Chapter 973: Lu Chuan’s Recommendation

Lu Chuan quickly got into work mode.

Since the origin of the statue is unclear, it’s impossible to determine who actually made it.

The Criminal Investigation Team members are very capable, none of them are incompetent; these people are quite experienced, and during his time with the team, Lu Chuan learned a lot from them.

Moreover, the case is personally handled by Qin Yong, and Zhang Hui hasn’t slept for several days, continuously investigating this case.

So, many obvious clues that Lu Chuan might think of have undoubtedly been checked by Zhang Hui, yet after a whole week, there’s still no directional clues, which is somewhat strange.

First, Lu Chuan examined the plaster; it was just ordinary plaster, seemingly nothing special about it.

However, to insert a body into the plaster statue means the mold for making the plaster statue must be quite large. Generally speaking, it’s not easy for someone to make such a large plaster statue, which theoretically should make its origin easier to trace.

Additionally, the statue couldn’t have appeared inside the Experimental Primary School for no reason—when was it delivered? Who delivered it?

Lu Chuan believes that Zhang Hui has already conducted investigations, but there’s still no clue, meaning nothing has been clarified.

"Has an analysis been done on the composition of the plaster?"

Lu Chuan picked up a piece of plaster, wiped off the residues on it, and asked.

Liu Guodong nodded: "Yang Lin and the others did it the next day, but there was nothing peculiar in the plaster; we even traced the origin of some materials inside, but found nothing special. It’s just an ordinary commercial plaster that can be easily purchased in the market."

Lu Chuan nodded, since Yang Lin and his team have already done it, he naturally doesn’t need to repeat the work.

There’s not much clue found on the plaster.

"We conducted a thorough examination both inside and outside the plaster; externally we found some fingerprints, which have been collected and compared, but so far there are no directional clues, and no suspects have been identified."

Seeing Lu Chuan carefully examining the plaster statue, Liu Guodong explained some of the work done by the Crime Scene Investigation team beforehand.

Lu Chuan listened carefully while continuing to check the inside of the plaster.

Just now, Liu Guodong and the others mentioned that the external fingerprints were both new and old, some belonged to adults, and others to students, implying that this plaster statue has been touched by many people, especially considering it has been at the Experimental Primary School for 5 years. Even if the perpetrator left any clues on it back then, they might no longer exist.

Thus, Lu Chuan’s attention was not on the outside of the plaster but rather the inside; to clear the remains, the plaster was already broken apart.

Now it has been pieced back together.

Lu Chuan aimed to see if there were any clues left inside the plaster by the perpetrator, after all, during the creation of the plaster, there might be something left by the perpetrator.

But unfortunately, due to the sealing of the corpse inside, some body oil had seeped into the plaster, rendering the entire interior a gray-black color and somewhat greasy.

Lu Chuan touched it, finding it a bit sticky.

Lu Chuan meticulously researched for about an hour but didn’t discover anything significant.

From a technical standpoint of Crime Scene Investigation, Lu Chuan’s skills are certainly superior to Liu Guodong’s and the others, but through these simple detail observations, anything Lu Chuan could see, they could see too.

After all, everyone has the same nose and eyes, there’s no reason why Lu Chuan would discover something that Liu Guodong and the others wouldn’t, especially since Liu Guodong and his team have been examining these statues and the clothes on the corpse for a week already, they have paid attention to every detail.

So naturally, Lu Chuan didn’t find any useful clues either.

"On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be anything valuable; my suggestion is to perform a detailed crushing of the plaster and then conduct trace evidence analysis."

Lu Chuan proposed his suggestion while frowning.

"Oh? You mean..." Liu Guodong immediately understood upon hearing Lu Chuan’s suggestion; Lu Chuan must suspect there might be some residues left by the perpetrator inside the plaster statue.

Lu Chuan nodded: "It must have been quite challenging for the perpetrator to create the plaster statue."

Lu Chuan gestured to indicate the size of the plaster statue, which seemed to be around 1.7 meters tall.

"The perpetrator sealed the entire person inside the plaster statue; first of all, a mold large enough must be made, and the quantity of plaster used would certainly be considerable. During the pouring process, the plaster pouring must not be interrupted, otherwise, the statue would have fractures once completed."

Although Lu Chuan isn’t particularly knowledgeable about the production process and technique of plaster statues, he understands the main steps.

Creating such a large plaster piece is very prone to producing defective works.

This is because the time from liquid to solid state for the plaster, although not short, is gradual, and the state of the plaster at different time stages within that period varies.

Therefore, the proportions of plaster water and plaster powder injected at different times need adjustments during the plaster making process.

Simply put, the early injected plaster gels should solidify slower, while the later plaster gels should solidify faster. This helps ensure the plaster is uniformly solidified within the mold during the pouring process, allowing the plaster to fit tightly together without fractures.

Just thinking about this indicates that it requires high technical skills, and the killer couldn’t have prevented some skin flakes or hair from their body from falling into the plaster during the making process.

But after 5 years, searching for these would certainly be very difficult, hence Lu Chuan’s suggestion to crush the plaster and carry out micro-evidence analysis inside.

This is the utmost that can be done from the Crime Scene Investigation technical standpoint regarding the plaster.

Of course, this approach would mean significant workload, this plaster appears to weigh over hundreds of pounds, if crushed entirely for micro-evidence analysis, Liu Guodong and his team might not rest for a month.

The crucial point is that the plaster had sealed a corpse for 5 years long, so when crushed, it will surely contain many biological materials belonging to the deceased, thus increasing the difficulty in species analysis.

Considering this, Old Bai suggested scraping off the plaster layer from the interior wall and starting from the outside, and if that doesn’t work, then proceed with the whole.