Diary of a Criminal Investigator-Chapter 389: Motive for Murder

"Were the footprints left by the murderer?"

"Other than fingerprints, there are only footprints at the scene, but footprint analysis is extremely difficult for us to handle at this point..."

Lu Chuan understood that footprint analysis in most Crime Scene Investigations was mostly about estimating height using formulas based on foot length.

"Who reported the crime?"

"The victim’s wife, she found her husband dead when she returned home."

"No need to compare the fingerprints; the killer should be the victim’s wife."

"Hmm? The wife?"

What’s going on?

Before Wang Gang could ask, Lu Chuan took out the footprint photos from the file.

"The murderer didn’t leave in a hurry, but instead carefully designed the direction of the footprints. In reality, the person entered the room walking backward from outside the door."

"How did you see that?"

"The pressure direction on the shoe prints is incorrect, opposite to the normal forward direction, so the person must have walked backward into the room."

Lu Chuan did not explain in detail, but picked up a pen and sketched a diagram on the side.

"Let’s say, the direction of a person’s movement should be opposite to the pressure direction of the shoe’s tread pattern, but this series of footprints is just the opposite."

"Moreover, the shoes are not the murderer’s own; the killer wore shoes at least three sizes larger than their own."

"Their height is approximately 1.6 meters, weight not exceeding 50 kilograms, and the left leg should have a history of a fracture."

1.6 meters?

Weight not exceeding 50 kilograms?

The description immediately brought the image of the informant to Wang Gang’s mind.

The person indeed fits this physique.

But how did Lu Chuan figure it all out just from a string of footprints?

The Crime Scene Investigation of Huangzhou’s Criminal Investigation Team might not be good at footprint analysis, but they use formulas.

Based on the shoe length from the footprints, they determined the killer’s height should be between 1.7 to 1.8 meters.

This is entirely contradictory.

And how did Lu Chuan see the left-leg fracture?

Seemingly noticing Wang Gang’s confusion, Lu Chuan took the initiative to explain.

"The pressure on the inner side of the left foot and the outer side, compared to the right foot, shows that the pressure on the inner side at the big toe is noticeably greater than on the outer side at the little toe area."

"This isn’t consistent with the pressure distribution of most people’s footsteps unless the person had a fracture on the left leg and it wasn’t perfectly healed during the procedure, causing this uneven pressure distribution."

Wang Gang couldn’t see how Lu Chuan discovered the uneven pressure in the footprints, but he chose to report the situation to Liao Junlong.

One hour later.

The victim’s wife was arrested, and upon learning that her act of wearing big shoes and fabricating footprints at the scene was uncovered, she confessed everything.

The so-called fingerprints were actually the victim’s. After killing him, the victim’s wife wiped off fingerprints and deliberately put the murder weapon in the victim’s grasp, submerging it in the pool of blood.

The aim was to confuse and mislead the police’s judgment.

Clearly, this trick succeeded, as Huangzhou’s Criminal Investigation Team had focused all attention on the fingerprints.

"Did you ever break your left leg?"

"In the winter three years ago, I fell."

"Was it set at the hospital or at a roadside Bone Setting Hall?"

"Just the roadside Bone Setting Hall, cost 100 yuan, but wasn’t set very well. Later it healed, so there was nothing to do, though I walk slightly out of sync, it’s not visible unless with close observation. But how did you know?"

Teacher Lu, truly a genius!

Indeed a genius, solved a murder case in Huangzhou that dozens of police couldn’t crack in a week, in less than 10 minutes.

Of course, this doesn’t mean the police of Huangzhou’s Criminal Investigation Team are incompetent, just that their procedural technical skills need further enhancement.

With Lu Chuan’s system skills, it was a dimensional superiority compared to ordinary Crime Scene Investigation officers.

The victim’s wife was initially under police suspicion as well.

Husband murdered, wife reports the crime—without needing further glance, start investigating the wife first isn’t wrong.

But the fingerprints on the murder weapon were persistently unmatched, and the footprints left seemed obviously those of a man, thus clearing the wife of suspicion.

Moreover, the timing of the wife’s decision to kill her husband was clearly premeditated, coinciding with the time when her husband had conflicts with several people.

"Why did you kill your husband?"

According to this week’s investigation, neighbors and family reported them as having a good marital relationship.

In the social circle, they were considered a model couple.

Both families had good conditions, a car, a house, savings. Their life was supposed to be thriving.

"Why?"

The woman gave a grim smile: "In your eyes, in the eyes of my friends and family, we are a model couple, right?

"But he was a complete beast!"

The woman’s emotions grew more agitated, suddenly pulling open her neckline: "Look, this is what he left me!"

The woman was actually very beautiful, a full figure, fair-skinned, with cascading black hair.

But who would have thought beneath the neckline were terrible burn marks.

"For seven years, he abused me daily, not leaving a good spot on my body."

Sobbing.

"I haven’t worn a dress in five years... sobbing... I wanted to kill him! I had to kill him!"

The woman’s emotions were approaching collapse, clearly not suitable for further interrogation at this point.

Two female officers entered to comfort her.

"Why didn’t you divorce him?"

"Divorce?"

Laughing bitterly.

The woman’s smile grew grimmer: "Every time I brought it up, he beat me. After a while, I didn’t dare mention it. That way, the beatings were at least lighter..."

Later, the Forensic Doctor performed an injury assessment on the woman.

"She has extensive burn marks, from both scalding water and cigarette burns, along with knife scars and whip marks."

The report made female officers handling the case break down in tears.

The undressed woman had no good spot on her body, especially her private parts, which had multiple overlapping scars.

Lu Chuan was momentarily speechless when he learned about the situation.

Couples are like birds sharing the same forest; when trouble comes, they fly apart.

Although Lu Chuan hadn’t been in the police force long, among several cases involving the murder of a husband or wife, the majority were indeed by the partner.

The reasons for murder were bizarre.

But this was the only murder case caused by long-term domestic abuse.

"How did she endure so many years of this?"

The two originally were college classmates, dating for four years, eventually marrying and settling in a southern city after graduation.

How did things escalate to this point?

Sighing, Lu Chuan shook his head, the case in Huangzhou was solved, but the case of Wang Lili’s murder was still awaiting him.

After wrapping up the husband murder case, Huangzhou’s Criminal Investigation Team could spare more personnel for Zhang Hui’s side, speeding up the investigation significantly.

Now, Lu Chuan was the most relaxed one; he wasn’t skilled at screening items this way, and another person wasn’t needed.

At the moment, he was chatting in Liao Junlong’s office.