616: Chapter 616: Lu Chuan’s Judgment

After sealing off the scene, when everyone returned to the Criminal Investigation Team again, it was already past nine in the evening.

The crime scene investigation and forensic doctors certainly couldn’t rest; they had to issue reports overnight.

The action team started investigating the victim’s background and identity.

At this point, there was no talk of sleep as the entire Criminal Investigation Team got busy.

The forensic team’s progress was actually relatively quick.

When the body was discovered, although it was somewhat bloody on the surface, once placed on the autopsy table, it was just that.

Wang Changjiang and Shen Yan conducted the autopsy in the usual sequence, examining three cavities before conducting toxicologic and pathologic tests on the organs.

No significant findings were discovered.

The cause of death was confirmed as hypovolemic shock.

Of course, this was a more civilized expression.

In plain terms, the victim was skinned alive and bled to death by the murderer.

In the early stages of the autopsy, Lu Chuan was cooperating with Wang Changjiang and Shen Yan.

He focused on the incision marks on the skin of the corpse and the angle of the murderer’s entry.

The culprit processed the victim’s skin from top to bottom, left to right, cutting through the skin on the chest and limbs.

With Lu Chuan’s level of crime scene investigation, he could roughly determine the suspect’s standing position.

Through data calculations, an approximate height range of the suspect was figured out.

Soon, a busy night passed in various activities.

The next morning at 9:30, Meeting Room One.

Everyone entered with panda eyes, yawning repeatedly at the case analysis meeting.

First, Wang Changjiang represented the forensic doctors in delivering the autopsy report.

"The victim is male, standing 1.7 meters tall, aged between 43 to 46."

"The cause of death was hypovolemic shock, with the time of death being around 3 PM the day before yesterday, which is 3 PM on the 22nd."

"We found no presence of any hallucinogenic or anesthetic substances in the residual blood around."

"The murderer carried out the skinning torture while the victim was fully conscious."

Wang Changjiang’s report was very brief, as the autopsy didn’t reveal much information.

"What about from the crime scene investigation side?"

Qin Yong turned his attention to Lu Chuan.

"The murderer was extremely cautious, wiping out most of their traces at the scene."

"On the warehouse floor, the murderer mopped it and left no fingerprints, wearing gloves during the crime."

"Furthermore, the murderer had a strong awareness of anti-reconnaissance, using a broom from the yard to clean off tire marks on the cement road, finally discarding the broom at the junction between the cement road and main road."

"Last night, we conducted very detailed inspections at the scene, discovering some hair and skin fragments. However, they all belonged to the victim. The murderer likely wore protective clothing or took necessary measures to prevent their skin flakes or hair from falling off at the scene."

Lu Chuan didn’t sleep the previous night, and neither did Old Bai and Yang Sen, as they conducted trace evidence analysis on substances collected from the scene.

Unfortunately, the murderer left no clues.

Of course, in practical terms, one should say there were no findings.

In theory, since the murderer was at the scene, it’s impossible not to leave any traces.

However, these traces were cleaned by the murderer, and even with current trace evidence analysis, not enough information was found to identify the culprit.

But Lu Chuan’s crime scene investigation was not without any gains.

"We found some soil on the mop."

"After analysis and identification, it was found that the soil didn’t match West Mountain’s soil but contained some sea sand."

Sea sand?

"Although the amount was small, it was indeed present. Additionally, our check on the victim’s shoes didn’t show traces of sea sand."

"Thus, it’s probable that this sea sand was brought by the murderer to the scene."

Sea sand...

This could indeed be a clue.

At the very least, it indicated that the perpetrator might have been active by the sea.

However, merely relying on a bit of sea sand, it’s impossible to pinpoint the culprit’s identity or other critical information.

"Any other discoveries?"

Lu Chuan nodded and turned on the projector.

The trace evidence analysis and other tests conducted last night were done by Yang Sen and Old Bai.

While Lu Chuan consistently performed calculations and analyses on data collected from the incision marks on the victim’s skin.

"Everyone, please look. These are some incision marks I collected on the victim’s skin."

"On the one hand, you’ll notice the varying lengths and depths of these incisions; some areas are also damaged."

"This indicates that the perpetrator wasn’t skilled but a novice."

"Also, observe these positions."

Lu Chuan displayed knife wounds at the neck, wrists, and base of the legs to the group.

"These positions are where the perpetrator started peeling the skin and commenced stabbing."

"Actually, the initial stabbing sites have some scrapes and irregular scratches."

"This likely resulted from insufficient force or shaky hands."

"I believe judging from these marks, the offender was also pretty frightened while inflicting harm on the victim."

Everyone listened quietly to Lu Chuan’s analysis.

Although these details seemed unhelpful for solving the case, in truth, such minuscule traces could infer the culprit’s mindset and behavior at that time.

"So, I boldly speculate that this might very well be the murderer’s first time killing."

"However, for a first-time killer, their handling of the scene was very competent."

"The perpetrator was thoughtful and cautious, leaving no footprints, fingerprints, hair, skin flakes at the scene, and even knew to remove their own vehicle tire marks."

"Therefore, I guess the person is not that old, has received systematic and good education, and is quite literate."

Actually, Lu Chuan left out some remarks; based on criminal psychology, the individual is likely extroverted.

Lu Chuan even speculated that there might not be a direct conflict between the victim and the perpetrator.

It’s possible that the murderer attacked the victim due to special reasons.

Lu Chuan had the impression that the assailant might have committed murder to draw police attention.

Special circumstances such as coercion can’t be ruled out either.

But these are just Lu Chuan’s conjectures without any substantial basis, so he omitted them in his report.

"Finally, I conducted some data model analyses based on the angle and force circumstances of these incision marks."

It is Lu Chuan’s forte to apply mathematical models to draw some conclusions from crime scene investigations.

"The murderer’s height is between 1.75 to 1.8 meters, highly likely a young male."

Lu Chuan’s reasoning for this judgment was relatively compelling.

The height was deduced from the victim’s height and the calculated angle of the wound incisions.