Chapter 179: Hearing the Children’s Father’s Voice

Chapter 179: Chapter 179: Hearing the Children’s Father’s Voice

The killer had hacked off the infant’s limbs and placed them in the bowls the family used for their meals.

There was also a deep, obvious gash across the infant’s lower body.

Blood dripped from the small dining table onto the floor, slowly flowing toward the two girls and merging with the pools of blood surrounding them.

But something puzzled Zoe Sawyer. ’Does an infant’s body even have this much blood?’

’The amount of blood in the photos seemed excessive.’

Just as she put down the two photos, Zoe Sawyer noticed there were several more underneath.

The photos showed the same two little girls, but they had been carefully turned over by the police, revealing two words carved bloodily into their backs.

"GO DIE!"

One word was carved onto each girl’s back, taking up almost the entire surface.

A large hole had been gouged out near their necks. It was then that Zoe Sawyer understood where the rest of the blood had come from.

Aside from those three, the remaining photos were of the general crime scene.

The most conspicuous object was a coal briquette stove next to the dining table. A small pot sat on top, with some sort of residue floating inside.

Flipping the photo over revealed a line of text on the back.

Evan Keller squinted to make out the words and read them aloud. "Analysis confirms pot contents to be minced infant flesh and genital..."

Even though she was used to all kinds of crime scenes, the sight of those photos and the line of text on the back made Zoe Sawyer gasp and gag.

’She could never accept people who would harm children, especially with such cruel methods!’

Seeing Zoe gag, Heath Hale sighed. He got up from his chair and sat down beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He gently stroked her head again and again, trying to soothe her.

When Beau saw what was happening with Zoe, she couldn’t sit still either.

She trotted over, carefully placed the face-down photos back into the case file, and closed the lid.

Out of sight, out of mind.

"Alright, alright. It’s okay," Heath Hale said softly.

Once Zoe calmed down, she realized she was half-leaning against Heath Hale’s chest. She sat up straight, embarrassed.

The moment she sat up, Zoe saw Beau staring at them, her eyes darting back and forth between her and Heath Hale.

There was a mischievous look in her eyes, and she opened her mouth as if about to ask something.

Zoe suddenly had the strange feeling that she was corrupting a child. She quickly reached for the case file, reopened it, and grabbed the documents inside. "Back to the file, back to the file. We need to solve this case quickly."

She then buried her face in the file, trying to distract herself.

She completely failed to notice that the tips of her exposed ears and her neck were flushing red.

Beau still looked like she wanted to say something, but she saw Heath Hale shake his head at her and make a "shushing" gesture.

Beau considered herself a good kid who didn’t make trouble for adults. After seeing Heath’s gesture, she obediently sat back in her seat and kept quiet.

’Oh well,’ she thought. ’I’ll let them save some face.’

Although she’d initially grabbed the file to escape the awkwardness, Zoe was completely absorbed in her work in less than a minute.

The cold case occurred in 1970, a few days before the Chinese New Year. The parents of the three children were full-time factory workers.

At the time, the factory had received a massive order. To ship it out before the New Year, the factory decided to have its employees work through the night to complete the order, ensuring both quality and quantity.

The tragedy occurred while the parents were out working the overtime shift.

With the children being so young, the parents had considered having one of them stay home to watch them.

But the two girls insisted they could look after their younger brother and told their parents not to worry.

Besides, if they ran into any trouble they couldn’t handle, they could ask the next-door neighbor for help. The girls told their parents to go to work without worrying, earn some extra money, and the whole family could have a wonderful New Year celebration.

Relationships between neighbors were very close back then. Combined with the building’s poor soundproofing, the woman next door overheard their conversation. She came out and offered to check on the children every hour, promising she could help right away if anything went wrong.

With things settled like this, the parents accepted their neighbor’s kindness and left for their shift.

When they returned from work the next day, no one answered the door, no matter how much they knocked.

The noise was loud enough to bring the neighbors from upstairs and downstairs over to see what was going on, but there was still no sign of movement from the two girls inside.

’This isn’t right!’

’There’s no way they can’t hear this!’

’Could something have happened?’

At this thought, the couple’s knocking became even more frantic. In the end, terrified that something had happened to their children, they simply broke down the door.

The moment the couple rushed inside, they saw their two daughters lying on the floor, long since dead.

Their young son was also dead, his body lying on the dining table.

Upon seeing this, the wife let out a mournful wail and fainted on the spot.

The husband’s face was a mask of grief. He clutched his wife’s shoulders, his lips trembling, wanting to speak but unable to make a single sound.

The neighbors in the doorway screamed at the sight.

Fortunately, one of the building’s residents had a son who was a police officer. He heard the screaming just as he was leaving for work and rushed over to check on the situation.

He immediately secured the doorway, preventing anyone else from entering and thus preserving the crime scene.

At the same time, he didn’t forget to tell the neighbors gathered there to send someone to call the police.

Soon, the police department dispatched a number of officers who took over the case.

"The killer must have made a lot of noise on the night of the murder, so why didn’t any of the neighbors react?" Zoe Sawyer asked with a frown after finishing the incident report.

The apartment buildings back then had poor soundproofing. You could hear any little noise from next door perfectly clearly.

The noise should have been even more obvious in the dead of night. Why didn’t anyone nearby notice something was amiss?

Heath Hale, sitting beside her, pulled several witness statements from the bottom of the file. He pointed to one and said, "It says here the next-door neighbor did hear a noise. She went over to knock and ask about it, and the voice that answered her was the husband’s."

"It was a bit muffled, but she could still recognize it, so she felt reassured and went home to sleep."

Zoe’s eyes widened at Heath Hale’s explanation.

’The husband? Meaning, the children’s own father?’

’If that’s true, it would certainly have been enough to allay the neighbor’s suspicions.’

’But something still felt off to Zoe. If it was the husband, why would he do it?’

’And if it really was the father, the case should have been closed quickly. It shouldn’t have become a cold case!’

Sure enough, in the next moment, Zoe heard Heath Hale’s explanation.

"But the couple was working in their respective workshops the entire night. They never left. Everyone in their workshops could serve as their alibi."𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚