Chapter 408: Chapter 248: Major Criminal Suspect

Seeing Li Yue say this, Liu Erya quickly said, “Then I’ll go back and look for it right away.”

“I’ll help you look for it too,” Liu Jiao added.

If they could find this laptop, then the murderer of her sister could be caught, and justice could be served for her sister.

“Let’s go together.”

Li Yue followed Liu Erya’s electric scooter to her home. After explaining the situation to her mother, everyone started searching through the house for the broken laptop.

“Mom, where exactly did you put my laptop?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You didn’t sell it, did you?”

“Who would want that thing?”

“I’m just afraid you traded it for a stainless steel basin.”

“I may be old, but I’m not stupid. Would I trade something that cost four or five thousand bucks for a basin just like that?”

Liu Erya and her mother bickered as they searched.

But the laptop had been broken for almost ten years, and they didn’t know where it had been stored, so they had to search the entire house.

They were sure of one thing: the laptop was definitely at home; it hadn’t been sold or thrown away.

Things in a rural house are a mess; when you’re not looking for them, they’re right under your nose, but when you need them, you can’t find them anywhere.

“Found it.”

After rummaging through the house for more than three hours, they finally uncovered it in a small room designated for miscellaneous items.

“Who put it here? Made me search all over.”

“The charger is missing, and the computer can’t start up. I don’t know if it’ll be of any help to you.”

Li Yue took the old computer handed to him by Liu Erya and nodded: “Thank you for cooperating. I need to take this computer back and let a technician see if they can recover the data from the hard drive.”

“No problem, take it back. As long as it helps you solve the case and catch the murderer of Liu Tingting and have him executed.”

As Liu Erya mentioned the murderer of Liu Tingting, she gritted her teeth, her eyes filled with fierce determination.

They had grown up together, and after so many years without contact, she thought Liu Tingting had just cut off ties herself, not realizing she had been killed.

“We will solve the case as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation.”

After gathering the necessary information, Li Yue returned to the provincial city with the broken laptop.

By the time they bought train tickets and got back, Li Xiang and the others had also returned. Seeing the fatigue on their faces, he encouraged them, “Good work.”

“It’s nothing, just hoping it wasn’t a wasted trip.”

“First, take the DNA biology samples for matching, and give me the laptop. I’ll see if I can extract the data from it.”

“Oh, right, I almost forgot, Captain Li, you’re a super computer expert too.”

Seeing Li Xiang ask for the laptop, Li Yue quickly handed over the well-protected computer from his bag.

In the task force, there shouldn’t be anyone else who is as skilled as him in computers, right?

After all, he’s the tech genius who developed the digital skull reconstruction technology; recovering data should be a piece of cake for him.

As it turns out, Li Xiang is not only proficient in software but also has a strong foundation in hardware.

He found a power cable to charge the computer, but it couldn’t start up, so he used a multimeter to check the circuit and found some solder joints had come loose.

Once Li Xiang re-soldered these joints, he pressed the power button, and the computer finally turned on, but it was lagging terribly.

Having no patience, Li Xiang removed its storage drive and created a simple conversion device, then connected it to his own computer.

On a PC, QQ’s default chat records are stored in C:UsersAdministratorDocumentsTencent FilesQQ numberFileRec

Following this path, Li Xiang quickly found their chat records. Given the sheer volume of chat content, he copied it all and assigned someone to sort through these messages for useful information.

He didn’t have much spare time to sit around reading chat logs.

The chat content between the two girl friends was simply jaw-droppingly scandalous. Li Xiang couldn’t bear to look and decided to leave this “blessing” to someone else.

After sifting through half a year of chat records, the specialists finally extracted some core information.

A mysterious man named Xiang Haotian appeared on the police’s radar.

The task force immediately identified him as the second suspect:

Xiang Haotian, from Baoshan, was 30 years old back then and should now be around 48.

With this information, Yang Ming quickly searched for Xiang Haotian’s details in the police’s household registration system.

In Baoshan, there are 24 people named Xiang Haotian, and among them, 5 are around 48 years old.

“Print out photos of these 5 people and have the field team take them to verify with the neighbors from back then to see who it was.”

“Yes.”

Wan Shu’an took the photos and set out with his team members.

The field team was divided into 4 groups to interview neighbors who lived near Liu Tingting at that time.

They asked them to identify if any of these 5 people was the man who lived with Liu Tingting back then.

“Found him, Xiang Haotian from 98 Longquan Street, Baoshan, is the man who lived with Liu Tingting.”

The field team’s investigation quickly pinpointed him, with all 4 groups consistently identifying this individual.

Xiang Haotian, male, 49 years old, from Baoshan, residing at 98 Longquan Street.

Through the task force’s investigation, it was found that he got married at the age of 25 and has a son, who graduated from college this year and is currently interning at some organization.

By analyzing this timeline, it was deduced that when Liu Tingting was with him, he had been married for 5 years.

However, Liu Tingting’s chat records with Liu Erya show she was unaware of Xiang Haotian’s marriage.

And in the chats, Liu Tingting mentioned wanting to divorce Lin Dazhuang and marry Xiang Haotian.

So, could Xiang Haotian’s motive for murder be Liu Tingting discovering the truth about his wife and child, which then led to a series of conflicts? Hmm

“This person is highly suspected of being the perpetrator. Immediately take criminal enforcement actions against him.”

The place where Xiang Haotian and Liu Tingting rented was just one building away from where Liu Tingting was buried. According to old photos, from their home, they could even see part of this barren land.

This provided very convenient conditions for him to commit murder and bury her.

All clues pointed to Xiang Haotian as having a strong motive to commit the crime.

Li Xiang immediately sent a report to the provincial office, preparing to take criminal enforcement actions against him.

“Have you found the murderer?”

Seeing the report sent by Li Xiang, Fan Yonglin was taken aback.

How long has it been since the task force was set up?

A week?

They managed to identify the suspect from an unknown victim in a mystery case.

How could he not be amazed by such efficiency?

“We found the suspect. Using the digital skull reconstruction technology, we restored images of the victim before death and matched them in the household system, identifying the victim’s identity, which led us to unearthing this suspect.”

“Well done.”

Fan Yonglin was pleased upon hearing this, as it was the first cold case solved after the development of the digital skull reconstruction software, which had a demonstrative effect.

Once this software is promoted nationwide, it is bound to spark a wave of solving cold cases across the country.

Local police agencies will form task forces to focus and supervise similar cases.

This demonstration significantly boosted the confidence of the national police in clearing old cases.

With a quick stroke of his pen, Fan Yonglin approved Li Xiang’s report.

Upon receiving the report, Li Xiang disbanded the initial investigation and field teams and re-established a capture team.

They immediately headed to Baoshan to investigate Xiang Haotian’s whereabouts and set up surveillance.

“Xiang Haotian is home, and so is his wife.”

“If his wife is there, no problem, proceed with the arrest immediately.”

“Yes.”

Once they confirmed Xiang Haotian was home, the arrest team swiftly moved into action and knocked on his door.

Knock, knock, knock ~

“Who’s there?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep