Chapter 1038: Nine Years Ago!

After several attempts, Lu Chuan seemed to have finally found the right feeling, holding the pen holder in his right hand and striking it down into the air.

But during the test, it felt a little off, so Lu Chuan placed the pen holder on his left hand and repeated the previous action.

After trying multiple times, Lu Chuan’s eyes lit up!

He then said, “If the murderer held the stone with their right hand, then there’s a high probability that the blow was struck on the right side of the victim’s head, meaning it should be the top above the left eye.”

“Simultaneously, the invasive injury should have been from right to left, not from left to right.”

The Forensic Doctor understood, “Director Lu, you mean the murderer is… left-handed?”

“Yes!”

“The likelihood of being left-handed is quite high.”

In this way, Lu Chuan managed to deduce two critical judgments, just based on the skull injuries of the deceased: the attacker was left-handed and approximately 1.8 meters tall.

Moreover, such a tall perpetrator was likely male, as females of that height are rare.

So although there was no specific evidence pointing to the suspect, and the victim’s identity wasn’t confirmed yet,

They had determined that the perpetrator was about 1.8 meters tall, possibly male, left-handed, and very familiar with the victim. Therefore, if the victim’s identity were confirmed, investigating the victim’s interpersonal relationships could quickly lead them to the suspect.

But contrary to their wishes,

Two days passed, and Wang Zhaokai and his team of dozens scoured through the national missing persons database but found no match similar to the victim.

In the meeting room.

“We have compared all missing females from the past three years, but found nothing.”

Wang Zhaokai had barely slept these days.

Checking victims through the missing persons information system was actually very straightforward but extremely tedious.

The first step was checking based on height, the second was checking the clothing worn at the time of disappearance, and finally, the age of the missing persons.

Logically, identifying the victim in this case should have been easier. The clothing features were clear, and height was available, plus the victim being female confirmed her gender.

Yet they found nothing.

Wang Zhaokai continued the report, “There are only two possibilities. The first is that the estimated death time of the victim doesn’t fall within the three years, meaning our search frame was too brief.”

The missing persons database contained many entries, and Lu Chuan had set the search frame at three years. Wang Zhaokai’s team used this three-year limit to pull all the female missing persons data matching the age criteria.

But no matches were found.

“The other possibility is that the victim isn’t listed in the missing persons database.”

This situation wasn’t common, but there were enough cases like it that Lu Chuan and his team had dealt with similar cases before.

Some people were orphans, some hadn’t contacted their family for years, and naturally, no one would report them missing.

Additionally, some missing persons information was incomplete.

For example, some entries in the database only had brief information like name, height, and gender.

These cases are mostly reported from different locales.

Because the reporting families often didn’t know what the missing persons were wearing at the time of disappearance, and such cross-region reports were often delayed; sometimes a month or two, or even half a year to a year later.

“Director Lu, should we extend the search timeframe?”

Lu Chuan frowned.

Of course, they should continue investigating.

But given the large volume of missing persons entries, a comprehensive investigation would certainly take a long time.

However, without any other specific leads, they couldn’t determine when the victim died or was reported missing, so they could only extend the search year by year.

Lu Chuan hadn’t expected that the victim’s identity couldn’t be determined immediately.

He had been too optimistic.

Identifying bodies from skeletal remains was inherently the most challenging.

And now, although Lu Chuan had made some findings, determining the identity might lead to investigating interpersonal relations to find the suspect.

“Let’s proceed with the investigation. If it doesn’t work, we’ll extend the search year by year…”

There’s no other choice, even if it takes longer.

“Additionally, regarding the examination of the bones, I’m almost finished on my end, and…”

Uh?

Taking a pause, Lu Chuan was about to share details about the suspect’s physical characteristics but then remembered something.

That was the deceased’s thigh bone.

When the entire skeletal remains were excavated, the preservation was relatively intact, but during the underwater survey, Lu Chuan recalled the deceased’s thigh bone had shifted, piercing into the chest cavity.

Why was there a shift in the deceased’s thigh bone?

Generally, even if a body becomes skeletal, the connections between bones, especially between thigh bones and the spine, should remain tight.

Yet the deceased’s thigh bone had shifted, and there were no evident marks suggesting it was severed pre-mortem, which would cause such dislocation.

“Zhaokai, I remember you mentioned to me yesterday, why is this so important? That reservoir seems to have been abandoned for quite some time, right?”

Wang Zhaokai wasn’t sure why Lu Chuan suddenly brought this up.

But he nodded and replied, “Yes, that reservoir is privately owned. We immediately went to find the owner and conducted interviews and investigations at their home.”

“There was only a 70-something old lady at the house, and according to her, the reservoir had been abandoned since her husband passed away. After his death, they stopped farming, and the reservoir wasn’t used anymore.”

“When was this? When did the old lady’s husband pass away?”

Lu Chuan queried.

“About nine years ago, yes, nine years ago.”

Nine years ago?

Lu Chuan realized.

No wonder the sandals on the corpse were so outdated!

All-plastic sandals, quite similar to those popular when Lu Chuan was in high school.

“We miscalculated the estimated time of death for the deceased, and there’s been a significant misunderstanding.”

Lu Chuan quickly explained to everyone, “Wang, play the rib cage video captured by the equipment.”

Soon, the screen displayed the underwater video of the skeletal remains.

“Everyone look here, remember the right thigh bone had shifted into the chest cavity, yes?”

Lu Chuan paused the video.

“Initially, we had no clue why the right thigh bone had shifted; the fundamental reason is the reservoir’s water flow impact caused the leg bone shift.”

Lu Chuan had only just thought of this.

The reservoir was in a closed state, untouched for years, otherwise, the body would have been discovered long ago.

In this untouched reservoir, the skeletal remains should have been in a fixed state, with the only potential change occurring when the reservoir was in use.

Thus, the time of death of the deceased was nine years ago, not three!