I Play Dungeons in the Police Station

Chapter 440 - 264: The Headless Corpse Case

"Captain Li has spoken, everyone start working."

Ever since Li Xiang demonstrated his skills at the case analysis meeting, noticing the detail about the stockings, he fully convinced everyone.

Spotting details that others miss is truly an ability.

Guidance group leader, deservedly so.

Everyone took the dossier of the headless-body case from Li Xiang and began reading it.

Compared to the Yuncheng No. 1 case, this case was much simpler, the dossier contained significantly less material.

Back to March 9, 2013, a park cleaner at West Suburb Park discovered a black plastic bag under a leisure bench while cleaning in the morning. Upon opening it, she discovered a female head and immediately called the police.

Wang Ruigang was the officer dispatched at the time. Upon arriving at the scene, he first understood the detailed situation from the park cleaner.

At 6:30 in the morning, the sky was still dark when they came to work to clean the park.

While emptying a trash can, he noticed a black plastic bag under a distant bench, thinking it was just trash someone had carelessly littered. He went over, picked it up, and threw it into the garbage truck, but the sound it made didn’t seem right. So he opened the bag, and the discovery gave the cleaner quite a scare.

Wang Ruigang immediately sealed the site and began investigating the scene.

The park is a public place bustling with people, with many seniors coming daily to exercise, stroll, and perform square dancing.

However, this park is an open-type park with sparse surveillance facilities, only having two social public surveillance cameras. Wang Ruigang promptly arranged people to retrieve recordings from these two cameras.

The murderer, carrying this black plastic bag conspicuously through the public, must have been seen by witnesses or caught on these two surveillance cameras.

Oddly, the task force interviewed over 1000 seniors who frequent the park, and they all asserted they had not seen anyone carrying a black plastic bag that was placed under the bench.

More perplexingly for Wang Ruigang, those two surveillance cameras also did not capture someone with a black plastic bag.

One must understand, a human head is not small and cannot simply be pocketed or hidden within clothing.

They reviewed the footage thoroughly, from beginning to end, and vice versa, and found no box or bag capable of concealing the head.

To this day, the police have yet to discover how the murderer placed the head in the park.

But one thing Wang Ruigang was certain about, the murderer was taunting the police.

This was a successful action!

Wang Ruigang indeed did not bring the murderer to justice.

Two months later, the infamous Yuncheng No. 1 case emerged, becoming one unresolved case after another.

During that period, Wang Ruigang was stressed to the point of pulling his own hair out, the consecutive murders overwhelmed him, a pressure incomparable to any normal person’s experience.

However, he unknowingly was just beginning his nightmare.

For the next decade, there wasn’t a year of relief; as long as the cases remained unsolved and the true criminals unapprehended, as the leader of the task force, he’d never give up.

Committed to battling criminals to the end!

"The trash bag is just an ordinary black bag, with such an incredible consumption rate, tracing its source is like finding a needle in a haystack, utterly impossible to track down."

Seeing some task force investigation directions, Li Xiang could fathom the extent of Wang Ruigang’s desperation back then, even having detailed investigative records on the trash bag source.

"The rest of the body parts are nowhere to be found, and the missing persons didn’t provide any lead to the body source; no wonder the case never got solved!"

Despite the nature of this case being straightforward, Li Xiang took only half a day to finish reading the dossier.

Simultaneously realizing the crucial point of this unsolved case lies in identifying the body.

"Yuncheng No. 1 case still requires more time to investigate, let this small case be your hands-on practice."

Although this case was assigned to Li Xiang, and he had some of his own ideas, he decided to allow the guidance team to solve this case.

The reason being he wanted to test if handing his tasks to the guidance team would still count as completed according to the system.

If feasible, he’d truly strike it rich.

Case simulations consumed diamond points, alongside disciple recruitment mode, both of which were resource-intensive skills charged by the second, unaffordable during off-duty times.

So, solving how to acquire diamond points became his urgent priority.

Otherwise, diamonds earned from one case wouldn’t suffice for solving another case, resulting in a dilemma.

Plus, disciple recruitment mode had never been initiated, something he dared not and couldn’t afford to activate, purely due to financial constraints.

If he handled task reception while the guidance team resolved it, he’d truly prosper.

Day-to-day tasks needed only picking assignments, delegating them to the guidance team, and still obtaining rewards; it’d be idyllic.

"Alright then, anyway, during this time, the task force is expanding the investigation; let’s practice with this case, waiting incidentally for their updates."

"The difficulty lies in identifying the body source. Once determined, we’d be close to solving the case."

The guidance team comprised seasoned professionals, understanding well that a focus on the body source was essential to progress.

"This case somewhat resembles the No. 1 case; the victim’s age is surprisingly only 20."

The forensic expert predicted the victim’s age and height merely from the head.

Victim age below 21, height estimated at 160-163 cm.

"Who did this portrait? It’s terribly rough; I think we need to use our Captain Li’s digital skull reconstruction technique to create a proper one."

Lai Jiyun, seeing the task force’s earlier attempts at portrait reconstruction, sneered at them.

The technology a decade ago was limited, incomparable with today, and even less so with digital skull reconstruction technology.

"A dual approach, a check against missing persons; see if any are recently recorded, though it’s unlikely the missing daughter went unreported over these years. Additionally, Captain Li’s digital skull reconstruction paired with likeness comparison technology should identify the individual."

Li Xiang’s development of the digital skull reconstruction technology immensely benefited grassroots investigations; combined with today’s sophisticated facial recognition technology, an ID registration coupled with digital skull reconstruction should solve most cases.

"Therefore, Captain Li’s software has benefited policemen nationwide."

"Enough flattery, let’s get on with the case solving."

A solved case is much more rewarding than flattery.

Now possessing a team of capable subordinates, Li Xiang no longer needed his previous hands-on approach; now he simply needed to sit back in the office, grasping a teacup, directing efforts as needed.

If team members encountered a problem, naturally they’d come to him in the office for instructions, where he’d merely provide advice or direction.

Such a lifestyle was his ideal.

Before, without choice, everything depended on effort, and the purpose of effort was to achieve this better livelihood.

Now he was closer than ever to his ideal lifestyle.

Qi Liyan handled the search for the missing person. After reporting her findings to Li Xiang, she couldn’t help but complain, "Captain Li, the missing person re-analysis still yielded nothing. It’s so bizarre, having a child missing for ten years, yet no police report filed?"

Being a parent herself, she knew she’d panic if her child was missing for just a day, let alone ten years.

"The situation can be complex; the victim might have been an orphan or due to other circumstances, let’s see if Zhou Jian has any progress on his end."

Zhou Jian was very interested in Li Xiang’s development of digital skull reconstruction technology, particularly its application involving artificial intelligence, coinciding with his research focus for the next phase. This led him to privately consult Li Xiang on many specialized matters.

Due to this, he was the most convinced of Li Xiang among the guidance team.