The crackdown on organized crime began with the arrest of the mother-in-law.

Chapter 1257 Clues Found in the Autopsy Room

Zhang Jihai nodded, his grip on his phone tightening slightly: "No problem, I'll cooperate as long as it helps. I hope you can find the murderer soon and prevent this from happening again."

Standing in the center of the cordon, Li Ming watched as Xiao Yang and Xiao Sun carefully searched the stone path, and as Xiao Wang quickly jotted down notes in his notebook. He knew in his heart that this murder case in the morning exercise park had only just begun. Who was the victim? Why was he on the deck chair in the sycamore grove? Who was the man in the hoodie last night? Where did the scratches on the tree trunk, the metal wire, and the marked fallen leaves point? All the questions needed to be answered, little by little, from the traces in this small area.

A short while later, Xiao Yang found another size 42 mesh shoe print on the stone path near the east gate of the sycamore forest. It was exactly the same as the half shoe print he had found under the tree trunk earlier. "The shoe print extends towards the east gate," Xiao Yang said to Li Ming. "It seems that the suspect did leave through the east gate after leaving the scene."

Li Ming nodded: "Continue the investigation. Get the surveillance footage from around the East Gate as soon as possible, as well as the street surveillance footage outside the park. We must find the man in the hoodie. Also, notify the technical department to send the evidence collected today for testing as soon as possible, especially the leaf with the mark and the metal wire. They might make an unexpected discovery."

As the sunlight grew brighter and the morning mist completely dissipated, the morning exercise in Oriental Park gradually returned to its usual bustling state. However, the orange warning tape outside the sycamore grove acted as an invisible barrier, isolating the area from the outside noise. A reconnaissance race against time officially began in this park bathed in the soft morning light.

At 1 p.m., the temperature control system in the autopsy room of the Criminal Investigation Detachment was operating stably, and the filtration system was working hard to dilute the odor from the corpse. The refrigerated truck carrying the body from Dongfang Park slowly drove into the passageway, and two staff members wearing heavy biological protective suits carefully lifted the body onto the autopsy table. The body was still curled up in the recliner, with a few fallen leaves and dirt stuck to its gray hoodie and black sweatpants, and the light brown stain at the collar was particularly noticeable under the operating lights.

"Prepare the dissection instruments. First, conduct a surface examination of the cadaver, focusing on recording rigor mortis, livor mortis, surface injuries, and any attached substances, especially the marks on the collar; carefully observe their composition and morphology." Zhang Sen, wearing double-layered latex gloves, spoke through his gas mask, his voice calm and professional. His assistant, Xiao Lin, had already arranged the dissection trays in order; scalpels, forceps, thermometers, and other instruments gleamed coldly, while saline solution in specimen bottles lay ready to collect samples.

Xiaolin first performed basic measurements on the body, recording and reporting simultaneously: "The deceased is male, preliminarily estimated to be 35-40 years old, 175 cm tall, and weighing approximately 70 kg. His skin is pale, and his lips are purplish, consistent with the appearance of death due to oxygen deprivation." She picked up a special thermometer, inserted it into the body's rectum, and waited a few minutes before taking the reading: "The body temperature is lower than the ambient temperature. Considering the constant temperature in the autopsy room, we need to further estimate the time of death by combining rigor mortis and livor mortis."

Zhang Sen squatted beside the autopsy table, gently rotating the corpse's joints to check the rigor mortis: "Look, the corpse's jaw joint and neck muscles are slightly stiff, and the elbow and knee joints are in a semi-flexed position. You can feel some resistance when you press on them, but they are not completely fixed yet." He pressed the corpse's upper arm muscles with his fingers, "The muscle elasticity has not completely disappeared. Rigor mortis is in its early stages. This state usually occurs within a few hours after death."

"How long after death exactly?" Xiao Lin asked doubtfully. "In previous cases, rigor mortis took much longer to fully develop, and judgments at this stage are always prone to error." Zhang Sen pointed to the finger joints of the corpse: "Look closely, the stiffness of the finger joints is less than that of the elbow joints, indicating that rigor mortis started from the jaw and neck and gradually spread to the limbs. This is consistent with the normal progression of rigor mortis. Based on this progress, combined with the body temperature, the preliminary judgment is that the time of death was between 4 and 6 hours after death."

Next, Zhang Sen examined the livor mortis. He gently turned the body over and found dark purplish-red livor mortis on the back, buttocks, and hind limbs where no pressure had been applied. When the livor mortis was pressed with a finger, the color would briefly fade and then quickly return when released. "The livor mortis is in the spreading stage and has not yet fully settled," he explained. "In the early post-mortem stage, livor mortis is bright red, and it gradually turns dark purplish-red over time. The spreading stage usually occurs 3-8 hours after death, which is basically consistent with the 4-6 hour range we previously determined through rigor mortis, allowing us to further narrow down the time range."

Xiao Lin added, "Should we also consider the degree of corneal opacity for verification? The deceased's cornea still had some transparency, and the outline of the pupil could be vaguely seen; it wasn't completely opaque, which is consistent with the characteristics of 4-6 hours after death. If the time of death had been longer, the cornea would have become completely opaque, and even the pupil wouldn't be visible." Zhang Sen nodded, "Yes, the degree of corneal opacity is an important auxiliary criterion for judgment. Now that all three indicators point to the same time range, the accuracy of the time of death is even higher."

During the examination of the body's external injuries, Zhang Sen made a crucial discovery. He gently lifted the deceased's gray sweatshirt with tweezers and found a band-shaped indentation about 0.5 centimeters wide on the left side of the neck. The indentation had clean edges, slight redness of the skin, and no obvious bleeding, but fine skin folds were visible. "There's something unusual here," he said, instructing Xiao Lin to focus the indentation with a strong investigation light. "The indentation is horizontal, encircling the left side of the neck, gradually becoming shallower as it extends to the right. Fine fiber residue can be seen on the surface of the indentation; it doesn't seem like a naturally formed fold, but rather more like it was caused by pressure from some kind of band-like object."

"Could it be that the deceased accidentally pressed on it while sleeping, or that it was caused by the collar of their clothes?" Xiao Lin asked. Zhang Sen shook his head and measured the length of the indentation with a ruler: "The direction of the indentation does not match the shape of the collar of the clothes, and the neck muscles corresponding to the indentation can be felt as slightly hardened when touched. This is a sign of external pressure during life. If the indentation was formed after death, the muscles would not have this reaction, nor would there be any redness of the skin."

He continued examining other parts of the body. On the left palm, he found several small abrasions with irregular edges and slight redness and swelling. Small amounts of brown fibers and tiny pieces of bark were embedded in the fingernails—a composition consistent with the bark of the plane trees in Oriental Park. "These abrasions are defensive injuries sustained before death," Zhang Sen analyzed. "This indicates that the deceased had physical contact with someone before death, possibly accidentally brushing against the bark while resisting, or being scratched by the other person."