Diary of a Criminal Investigator

The body has been brought back from the scene, and the forensic doctor from the Binzhou City Criminal Investigation Team is conducting the autopsy.

Lu Chuan is also working tirelessly.

The first task is fingerprint analysis.

There were quite a few fingerprints collected at the scene.

There are also many footprints.

But relying on just Lu Chuan to conduct identification and analysis, it’s impossible to finish even by the morning after next, let alone by tomorrow morning.

The Crime Scene Investigation office of the Binzhou City Criminal Investigation Team has three people.

Their abilities are actually quite good, comparable to Old Yang and Old Bai.

"Let’s divide the work. I’ll preprocess these fingerprints first, and then you can conduct the comparative analysis."

A total of 108 sets of fingerprints were collected from the crime scene. If Lu Chuan were to analyze each one, it would undoubtedly take a long time; hence, he decides to preprocess these fingerprints first.

This approach not only improves work efficiency but also increases accuracy.

The fingerprints preprocessed by Lu Chuan are much easier to identify compared to the original ones.

"No problem, the three of us can handle it."

Wang Hao knows Lu Chuan’s skills.

If the fingerprints processed by Lu Chuan can’t be matched, then it’s likely that no one could match them.

Lu Chuan has two tasks to complete.

The first is footprint identification and analysis.

Lu Chuan discovered five sets of different footprint traces at the crime scene.

However, it’s unfortunate that these footprints were left by slippers.

Compared to barefoot footprints or those left by regular shoes, footprints left by slippers are more challenging to analyze.

The most significant reason is the inability to determine the height-to-body proportions of the victim from the slipper prints.

If this cannot be confirmed, there will be a significant error in estimating body weight.

Fortunately, Lu Chuan made an important discovery at the scene.

Next to the shoe cabinet at the entrance, there were three pairs of slippers placed in total.

Lu Chuan conducted a bloodstain test on these slippers.

He found that one pair of slippers had traces of cleaned blood.

Although the naked eye could no longer detect it, this could be easily confirmed through test strips.

This is the most significant clue Lu Chuan has found so far.

The victim was killed while wearing slippers and collapsed on the living room sofa, with the slippers soaked in blood on the ground.

Thus, the slippers at the entrance with traces of blood indicate that they must belong to the perpetrator.

This means the killer entered the victim’s room wearing those slippers, and after the murder, cleaned them at the sink because they were stained with blood.

Of course, it’s likely that the suspect cleaned other items as well, in addition to the slippers.

This is also why Lu Chuan found traces of blood in the pipes under the sink.

Lu Chuan is now identifying these bloodstains to confirm whether they belong to the victim.

Moreover, Lu Chuan made another significant discovery near the sink.

A half-barefoot footprint!

Indeed, after confirming the suspect had cleaned the slippers, Lu Chuan carefully examined the area around the sink again.

Since the suspect would need to remove the slippers to clean them,

it’s hard to believe, even if they were overly cautious, taking off one slipper at a time, they wouldn’t place their bare foot on the ground during the cleaning process.

Sure enough, Lu Chuan found a half-barefoot footprint.

It’s a barefoot print, not one covered by socks.

This is a great help to Lu Chuan for the next footprint identification and analysis!

Barefoot footprints provide much more crucial information about an individual’s height, weight, and other basic information compared to regular shoe footprints.

In addition to this task, Lu Chuan needs to conduct identification and analysis of the trace evidence collected from the scene.

However, since there is no appropriate equipment in Binzhou City, Lu Chuan has reported to Li Donglin that the items will be sent to the Provincial Technical Identification Center.

They will conduct tests overnight there, but the results won’t be available until around noon tomorrow at the earliest.

Another task is reconstructing the crime scene.

The victim was killed in the living room on the sofa. From the blood spatter at the scene, the spatial relationship between the perpetrator and the victim can be partially reconstructed.

Because after the murder, the suspect didn’t clean the floor, so the numerous blood drips, spatter, and spray patterns remain very clear.

This allows Lu Chuan to reconstruct the situation at the crime scene based on the shape of the bloodstains.

Moreover, the traces of dripping blood can also assist barefoot footprint analysis to deduce some basic physical features of the killer.

Time quickly passed.

"Captain Lu, the fingerprint part is almost done. The fingerprints we collected have been identified. Apart from two fingerprints on the door that matched two deliverymen, the others belong to the victim and his wife."

At 3:30 in the morning, the fingerprint identification and matching were finally completed.

However, they didn’t acquire much useful information.

Lu Chuan had anticipated this outcome, knowing that the killer could eliminate all three victims and would surely avoid making such a basic mistake.

"Were the previous three crime scenes similar?"

Wang Hao yawned, "Pretty much. We collected a lot of fingerprints, but none of them were useful."

"The suspect must have worn gloves once inside the scene."

"Captain Lu, how’s your side? Is the footprint identification done?"

Although the bare footprint was only about half, less than 2/3, Lu Chuan had already conducted a detailed data analysis based on that footprint, and the results were ready.

"That’s done. I’m mainly doing bloodstain identification analysis now, and it’ll be done soon. I can report once it’s daylight."

Though physically exhausted, Lu Chuan remains mentally excited.

The bloodstain and footprint analyses complement each other, providing Lu Chuan with valuable clues.

"That’s great, Captain Lu! Is there anything we can assist with?"

Wang Hao and the other two crime scene investigators approached.

Although they haven’t rested much this week, today is relatively better.

At least, the fingerprint identification was much easier.

"I just have some data calculations left. You can rest for a while; you haven’t slept much this week, right?"

Lu Chuan noticed during the day that Wang Hao and the others had bloodshot eyes and seemed utterly exhausted.

Considering that there had been three murder cases, just the crime scene investigation could tire a person out, not to mention going back to analyze and make sense of the clues collected.

Wang Hao chuckled wryly, "Who can sleep? With three murder cases, if the Major Crimes Unit doesn’t come, we’d be up till we drop."

"Captain Lu, I won’t be polite then," Wang Hao turned, "I’m going to catch up on some sleep, or I might drop dead."

In the past few days, they’ve wanted to catch up on sleep but couldn’t, with Gao Xiang constantly monitoring them nearby.

How could they sleep?