Chapter 951: Neighborhood Dispute

Lu Chuan immediately led his team into the crime scene.

As soon as he entered, he saw a person lying across the entrance, with two stab wounds in the chest, and blood splattered on the wall and door.

The deceased was around fifty years old, with half an eaten bun still by his side.

Judging by the angle and position of the stab wounds, the deceased likely came to open the door and was stabbed twice in the chest by the killer, causing him to collapse to the ground, losing all ability to move.

Zhang Jun, following behind Lu Chuan, said, "At the time of the incident, the villagers were mostly having breakfast."

"This family was probably having their meal too."

Lu Chuan nodded, then continued further into the courtyard where he found two more bodies.

The two bodies, one male and one female, had an age similar to the previous body seen at the gate, both around 50 years old.

The female body had a neck wound likely leading to arterial bleeding, causing death.

Not far from the female body lay a younger male corpse, probably in his 20s.

Lu Chuan carefully examined this body, noticing cuts and scrapes on the arms and wrists, with fatal wounds in the abdomen and chest.

"Signs of a struggle."

There were chaotic bloody footprints around the young man, with irregular blood spray patterns, and his body was covered in earthy clay.

There were clearly signs of a struggle.

Judging by the shape of the wounds and the door, the older male victim’s knife wounds were consistent with the same weapon; they died from the same knife.

In the courtyard, there were a total of three bodies.

Lu Chuan pushed open the ajar entrance door, where another male body lay.

Neck knife wounds with extensive blood spray.

The man also had a cleaver in his hand, with obvious bloodstains on it.

"The assailant was injured."

The bloodstains on the doorway were not surface-level spray patterns; they were blood from the blade, indicating that the assailant was injured by this cleaver.

Beyond this male body, by the stove, lay a younger female body.

She was the daughter-in-law of the household.

Lu Chuan stepped forward and roughly examined her; she had stab wounds in the chest and abdomen that led to her death.

The time of death for several victims was approximately 5 hours ago, around 4:00 AM.

"Let’s go check the neighbor’s house."

"Yes!"

Next door, at Zhang Guodong’s house, their courtyard door wasn’t closed.

It was half-open.

Lu Chuan noticed a trail of blood droplets starting from the entrance of the victims’ house extending to the neighbor Zhang Guodong’s house.

These bloodstains likely belonged to the assailant.

Although there was a lot of blood splatter when the victims were killed, the amount of blood was limited, so it couldn’t keep dripping continuously.

Combined with the fact that the younger male victim at the door was holding a cleaver with blood on the blade, it further confirmed Zhang Guodong was injured.

Lu Chuan stood in the courtyard and glanced around; after coming back from outside, Zhang Guodong probably circled the courtyard, possibly to start the motorcycle.

The main door was also unlocked, and upon entering, Lu Chuan and his team found bloody clothes and a cleaver, an edged knife, on the ground.

In the kitchen, there was a table with porridge, pickles, and buns arranged on it.

The cupboards inside were thrown open with clothes scattered messily.

"After committing the murders, the suspect likely changed clothes, took his savings, and fled on a motorcycle."

Zhang Jun deduced from what some villagers saw.

Lu Chuan nodded.

Judging from the crime scene and Zhang Guodong’s household situation, the entire case isn’t complicated.

Zhang Guodong is likely the perpetrator, but it hasn’t been conclusively confirmed. Although someone saw Zhang Guodong leaving the victims’ house with bloodstains on him in the morning, the Criminal Investigation Team still needs concrete evidence.

Since the suspect’s identity is already determined, the priority is his capture.

Thus, the Crime Scene Investigation at the crime scene won’t present major difficulties, and Lu Chuan didn’t continue to inspect but rather instructed Wang Hao’s team to collect the relevant evidence.

The primary focus is on the bloody cleaver found in Zhang Guodong’s kitchen, needing identification, like checking the fingerprints and determining if the blood belongs to Zhang Guodong or the victims.

Also, the blood on the clothes needs testing.

Afterwards, Lu Chuan arranged to split the team, with one group returning to the Criminal Investigation Team for forensics while the larger group pursued Zhang Guodong.

"Issue an arrest warrant immediately, search for Zhang Guodong throughout the area!"

Almost 5 hours have passed since the crime occurred.

After the murders, Zhang Guodong fled directly on his motorcycle. Although a motorcycle doesn’t travel very fast, after 5 hours, if he maintained top speed, he could have gone four or five hundred kilometers away.

This indicates that if Zhang Guodong had a clear escape target, he could have left Haizhou City by now, or even gone out of the province if he headed directly east.

Solving such cases is easy, but capturing suspects isn’t especially simple.

Zhang Guodong’s identity is confirmed, but his family situation at home isn’t very optimistic.

Wang Zhaokai and Chen Jiang were responsible for leading the team to pursue Zhang Guodong while Lu Chuan and Zhang Jun stayed in the village to understand the background of the conflict between the two families.

"Actually, saying that family deserved it isn’t excessive; they bullied people too much."

"Indeed, if I were Zhang Guodong, I would’ve slaughtered their entire family long ago."

"It’s the Wang Family’s fault; they had too many mentally challenged members, forcing Zhang Guodong into a corner."

"This all goes back to the Wang Family building a new house five years ago."

"Originally, both families were neighbors. When the Wang Family was constructing their house, they insisted on making it bigger, trespassing three meters onto Zhang Guodong’s land—this started the grudge..."

According to villagers, the feud between Zhang Guodong and the Wang Family began five years ago.

The victim’s family, the Wang Family, had two sons and a daughter.

Considered flourishing in the village, and the Wang Family also had numerous distant relatives in the area. The entire Wang Family encompassed ten or so households with over a hundred members, a major family in the village.

Five years ago, when the eldest son of the Wang Family was to marry, they needed to build a house.

However, their land was small, so they wanted to encroach on some of Zhang Guodong’s property.

"It was essentially an alley—the two houses originally had an alley about six meters wide between them."

Villagers familiar with the past events were clear about the situation.