SFTD -Chapter 195 A Severed Thumb (Part 25)

March 4, 2015 — 14:10

When Zhou Hai returned to the center with the others, Fengzi and Xiao Liang had already transported all the body parts back and reassembled them on the autopsy tables. The internal organs and severed heads Zhou Hai’s team had discovered had also been brought in. Tissue samples had already been collected for testing, and the organs of the two victims had been separated.

“Oh wow, you guys moved fast. Can you really tell them apart with the naked eye?” Xu Biao swaggered in with his usual punchable grin, stuffing the last bite of his egg pancake into his mouth. Before Zhou Hai could glare at him, he hurriedly put on a mask.

Fengzi yanked off his gloves and laughed as he punched Xu Biao lightly.

“One victim was fifty-two years old, the other twenty-one. The differences are huge. Besides, their organs were stored separately. You can easily distinguish them from the lungs, liver, and tongue.”

Zhou Hai pulled on gloves and stood beside Fengzi.

“Any suspicious findings from the preliminary examination?”

“Wang Yanming had alcoholic liver disease, though not severe. No problems with the other organs, but it’s obvious he smoked and drank heavily. The stomach contents have been sent for testing, but there’s barely any blood left to collect. Both victims were drained of blood, and even the amount recovered from the heart was extremely limited. Mu Ya’s case is simpler. No obvious pathological lesions. Cause of death still undetermined.”

Zhou Hai glanced at the two preserved heads.

“You opened the skulls already?”

Fengzi nodded.

“Nothing abnormal.”

“Did you examine the trachea and esophagus?”

Fengzi shook his head and quickly pulled Xiao Liang over to another stainless-steel table, where they cut open Mu Ya’s trachea and esophagus for inspection.

Zhou Hai bent down beside Mu Ya’s head and examined the face carefully with a magnifying glass. Her eyes were slightly open, with congestion beneath the conjunctiva. Something resembling a fiber flickered inside the nasal cavity. Zhou Hai used tweezers to remove it and inspected it closely.

It looked like down stuffing from a winter jacket.

At that moment, Fengzi also made a discovery.

“Boss, found a fiber here too. Looks like duck down.”

Zhou Hai nodded.

“Then we’ve found the cause of death. Mu Ya died from mechanical asphyxiation.”

Xiao Liang looked confused. The symptoms didn’t fully match what he had seen in textbooks.

“But Brother Hai, there aren’t any petechial hemorrhages on her organs.”

Xu Biao bumped Xiao Liang with his shoulder.

“Idiot. They drained all the blood. Where would the bleeding come from?”

Zhou Hai shifted his gaze to Mu Ya’s mouth. One upper canine tooth on the left side was missing, leaving only a fractured cross-section behind. The corresponding area of the upper lip was damaged as well. It was likely postmortem damage—if the nerve had been exposed while alive, the pain would have been unbearable.

Moving to the neck wound, he noticed a horizontal knife cut at the location of the carotid artery. That was clearly where the bloodletting had been performed. The dismemberment had occurred afterward.

Sure enough, there were ligature marks around Mu Ya’s ankles. But something about them felt strange.

Examining the crisscrossing marks, Zhou Hai took a bandage and traced along the pattern. It formed a sailor’s knot.

Ordinary people rarely tied knots that complicated.

Wang Yanming’s corpse was far more straightforward. Severe ligature marks encircled his neck—also from a sailor’s knot—but he hadn’t died from strangulation.

He had been dismembered alive.

His hands and feet were chopped off first, then his neck was bound and he was hung from an iron hook to bleed out.

Zhou Hai picked up Mu Ya’s hand. Her fingers were long and slender, with somewhat long nails. As he rotated the magnifying glass, he noticed traces of skin debris lodged beneath the nail beds.

He quickly collected the nail clippings and debris into a container and handed it to Xiao Liang.

“Xiao Liang, record this: Mu Ya died from mechanical asphyxiation. Wang Yanming’s cause of death was hemorrhagic shock. Send these items for testing. Both victims have ligature marks showing the same sailor’s knot. Let’s continue with the organs.”

Zhou Hai walked over to the table where Fengzi and the others stood. The trachea and esophagus had already been opened, and the stomach contents removed. There was very little material left, and everything was already in a semi-liquid digestive state.

The victims had likely died five to six hours after eating.

The other organs showed nothing unusual, but when Zhou Hai saw the victim’s vagina and uterus, he froze.

The vagina and uterus had both been cut open.

And there were obvious scratch marks all over them.

Actual scratches—as though someone had repeatedly clawed at them with fingernails. The vaginal lining showed extensive congestion and tearing, indicating injuries sustained while alive.

Clearly, after Mu Ya lost consciousness from suffocation, the killer had used a hard object to clean out the vaginal canal.

Was he trying to destroy evidence of what he had done?

Or did he find the victim “dirty” and want to clean her?

Inside the sliced-open uterus, it was easy to see that the endometrium had been scraped clean with a knife. However, there was no vital reaction, meaning this had been done after death and dismemberment.

Using a magnifying glass, Zhou Hai carefully examined the cervix. Fortunately, only part of the surface had been sliced open; the cut did not penetrate completely.

Zhou Hai spread open the cervical opening.

As he lifted the reconstructed tissue flap, a thin strand of mucus stretched between the two cuts.

He immediately switched on the light attached to his glasses and scraped the mucus onto a microscope slide.

Xiao Liang hurried over.

“I’ll photograph it under the electron microscope first and display it on the monitor before sending it for testing.”

A moment later—

“Brother Hai, it’s ready.”

Everyone looked up at the monitor.

Xu Biao blurted out immediately: “My god… are those sperm cells?”

All four of them became visibly excited. Xiao Liang hurried off carrying the slide and the rest of the samples that needed testing.

Removing his gloves, Zhou Hai checked the time.

“The lab work will take a while. Let’s head over to Chu Menghan’s place. Fengzi, bring the burn ointment. The blisters on her hands have probably burst.”

March 4 — 17:10, Changhe Criminal Investigation Division

By the time Zhou Hai and Xu Biao arrived, Zhu Mingtao had already been under interrogation for more than two hours.

In the observation room beside the interrogation chamber, Captain Liu stood before the two-way mirror. Seeing them arrive, he beckoned.

“Come take a look.”

Zhou Hai walked over.

“How’s it going?”

“When he heard the victim was Mu Ya, he reacted with shock at first. But afterward, no matter what we asked or who tried to pressure him, he refused to speak. Doesn’t move, doesn’t react. That kind of mental composure is rare. What’s your assessment?”

Zhou Hai pulled out an evidence envelope.

“These are the crime scene photos taken at Zhu Mingtao’s house. Even though the lab results aren’t back yet, this is already extremely strong evidence. If he still refuses to talk, things will become impossible to explain.”

“You mean show them to him?”

Zhou Hai nodded.

Captain Liu flipped through the photos. Even he found them deeply disturbing. He handed the stack to Xu Biao.

“Let’s try it.”

Then Liu glanced sideways at Zhou Hai, narrowing his eyes with suspicion.

“What? You have a different theory?”

Zhou Hai shook his head.

“I’m not sure. But the evidence we have now completely contradicts the original design of this case.

The killer used text messages to provoke the police;
left notes inside intestines dumped in the sewer;
created surveillance footage to disguise himself as someone else;
used WeChat to manipulate others into disposing of body parts;
and finally arranged the victims’ heads and organs neatly inside a refrigerator.

How is anyone supposed to make sense of that?

Unless the killer has severe dissociative personality disorder. But even that conflicts with the obsessive cleanliness and manic tendencies we’ve observed.

I’ve thought myself in circles and still can’t figure it out.”

Captain Liu fell silent.

Zhou Hai’s words had clearly shaken him. Sometimes, the evidence seen directly with one’s eyes was not necessarily the real evidence.

So then—who was the actual killer?

Xu Biao carried the photos into the interrogation room and handed them to Chu Menghan.

Without warning, Chu Menghan thrust the photos directly in front of Zhu Mingtao.

The previously expressionless Zhu Mingtao instantly widened his eyes.

Hearing that someone had died and actually seeing the condition of the corpse were two entirely different kinds of shock.

He immediately recognized the background in the photos as his own apartment.

But what were those things inside the refrigerator?

Especially when he saw the enlarged photo of Mu Ya’s severed head.

He completely lost composure.

His nostrils flared, breathing turned rapid, and he clutched the edge of the table. His face turned pale as cold sweat poured down, looking as though he might collapse at any moment.

His gaze darted repeatedly between the photographs and Chu Menghan.

Only then did Chu Menghan put the photos away.

“Alright. Can you now tell me whether you knew the victim?”

Zhu Mingtao frowned and slowly raised his eyes.

“She was a third-year student in the Class of 2012, majoring in laboratory sciences. I was the class advisor.”

After that sentence, he fell silent once more.

“And then? How did you kill her? Or rather… why were her head and internal organs found inside your refrigerator?”