Chapter 1051: Surveying the Scene

Eleven cases, and the modus operandi in each one is highly similar.

But the fingerprints and footprints found by the county branch at each crime scene are not from the same person—they belong to eleven different people respectively.

And these eleven people can all be found in real life, and every one of them has a clear alibi.

Besides the name Red-clothed Killer, many people also call this killer the Ghost Killer.

Everyone only skimmed through the case files, then the entire Major Crimes Unit set out for Dongzhou City.

They didn’t go to the Dongzhou City Criminal Investigation Team for another meeting; Li Donglin and the others led the Major Crimes Unit straight to the crime scene.

The Spring Festival might be over, but the holiday hadn’t ended yet. It should have been bustling and lively, yet there wasn’t a single person on the street.

"The crime scene is just up ahead, inside the alley entrance."

Dongzhou City Criminal Investigation Team Captain Zhou Baoguo’s expression was grim.

The Dongzhou City serial murder case is a sword hanging over the head of every successive captain of the Dongzhou City Criminal Investigation Team.

Since the case broke out 15 years ago, every time another murder occurred, the team captain had to be replaced.

Zhou Baoguo is the eleventh captain of the Criminal Investigation Team since the Dongzhou City serial murder case first began.

The previous ten captains of the team were all directly removed from their posts because the case had not been solved.

And not just them—the deputy chief in charge of criminal investigation, and even the bureau chief, have been replaced multiple times.

So compared to the ordinary citizens of Dongzhou City, the killer in this serial case carries an even more special meaning within the police system.

After all, this is a case under direct supervision by the ministry, and over fifteen years, eleven people have died...

This already qualifies as a major, nationally shocking case.

The last time Lu Chuan heard of a similar case was many years ago—the Baiyin serial murders.

That killer’s methods were likewise extremely brutal, and he targeted women specifically.

Zhou Baoguo knew that if this case couldn’t be solved this time, he would end up just like the ten captains of the Criminal Investigation Team before him.

"The place where the crime occurred is called North Third Lane off Jianguo Road."

Zhou Baoguo continued to describe the basic situation at the time of the incident: "The person who reported it was a sanitation worker who got up in the morning to clean."

Lu Chuan had already read the relevant files: the sanitation worker has a habit of picking out bottles and plastic when cleaning the garbage bins in the morning, so he can collect and sell them to earn a bit of extra money.

It was when he opened a black plastic bag that he found a severed finger inside, so he called the police.

"Has the source of the black plastic bag been traced?"

Li Donglin asked.

Zhou Baoguo shook his head. "There are quite a few self-built houses in Second Lane off Qiangguo Road. The garbage is tossed directly out from these houses, and there are no surveillance cameras inside. So who exactly dumped this garbage is still unclear for now."

While Zhou Baoguo was answering Li Donglin’s question, Lu Chuan had already put on gloves and started examining the area around the garbage heap.

The Dongzhou City Criminal Investigation Team isn’t all useless drunks—in fact, you could say that among all the criminal investigation teams in the province, the Dongzhou team’s capability ranks near the top.

After the case broke, the Dongzhou City Criminal Investigation Team immediately swung into action, screening everyone nearby and checking the surveillance at both ends of the alley.

But according to the results recorded in the system, they found nothing suspicious.

It was the second day of the Lunar New Year. Every household was celebrating the Spring Festival. There were more people on the streets during the day, but very few at night.

The garbage in Second Lane off Jianguo Road is cleaned once every morning at 6:00 a.m.

Each time, a dedicated garbage truck comes over, compresses all the trash in the bins, and cleans them out.

"We carefully reviewed all the people who appeared in the surveillance footage within the 24 hours leading up to the discovery of the crime, but we didn’t turn up anything significant."

The black plastic bag in the garbage bin should have appeared there after the previous cleaning—that is, after the morning cleanup on the first day of the Lunar New Year—otherwise it wouldn’t have been discovered by the sanitation worker in the early hours of the second day.

In other words, the suspect must have thrown the garbage bag into the bin sometime between 6:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day and the early morning when the sanitation worker came out to work on the second day.

"We’ve investigated every single person living in Second Lane off Jianguo Road, but we still haven’t found anything unusual."

This was also the most important reason why Zhou Baoguo and the others decided to immediately report the case to the provincial Major Crimes Unit.

The killer had actually placed a finger inside that black plastic bag and then tossed it into this garbage bin.

That means he must have been here in person, and anyone who shows up in this alley either appears as a stranger caught on camera, or lives in Second Lane off Jianguo Road—there’s no third possibility.

So Zhou Baoguo and his team adopted a clumsy but sure method: they screened every single person living in Second Lane off Jianguo Road.

Unfortunately, they didn’t discover anything.

Three days after the incident—between the second and the fifth day of the Lunar New Year—someone at the North Suburb landfill reported finding the corpse of a woman in red clothing, and the entire Dongzhou City Criminal Investigation Team’s focus shifted completely to Second Lane off Jianguo Road.

More than two hundred people practically worked around the clock, conducting thorough background checks and door-to-door inquiries on the residents of Second Lane off Jianguo Road, but after three days they still came up empty-handed.

This wasn’t logical!

Zhou Baoguo and his people had already reviewed all the surveillance at both ends of Second Lane off Jianguo Road. Apart from the residents living in the alley, there were 36 strangers who passed through the alley on the day of the crime.

All thirty-six were just ordinary passersby, but they also had the opportunity to toss a black plastic garbage bag into the bin. So these thirty-six people became key targets in Zhou Baoguo’s investigation as well.

"In theory, the suspect must be among the residents of Second Lane off Jianguo Road or those thirty-six people."

This was the narrowest scope the Dongzhou City Criminal Investigation Team had managed to pin down for the Red-clothed Killer in all these years.

Lu Chuan had also looked over the full list of people—593 in total.

As long as the suspect doesn’t literally have wings and isn’t a ghost, then he has to be among these 593 people.

Unfortunately, after several days of investigation, Zhou Baoguo’s side still hadn’t made any substantial progress.

Listening to Zhou Baoguo’s report, Lu Chuan mentally reviewed what he’d just read in the case files, then compared it against the scene as he examined it.

Second Lane off Jianguo Road is a four-meter-wide alley, a one-way street. Vehicles can only enter from the east entrance and exit from the west, and parking is not allowed inside.

So the residents here rarely drive in and out; instead, the entrances of every household are crowded with parked electric scooters.

The garbage bin is located in the middle section of Second Lane off Jianguo Road, with about 500 meters of open space both in front and behind it.