Chapter 939 - 487: A New Discovery in the Dark Night!

The interrogation began at 1 a.m. and continued until 3:30 a.m.

Mr. Qin employed every interrogation strategy he could, from emotional persuasion to legal education, from policy interpretation to psychological pressure, exhausting all his resources in an attempt to find a breach in the suspect’s psychological defense.

However, the suspect on the other side did not show the slightest shake, and instead became increasingly arrogant.

Nearing the end of the interrogation, he even said in a somewhat provocative tone, "If you have no evidence, stop wasting my time here, I want to go back and rest."

"And my car needs to be returned soon. I have a lot of transport tasks waiting in the coming days."

"You can’t afford to compensate for the thousands of dollars I earn in a day."

Hearing this, Mr. Qin’s anger surged, and he slammed the table, "Good one! Don’t think we won’t find evidence just because time’s gone by!"

"I tell you, the law will never let any criminal go unpunished!"

"Just because we didn’t catch you today or yesterday doesn’t mean we won’t catch you tomorrow! ’Confess and be treated leniently, resist and be punished severely’—that’s not just an empty threat."

"I’ve seen so many people in this interrogation room, and most were cooperative from the start, except for a rare few like you, who keep arguing endlessly!"

"I’m telling you, there’s only one consequence for arguing—You won’t get out, and your sentence will be even heavier!"

After these words, Mr. Qin felt a rush of blood to his head, and the anger almost burst out of his chest.

He restrained his emotions, turned to signal the officer beside him to keep watching the suspect, and then pushed open the interrogation room door, striding out.

Standing in the empty corridor, he took a deep breath, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one up.

Outside the window, stars twinkled silently, the night should have been peaceful and beautiful, but his mood was like a lake disturbed by a storm, difficult to calm.

The frustration from the interrogation, the suspect’s arrogance, and the unresolved case intertwined, leaving him with a deep sense of exhaustion and helplessness.

At this moment, Director Hou, Political Commissioner Li, Jiang An, and others came from the other end of the corridor.

Mr. Qin pulled himself together, nodded at them as a greeting.

After pondering for a while, he spoke, "The current progress in interrogation is indeed very unfavorable."

"This suspect’s psychological quality far exceeds our expectations. Not only is he unyielding and uncooperative, but more importantly, through our observations and analysis over this time, I vaguely feel that—he seems to have realized that we lack solid evidence to directly indict him."

"This attitude of confidence has led the interrogation into a stalemate."

Having heard this, Political Commissioner Li sighed deeply, with a tone of helplessness: "Yes, this situation was actually anticipated."

"After all, the case has been long past, and as time goes by, many crucial pieces of evidence might have been lost."

"To retrace the clues and uncover the details hidden by time, to finally form a complete chain of evidence to bring them to justice, is definitely not a simple task."

As he spoke, his gaze slowly passed over Director Hou and Jiang An present, and finally rested on Director Hou.

Director Hou understood and nodded, replying, "Indeed."

"During my province-wide case supervision, I have deeply understood the difficulty in investigating such old cases."

"These types of cases usually face two major challenges: firstly, the occurrence of the crime is so long ago that physical traces at the scene have almost completely disappeared, making it difficult to extract significant material evidence."

"Secondly, even if we are lucky enough to find some evidence, it is often indirect evidence."

"After all, in that era when surveillance equipment was not widespread, direct evidence was inherently scarce."

"This raises a key issue—without direct evidence, can we achieve the purpose of proof by constructing a complete system of indirect evidence?"

Upon hearing this, Mr. Qin immediately continued, "The impression we found should serve as an important piece of indirect evidence."

"The location and shape of this impression highly coincide with the crime’s course of events and have strong indicative value."

His tone carried a hint of urgency, as if hoping to use this discovery to break the current stalemate.

However, Political Commissioner Li slowly shook his head, cautiously analyzing, "That impression is indeed a breakthrough, but we must clearly understand its limitations."

"From a standard of evidence perspective, it currently does not meet the requirement of ’uniqueness’—that is, we cannot prove that this impression was necessarily caused by the involved tool."

"If there are other objects that match the measurement width, this could give rise to reasonable doubt, greatly diminishing the probative value of the evidence."

"From the legal application viewpoint, such evidence indeed has certain flaws and loopholes that may be heavily targeted by the defense during the trial phase."

At that moment, Jiang An suddenly spoke, "Director Hou, you are quite right."

"This evidence indeed played an important role during the investigation stage; it was by relying on this clue that we determined the direction of our search and identified the suspect."

"But it now seems that relying solely on this piece of evidence makes it difficult to form a complete chain of evidence."

"We may need to adjust our approach and look for other corroborating evidence to form a cohesive system."

Director Hou looked approvingly at Jiang An, adding, "That’s exactly the point."

"The requirements for evidence in criminal proceedings are becoming increasingly stringent; suspicion and speculation alone are far from sufficient."