Diary of a Criminal Investigator

Among all types of crimes, random crimes are the hardest to solve.

Because random incidents leave very few clues behind, unlike meticulously planned cases. Meticulously planned cases seem to leave no useful traces, but actually, the more they do, the more mistakes they make.

To erase their traces, the murderer must do some things outside of the crime itself.

These actions, in fact, often provide the police with more investigative leads during crime solving.

More than a decade ago, Haizhou City experienced a series of vicious robbery-murder cases.

The suspect acted in a completely unpredictable manner, targeting different victims, stealing varying amounts of money, and committing crimes at different locations.

The police investigated all intertwining clues of time and space concerning the suspect but found no patterns, eventually concluding that the perpetrator acted randomly.

In two crime scenes, security footage even captured the suspect’s face, but they still could not catch the criminal.

The reason was the extremely random nature of the crimes; the perpetrator escaped immediately after committing them, hiding from sight until the next crime.

He fled the crime scenes on foot, without using any vehicles.

He specifically chose alleyways without surveillance and with fewer people; it was impossible to find the suspect from two blurry photos in the vast sea of people.

Later, after robbing around a dozen people, perhaps he felt he had enough money and suddenly stopped, never committing another crime.

To this day, this case remains unsolved.

In contrast, thoroughly planned murders seldom remain unsolved, contrary to what the planner might believe.

This case was no different.

The person thought that by crushing the accident-causing car into pieces before the police arrive, all evidence would be eliminated.

In fact, it was precisely by scrapping and crushing the car before the police arrived that clues were left behind.

Initially, Lu Chuan and Zhang Hui came to the parking lot just to inspect the vehicle, suspecting someone deliberately caused the accident. Now, they confirmed this suspicion: someone definitely staged the accident.

"Where is the operator of the crusher?"

"Here, I’ll call him over right away."

"No need, we’ll go over."

Scrap vehicle parking area.

Lu Chuan and Zhang Hui met the operator of the crusher that processed the scrap vehicles.

The disposal of scrap vehicles follows a complete procedure; officially scrapped vehicles must go through a recycling assessment by a scrap vehicle recycling company.

After completing a series of processes, only then can they enter the recycling company, and the process follows the same steps as privately scrapped cars.

In most cases, scrap vehicles are crushed into scrap metal and then sold by the ton.

However, before they are scrapped, especially for luxury cars, some parts might be dismantled.

Of course, in theory, parts from these scrapped vehicles shouldn’t enter the market.

But... theory is theory, and the gap between theory and reality is often insurmountable.

From a safety perspective, some vehicles are scrapped not due to age. For example, vehicles completely destroyed in crashes also need to be scrapped, and many parts may still be new and worth recovering.

But in any case, police cars involved in accidents shouldn’t be directly crushed into a pile of scrap metal after being towed in.

"Why didn’t you follow the procedure when you crushed the police car this morning?"

The operator stammered, "He... gave me a pack of cigarettes... said it was a scrapped car for a traffic exercise... asked me to queue-jump... so I crushed it..."

"You idiot! That was a damn police car..."

The parking lot manager was furious, wishing he could flay his brother-in-law alive.

This place was only responsible for managing vehicles. As a parking lot affiliated with the traffic police department, it naturally couldn’t have official police officers stationed here.

This job was outsourced ten years ago; the staff here can’t be said to have no connection to the police, but they are definitely not police officers.

"Forget it," Zhang Hui waved his hand, approaching the operator: "You should remember the appearance of the person who gave you the cigarettes, right?"

"He... he was wearing a mask and a cap... I didn’t see clearly..."

"Damn it! You couldn’t even see the person clearly, yet you took his cigarettes!"

The manager now felt like hitting someone.

"Were there any other distinctive features you can remember?"

"Features... his eyes weren’t big, and he had a hoarse voice... does that count... oh right, he had a strong fishy smell on him!"

Small eyes, hoarse voice, and a fishy smell.

That does count as a feature.

Lu Chuan walked to the crushed police car: "This needs to be taken apart for a look, there might be some findings."

"Also, Brother Hui, can the source of the tow truck used by the other party be traced?"

"That’s not a big problem; tow trucks are not like ordinary vehicles and require certification to operate, as they are special vehicles."

Zhang Hui looked at the parking lot manager: "The tow truck they used to enter your parking lot must have been registered, let’s take a look."

"Okay, okay, I’ll get it right away."

"Operator, bring the forklift over and see if you can separate this pile of scrap metal."

"Alright, I’m coming right away!"

The compaction of scrapped vehicles isn’t done by a large machine squeezing them into a block, but rather crushing them from top to bottom.

In simple terms, it turns a three-dimensional car into a flat piece of scrap metal.

"Flip this over."

Lu Chuan wanted to inspect the car’s chassis. If the suspect tampered with the vehicle, the best places would be the tires, brake lines, and similar components.

Boom!

As the vehicle rolled over, a cloud of dust enveloped Lu Chuan’s face.

He wiped it off casually and started inspecting from the four tires.

Normally, before a vehicle is scrapped, if the tires are still of value, they should be removed.

This car clearly wasn’t; after being towed, it was directly crushed, so the tires remained.

All four tires had been burst during the compaction, and Lu Chuan focused on examining the damage to the burst tires.

If the suspect tampered with the tires, it’s likely they used cuts to damage them.

Such cuts should not immediately disable the tires at the time, or else the police car couldn’t have driven, and Ren Qiang would have noticed.

They should be deep cuts that didn’t cause immediate rupture.

This would leave marks of sharp cuts on the tires.

Lu Chuan was meticulously comparing the tire damages on each tire, looking for signs of sharp incisions.

However, the results were not promising.