60 Criminology

 

Based on Lee Taida’s hatred towards Lee Xian, he would have melted all his portion of cyanide into his father’s beers. Legally speaking, Lee Taida was guilty of attempted murder, if Lee Xian had drunk the beer, then it would be premeditated murder. The punishment for the former was naturally lighter than the latter. Furthermore, Lee Taida was under 18, he was protected by juvie law. The officers led Lee Taida away and his fate would be decided by juvie court.

In any case, Lee Taida wasn’t the culprit behind the suicides. When we left the interrogation room, Xiao Liu also came back with Zhao Erming. With Zhao Erming leading the way, they did find the poisoned dog. Due to its secluded location, no one had touched the carcass. The coroner found cyanide in the dog carcass. Zhao Erming was not lying. In their plan, the cyanide was only split between Zhao Erming and Lee Taida, the rest was only responsible to steal the cyanide. So where did Gao Rui’s cyanide come from? There were already 3 suicides and the students’ theft didn’t seem to be linked to any of them.

“Is it possible that Gao Rui prepared the cyanide himself from outside the school?” Guan Zhenglin offered. “Think about it, Gao Rui probably was already pondering suicide after Zhang Mingliang’s death. The mysterious couch’s appearance only confirmed his desire to die, that person might not have provided him with the cyanide.”

I pulled on my hair and uttered, “Since this murderer could persuade others to commit suicide, then they would have to know these people have suicidal tendencies. But how would they know that? They go knocking on doors to ask if the residents wanted to die?”

Guan Zhenglin tapped on her head. “You mean, these victims might have expressed their suicidal thoughts through the internet or some other channel? The murderer picked up on these info, contacted them and persuaded them to commit suicide?”

I slammed on the table. “That’s right. I believe the murderer is not a hypnotist but someone who has done their homework very well. The killer has investigated and compiled the information on many suicidal individuals and approached them for a talk.” With that in mind, I immediately called Mary to have her check if our victims had expressed any suicidal ideas on the internet.

“To approach them one by one, it would have taken the killer a lot of time too.” Gu Chen commented, “This killer has been one busy bee.” Gu Chen’s words lit a lightbulb in me. I said, “Right, bring me a map of Dong Xing City. We have on our hands 3 victims, if we mark out their crime scenes, we might find a connection.”

A map of Dong Xing City was placed before us. Based on the time of death, I circled out with a red marker the 3 victims’ places of death and then wrote down their individual causes of death.

The first to die was Wang Yiman, her neighbourhood was called Xing Yuan Neighbourhood, it was at the eastern side of Dong Xing City. She died from hanging. Remark: She was dressed in a white wedding dress when she died.

The second to die was Gao Rui, he lived in an apartment near Yu Cai High School, which was at the eastern side of Dong Xing City. He died from cyanide poisoning. Remark: He was dressed in western suit when he died.

The third to die was Lee Zhinan, he lived at Yin Xing Neighbourhood, it was at the eastern side of Dong Xing City. He died by jumping into a moving train. Remark: The briefcase he carried at death is still not found.

The similarity was quite obvious, all 3 victims lived at the eastern side of Dong Xing City. On the map, their residences were close to each other, it would only take at most 2 hours to travel between their places. It might suggest that the killer resided in the eastern side of Dong Xing City as well.

I pointed at the 3 red circles and said, “In Martin Goodman’s Criminals and Motivations, he said that when a serial killer has killed a certain number of people and they still haven’t been caught by their police, they would get an involuntary rush of arrogance and confidence.” Guan Zhenglin and Gu Chen looked at me with interest. I continued, “That is our human nature. When the criminal attempts his next kill, due to blind confidence, the location of the crime would be closer to his hideout or home.” I used the marker to join the 3 red dots to form a triangle, “When a criminal committed their first kill, they would be nervous, so the location of choice would be furthest from their home, that way it would be hard for the police to trace it back to them. But as the police failed to capture them, they would become overconfident and take their operations closer to their base. Because they believe that since the police had not caught them then, the police would not catch them now.”

The two looked at me and nodded. Gu Chen praised, “Brother Wu Meng, I’m impressed, when did you learn all these? You deserve to be on the force.” I shrugged. “I merely used the time you spent on donuts and coffee on books…” Guan Zhenglin rolled her eyes. “Stop joking. What else do you have?”

I continued, “But there is another criminologist who countered with a theory on his own. He believes that the crime scenes are equidistant to the killer’s house. For example if the killer is driving, he might drive 1 hour east and then kill someone; tomorrow, he would drive another hour west to kill another. The killers themselves might not even realize this. They might even think that their actions would have muddled the police investigation.”

Gu Chen nodded and then added, “They both sound logical but what is your personal conclusion? If you are to guess, where will the next suicide case be?” We turned to Gu Chen and he knocked against the wooden table. “I mean, touch wood, if there is a next one.”

I sighed. “I believe, the day we haven’t had the killer in custody, they would continue to influence people to commit suicide. After all, everyone in the city is under so much pressure, who hasn't had that thought of leaving this oppressive world? If you ask me, we still need to work hard.”

Gu Chen sat on the sofa and crossed his legs. “You have a point there. As our standard of life improves, so does the number of suicides. However, if you ask me, suicide is never an option. No matter how difficult life gets, only by being alive do you have the chance of turning it around. When you’re dead, everything’s gone and nothing can be changed anymore.” I found myself agreeing with Gu Chen. To be frank, I did consider suicide when I was young. My father was a murderer and my mother was absent. It was not easy to grow up as a murderer’s son. If not for my intense fear of pain, I would have killed myself a long time ago. Thankfully no one had taught me how to die painlessly because now I had come to accept who I am. I couldn’t pick my own parents but I could at least pick how I was going to live my life.

Guan Zhenglin pulled our thoughts back to the case. “I know and it’s disgusting that someone is preying on these vulnerable souls. Anyway, do you think you can come up with a possible range for the next hit?” I used my finger to point inside the triangle, it was quite a large area. It included Shun Cheng Street, East Avenue and so on. “If we follow these two theories, the next crime scene won’t be inside this triangle.” Then I moved my finger across the map to a point where when connected, it would form a rectangle with the existing triangle. “This place would be roughly equidistant from the other places.” I was pointing at a place called Jin Lun Road. If there was a next case, it would be around here. Gu Chen stood up and said, “I’ll call the local police for them to pay attention to their jurisdiction, to tell them to be on their toes.”

“Go.” I said.

Just as Gu Chen left, Xiao Liu came in. He announced, “Wu Meng, we’ve found Lee Zhinan’s briefcase, it was knocked away by the train. A worker found it at some random corner.”

“Really?” I said, “Where is it? What’s inside it?”

Xiao Liu sighed, “The impact tore the briefcase apart. We couldn’t tell what was inside, probably some documents. We only managed to scrounge up some paper pieces. However, we believe that the content of the briefcase has not much to do with the case.” Xiao Liu placed the broken paper pieces on the table. I saw words like xx Bank but the files were so shredded that I couldn’t tell much from them. Lee Zhinan worked at a financial company so these were probably his work documents.

Xiao Liu continued, “With regards to the cyanide theft case, should we wrap it up now? The cyanide was split into 2 pieces, one was given to Lee Taida and he melted them inside the beers to kill his father. The other piece was used by Zhao Erming to kill the stray dog.”

I pulled on my hair and then said, “These are what they told us. We have no idea how much they have used and if they have saved any. After all, you do not need much to kill someone. Furthermore, how can we be sure that it has only been split into two pieces?”

“You suspect the other students?” Xiao Liu scratched his cheek. “Okay, I’ll look further into this. Leave this to me.”