Chapter 906: Alibi

After hearing Lu Chuan’s description of the suspect’s height characteristics, a person suddenly popped into Song Mingguang’s mind.

Following the forklift lead, the prime suspects are Li Baowei and Zhang Bin.

Both of them had pursued Wang Jingya, and with relatively extreme methods, they had caused trouble at Wang Jingya’s company, and these two had even fought.

Especially Li Baowei, who had known Wang Jingya for a long time, since high school, and had been pursuing her all these years.

Moreover, regarding Li Baowei’s information, Song Mingguang had almost completed the investigation, and the other’s height was exactly 1.68 meters.

"How did you figure it out?"

Song Mingguang quickly asked.

"Some spatial positions at the crime scene."

Lu Chuan continued to explain: "This afternoon when I went to the crime scene, I conducted a very detailed investigation of the situation there and found some clues."

"The suspect, when steaming and cooking Wang Jingya’s body, was sitting on a small stool in front of the stove; when he raised his hand, the firewood was right next to him."

Generally speaking, when a person sits on a stool to burn firewood, the most comfortable posture should be suitable, so based on this, Lu Chuan roughly judged the range of the suspect’s arm length.

"If the firewood is too close, it’s difficult to handle when separating; if it’s too far, the suspect would have to stand up to reach it, which is also unsuitable."

Lu Chuan roughly demonstrated: "From the perspective of crime scene investigation, typically a person’s arm span length and height are in a 1:1 ratio."

"Of course, you have to account for the width of the chest, and generally, the width of a person’s chest is roughly similar to the length of the forearm."

"From the data measured at the scene, I basically judged that the suspect’s height is between 1.6 to 1.7 meters."

In the process of investigating so many cases, Lu Chuan’s height prediction regarding suspects was usually within a two to three centimeter precision, with a ten centimeter variance being extremely rare.

The main reason for the larger variance this time is that these calculations aren’t standard.

The suspect might have reached for the firewood with a slightly straighter arm or a more bent arm.

There’s no precise standard, so the margin of error is relatively large.

But even if the margin of error is large, Lu Chuan’s calculation concluded that the suspect’s height was relatively short.

It’s important to note that Wang Jingya, as a model, had a bare height of 1.72 meters.

And the suspect’s height is between 1.6 and 1.7 meters.

"Any other information?"

"Fingerprint!"

Song Mingguang looked at Lu Chuan in astonishment: "Holy shit! You found a fingerprint at the scene?"

"Didn’t the Criminal Investigation Team of Tianzhou City say they checked the scene multiple times? How could they have missed a fingerprint?"

If that’s true, then the Criminal Investigation Team of Tianzhou City would not only be humiliated, but also accused of dereliction of duty.

Missing the fingerprint at the crime scene could be considered a major incident, not just a mistake.

"It’s not their fault; this fingerprint was collected in a rather unique way."

Lu Chuan, however, understood: "The suspect handled the crime scene very cleanly, leaving no footprints or fingerprints, but overlooked one thing."

"When he was cooking the body, he had to break branches of firewood and add them into the stove; during this process, he would certainly come into contact with the firewood."

"Although most of the firewood he came into contact with was burned, the firewood got mixed together and needed to be separated."

"In this process, the suspect might have touched other firewood, but that firewood was not burned."

Lu Chuan adopted a try-and-see attitude while collecting fingerprint information there.

On one hand, extracting fingerprints from firewood is inherently difficult.

On the other hand, it’s truly possible the firewood the suspect touched had all been burned.

Even now that Lu Chuan found a fragmentary fingerprint, he’s not certain if it’s the suspect’s.

Because the firewood was taken from a woodpile in the fire department, and these logs were originally prepared by local families.

"This fingerprint is very fragmentary; I looked for a whole night yesterday but still couldn’t match it."

This morning, Lu Chuan had already asked the department of the Criminal Investigation Team of Tianzhou City to go to the homeowners at the crime scene and collect fingerprints from a few family members.

After he retrieves them, he will manually cross-check; if those can be eliminated, then this fingerprint could very likely belong to the suspect.

"If you have any other suspicious personnel, collect their fingerprints, and I’ll try matching them first."

"Okay!"

Song Mingguang felt much more confident now.

With the height characteristics, they could basically narrow down the range of suspects, and now Li Baowei became even more suspicious in Song Mingguang’s view.

Additionally, if they could collect and compare his fingerprints, and if Lu Chuan matches them, then this case would be solved.

After breakfast, the two parted ways, each busy with their own tasks.

Song Mingguang immediately called over his team and inquired about Li Baowei’s situation.

"Captain Song, this person is no good; he has an alibi."

"An alibi?"

Song Mingguang had just felt that the case had made a breakthrough and that they could catch the suspect, but his subordinates told him that Li Baowei had an alibi.

"Yes, on the night of the crime, at around ten o’clock, Li Baowei was playing mahjong with a few coworkers, playing until the early morning, and after they drank and fell asleep, they were all together."

"He basically had no time to commit the crime."

If that’s the case...

Wang Jingya went missing at 9:08 PM on the day of the crime, and her body was discovered the following afternoon.

According to the forensic doctor’s judgment, Wang Jingya’s time of death was likely in the early hours of the morning on that day.

"Are you sure?"

The subordinate nodded: "Confirmed, although we haven’t directly verified with him, we have informally understood from other sources."

"On the night Wang Ya went missing, they were playing cards with seven people, each could testify for the others, so there shouldn’t be any issue."

In that case...

The greatest clue that Song Mingguang had found was the connection between Li Baowei and Zhang Bin.

If Lu Chuan’s findings were accurate, then Zhang Bin could be ruled out as a suspect since his height is 1.85 meters, not the 1.6 to 1.7 meters that Lu Chuan mentioned.

While Li Baowei’s height is within that range, he has a clear alibi.

Could I have been going in the wrong direction?