Serious Case Tracking

Chapter 51 The Mysterious Taxi

The clues found from the corpse can only prove that the murderer is a person who knows the knowledge of human anatomy, and there is nothing else. This adds a lot of difficulty to the investigation of the case, but Meng Shaohui believes in a wise saying: Leave traces", as long as the murderer really commits a crime, no matter how well he conceals it, he will leave clues, because there is no perfect crime in this world, only clues that have not been discovered.

In order not to miss any possible clues, the questioning of Xu Yan's classmates who attended the party on the night of the incident continued until late at night.The impression Xu Yan gave to her classmates was that she was beautiful, quiet, and well-behaved. Xu Yan was a good student with both reputation and academic excellence at school. She was very polite to everyone and very popular. Recognized as the "Flower" of the Chinese Department, there are many male students around her who want to pursue her, but she refuses because she mainly studies at this stage. On weekends, she will also go home to accompany her parents. The famous "good girl".

As for the party at the time of the incident, because everyone had drunk some wine and left slightly drunk at the end of the party, no one knew what happened to Xu Yan after she left. Only a classmate who was still sober that night provided information I found a clue, Xu Yan left in a taxi, because this classmate had always wanted to pursue Xu Yan. He originally wanted to send Xu Yan home, but Xu Yan said that he would arrive soon after taking a taxi, so there was no need to do that. Trouble, if her mother saw it, it would be easy to cause misunderstanding, so in the end this classmate just sent Xu Yan to a taxi and watched her leave.According to the student's recollection, the driver of the taxi was wearing a peaked cap, so he couldn't see his appearance clearly.As for the license plate, I didn't pay much attention to it at the time. I just glanced at it after watching Xu Yan leave, but because the light was too dark, I couldn't see all the license plate clearly. I only vaguely remembered that the last number on the license plate was 6. As for the number of the taxi, The model is the ordinary Santana 2000.

Although it was only a rather vague clue, it was already an obvious breakthrough for the whole case.Because the autopsy report stated that Xu Yan was killed between 11:12 p.m. Xu Yan's home only takes 10 minutes by car, and this time may be shortened at night.That is to say, Xu Yan was killed on the way home in a taxi or after arriving home, so what happened in just ten minutes.At present, the only possible clue is that only the taxi driver knows best.

Meng Shaohui asked the investigators to quickly investigate the situation near Xu Yan's home, while he himself rushed to the traffic police department overnight to check the surveillance video of the road near the meeting place of Xu Yan's classmates on the night of the crime, in order to find the taxi in the shortest possible time.

After 10:50 p.m. on the night of the incident, the traffic police monitoring center retrieved the surveillance video of the roads around the place where Xu Yan’s classmates gathered, and soon Meng Shaohui found a suspicious taxi, which appeared at the intersection at the same time as Xu Yan’s classmate. What was said was basically consistent, and the model was also Santana 2000. Through technical means, the license plate was enlarged. The last four digits of the license plate were 3526, and the last number also matched the clues provided by Xu Yan.But then, after driving through two intersections, the taxi turned into a side road and never appeared in the surveillance cameras.

"It's strange, why take the small road instead of the main road? From there to Xu Yan's home, it should be faster to take the main road. Is it to avoid traffic surveillance? Could the driver be the murderer?" Meng Shaohui frowned and thought.

Although he found out about the situation of the taxi, Meng Shaohui didn't feel relaxed because of it. He always thought that things were going too smoothly.The time analysis, combined with the strange driving route of the taxi, undoubtedly increases the possibility that the driver is the murderer, but the key issue is that if the driver is the real murderer, then he was very careful in handling the corpse and did not leave any trouble for the police. Why is there such an obvious clue on the vehicle without any valuable clues?

Although Meng Shaohui had doubts, since this was the only clue so far, he had to investigate first to know whether it was true or not.The three drivers of the taxi with license plate 3526 (morning, evening, and night shift) were quickly brought back to the police station. The interrogation went smoothly, and the result was as expected by Meng Shaohui. At that time, he was soliciting customers at the entrance of a hotel with other taxis, and he had never been to the place where Xu Yan's classmates were reunited.

It was already 5:[-] in the morning, and because it was winter, it was still dark outside the window, and the whole city was still in a deep sleep. Compared with the darkness outside the window, the conference room of the police station was brightly lit. All the scouts had red eyes and looked tired.

"Meng team, all the clues are broken now, how should we investigate next?"

"That's right, the murderer used sulfuric acid to destroy the body, which has already made our investigation more difficult, and now even the taxi is found to be a black car, so it is impossible to find out what happened to Xu Yan on the way home. "

"But since Xu Yan has already got into the taxi, she should go home. It is very likely that the murderer is waiting for her downstairs at her house, and then looks for an opportunity to commit the crime."

"However, we investigated around Xu Yan's house. There are many small shops there that are still open late at night, but according to what they said, they didn't find anything unusual nearby at the time of the incident, and we didn't hear anyone calling for help. Just imagine, If Xu Yan met the murderer when he was downstairs, would he not struggle and call for help when he was in danger? The street lights in that neighborhood are very bright, and if something happens, people in the surrounding shops should be easily found."

"Besides, if Xu Yan was killed downstairs when she arrived at home, it must be an acquaintance who committed the crime. Otherwise, how would she know when she will return home? And she was still waiting for her downstairs."

"Could it be robbery and murder? After all, we didn't find Xu Yan's bag."

"It's unlikely. If it was robbery and murder, then the murderer killed someone and stole things, so he shouldn't care about the corpse. But now the corpse has been destroyed with sulfuric acid, and the head has been cut off. , these are not consistent with the signs of robbery and homicide."

"But Xu Yan is just an ordinary female college student in school. Who would have a grudge against her, so that she wants to kill her? It is so cruel to cut off her head and mutilate her body with sulfuric acid."

The investigators expressed their opinions and talked a lot. Meng Shaohui just listened quietly, but he never spoke. After summarizing the various ideas of the investigators, he thought for a long time before he said: "Your analysis just now is also very important. It's not unreasonable. According to what we have learned, Xu Yan is a well-known student in school, and she is very popular among her classmates. Although many male classmates wanted to pursue her, she did not accept it. If The murderer is an acquaintance, so what is the motive for the murder? For love? For revenge? Or for money? No matter what kind of motive, it seems that there is no need to be cruel enough to dismember the body and throw sulfuric acid! Moreover, Xu Yan's social circle is relatively narrow, Her friends are all junior high school, high school and current university classmates, and none of these people have anything to do with medicine. The most important point is that in Xu Yan's body, the forensic examination found that there was bath liquid, so it is certain , the murderer probably killed Xu Yan and moved the body back to his home, because only his home is the safest place to dispose of the body, and there will be a bathtub and body soap, so it is impossible to take the body to the hotel Let's open the room!"

After listening to Meng Shaohui's analysis, the investigators nodded in agreement.

Meng Shaohui saw that there was no objection, so he continued to analyze: "Personally, I am more inclined that the driver of the licensed taxi is the murderer. The most important point is that according to the surveillance data provided by the traffic police department, the licensed taxi turned into I took a small road and then disappeared. From the meeting place of Xu Yan’s classmates to her home, it is definitely more convenient and faster to take the main road than the small road, but the taxi chose the small road. I think the driver deliberately avoided the main road. The monitoring probe, so as not to be traced by us, and there are few people on the small road, and there are many remote places, which is also convenient for him to commit murder. If the driver deliberately takes Xu Yan to detour or take her to another place, then she will be in the middle of the road. There must be suspicion, so the driver chose a path that was neither suspected nor relatively remote. In addition, the time of Xu Yan's death was between 11:12 and 11:[-], so I think the time of Xu Yan's death was at Not long after the taxi turned into the side road, that is, after [-] o'clock, the possibility of the taxi driver committing the crime is the greatest."

"If it's a taxi, you can still find it, but how do you search for a licensed taxi? You only know the model of the car, and no one has seen the driver's appearance. If you want to check, it's like finding a needle in a haystack!"

"In fact, there is one thing worth noting here, that is, the taxi with a license plate has never appeared after turning into the small road. There is only one possibility, that is, the taxi stopped somewhere in the small road. , after killing Xu Yan, the driver changed to another car and took the body away, so we are not looking for a needle in a haystack, we just need to use that small road as a starting point to search for possible parking spots along the way, and find That taxi. If you find it, use it as the center and investigate nearby to see if anyone saw anything on the night of the crime.”

Meng Shaohui's meticulous analysis made the investigators present seem to see the dawn of solving the case. Just as Meng Shaohui firmly believed, everything that goes by will leave traces.At this time, a ray of morning light entered the meeting room, which immediately made everyone feel much warmer. Although they were already very tired, the appearance of the clue made everyone feel refreshed.

(End of this chapter)