Soon after Zhao Zimeng and his comrades-in-arms ended the case of No. 157, they immediately threw themselves into another case.

The file bag is marked "1992.6.27" headless homicide. Hereinafter referred to as the "6.27" case.

Let's first understand the basic situation of the case:

In the summer of 1992, residents on both sides of the river in the northern section of Xihuamen of the Qinnan River reported to the city that the Qinnan River was seriously polluted, and the city decided to desilt the entire Qinnan River and build stone embankments after research.

This is only part of the plan to remediate the Qinnan River, and the city decided to use two years to completely remediate the Qinnan River.

When the workers were dredging, a headless male corpse was removed from the underwater mud.

After receiving the report, Zhao Zimeng and his entourage quickly rushed to the scene.

Here are three documents. One is an autopsy report, one is a statement from the dredging workers (what happened when the headless body was found), and one is a report on the circumstances of the crime scene — a statement about the crime scene to be precise.

Let's take a look at the autopsy report first:

The deceased did not have a single piece of clothing on him, and the body had begun to decompose.

According to the degree of decomposition of the body and the characteristics of the season, the time of death of the deceased was about two months (Note: In the summer of 1995, the weather in western Beijing was particularly hot, with a maximum temperature of 37.5 degrees Celsius. The average temperature is 2-3 degrees higher than in previous years).

The age of the deceased was between forty and forty-five years old.

According to the length of the deceased, according to the ratio of head to body length (1 to 7) and the ratio of the golden ratio point (navel) up and down (5 to 8), the height of the deceased is about 1.69 meters.

Judging by the degree to which the deceased was soaked in the mud and water and the thickness of the bones, the deceased was super fat.

The length of the deceased's arms is 1.70 meters, which indicates that the deceased's body has a prominent feature: the arms are super long (the length of the arms of a normal person - or the average person is equal to the length of the body).

Another distinctive feature of the deceased's body is that there is a brown spot the size of a quail egg between the little finger, ring finger and wrist on the back of the deceased's right palm—to be precise, it is a birthmark, and on this birthmark, there are three hairs about one centimeter long.

On the inside of the deceased's left knee, there is a three-centimeter-long scar that runs from bottom to top, narrowing to widening. It is about 0.4 cm at the narrowest point and about 1 cm at the widest point. The scar should be a bruise.

The deceased's nails, including the toenails, were very cleanly trimmed, and judging from the smoothness of the toenails, they did not look like they had just been trimmed, which shows that the deceased's life before his death was relatively superior and exquisite.

The average person does not pay much attention to the timely trimming of the toenails, and there will be more or less dirt in the cracks between their nails, while the toenails of the deceased are very clean.

Judging by the smoothness of the toenails, they should be trimmed with professional tools.

The deceased's head was cut open from the middle of the neck - to be precise, and although the body was decomposed, and the incision was no longer visible due to swelling and decay, there were two distinct knife marks on the deceased's cervical vertebrae.

When the killer removed the deceased's head, the knife – or axe – was obstructed in the cervical vertebrae.

The first cut is 0.3 cm from the incision, and the second is 0.5 cm from the incision.

This means that the killer slashed at least three times before cutting off the deceased's head.

The corpse had two iron wires, the first wire was on the chest, the wire was wrapped nine times, and the second wire was five or six centimeters above the knee, and the wire was wrapped around seven times.

On top of the two wires were also dropped two wall bricks, which were tied separately with iron wires and then connected to the iron wires on the body, and the connection place was on the back of the deceased.

When the workers brought the body up, the body was face up (the wire on the bricks was the same type as the wire on the body).

After untying the wire, there were two strangulation marks about one centimeter deep on the body of the corpse (the corpse was more swollen).

There were no other wounds on the body, and the source of death should be the head of the deceased, but where was the head of the deceased?

Why did the murderer cut off the head of the deceased and hide it somewhere else? Is it to vent hatred, or to hide the evidence?

We all know that the so-called "headless case" is a case without clues. The identity of the deceased is mainly based on the facial features of the person, and there are some features on the human body, but due to the wrapping and covering of clothes, other features other than the facial features are generally not known to people - or not known to people, and some physical features can only be known to those who are close to them.

It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The first step is to confirm the identity of the deceased, and the second step is to find the murderer,

Who is the deceased?

Let's look again at the accounts of the dredging workers (there were five workers in total.

The dredging tools are a cement boat and a dredging pump. Because the underwater sludge is deposited for too long, the dredging work is divided into two stages: the first stage is to use a silt pump to pump the underwater silt onto the cement boat; The second step is to drain the river water in stages, and then manually clean up the remaining bottom dredging pump to suck up the silt).

When the workers were pumping underwater sludge with the silt pump, the dredging pump suddenly only worked out of the silt, and the suction port of the dredging pump must have been blocked by something.

So, two workers went down to the water and followed the rubber pipe of the sludge pump to the suction opening. Worker Liu Zhiqiang was the first to touch the suction port, and the suction port of the dredging pump was blocked by a foreign object, so he squatted into the water (only exposing his head to the surface of the water, and the water depth of the rubber tube suction port was sixty or seventy centimeters), trying to take out the foreign object blocking the suction port.

When Liu Zhiqiang's right hand touched a foreign object, he instinctively retracted. What his hand caught was a soft, slimy Dongsi, which he thought was a very special fish.

Worker Li Wenqing from Liu Zhiqiang's actions. There was an abnormality in his eyes and expression: "Lao Liu, what's wrong with you?" ”

"The suction mouth is indeed blocked by something, like a fish."

"A fish? Then why did you let go? ”

"It's soft, it's sticky. It seems to be stuck in the suction mouth. ”

The diameter of the suction mouth is about 12 centimeters, and the fish stuck in the suction mouth should be a large fish. Li Wenqing is a fishing enthusiast, and he sometimes goes to the suburban ditch with his friends to touch the fish: "It's soft." Sticky? Probably a big catfish. ”

So, Li Wenqing also jumped into the water, and he asked Liu Zhiqiang to hold the suction mouth of the straw. At the same time, carry it upwards, and hold the catfish's body tightly with both hands, while exerting force upwards.

The straw was carried to the surface, but the "catfish" was heavy.

The upper body of the "catfish" has been detached from the straw, but the "catfish" that has been detached from the straw seems to be a dead fish - Li Wenqing felt that something was wrong and quickly let go of his hand.

Three other workers on the boat also jumped into the water, and five people bent down and put their hands into the water, trying to get the "catfish" to the surface and see what it was.

Liu Zhiqiang and Li Wenqing put their hands into the water and caught a "catfish" by themselves. Two people caught two "catfish".

The two people looked at each other for a moment, as if something was wrong, and the two "catfish" were motionless.

When Li Wenqing lifted the head or tail of the "catfish" to the surface of the water, he quickly threw away the "catfish", he took a few steps back, sat down in the water at once, and as a result, he drank a few mouthfuls of dirty water, he got up and spit out more than a dozen mouthfuls in a row; The other four took a few steps back at the same time.

The five people saw it at the same time, and Li Wenqing's so-called "catfish" turned out to be a human foot. Everyone also smelled a strong rancid smell, although the river itself has a relatively strong rancid smell, but this rancid smell is not the other rancid smell.

The mouth of the straw – or the location of the "catfish" is about 2.5 meters from the river bank.

Nearby residents heard the news, and there were many people standing on the embankment, and one resident ran home and brought a long bamboo pole, iron hook and nylon rope.

Li Wenqing and Liu Zhiqiang tied iron hooks to bamboo poles with nylon ropes, intending to pull the deceased's body ashore, but one person in the crowd suggested that forcibly pulling the body ashore would inevitably change the original appearance of the body, and the body might have been soaked in water for a long time, so it was even more inappropriate to move the body.

This person's name is Tan Heting, a retired military cadre, and there is a cadre rest house near the scene of the crime, and Tan Heting is recuperating in this cadre rest house.

Liu Zhiqiang and Li Wenqing's hands touched the body of the deceased, and the body of the deceased had apparently begun to decompose.

So, someone rode a bicycle to the police station to report the case.

Fortunately, Tan Heting stopped Liu Zhiqiang and Li Wenqing's reckless behavior in a timely manner, judging from the degree of decomposition of the corpses, if the bodies of the deceased were forcibly pulled ashore, then what the comrades would see would definitely be a vague and unrecognizable body.

Before Zhao Zimeng and his entourage arrived at the scene, Ma Minglongma, the director of the police station, led people to the scene and arranged for people to pump water from the weir around the corpse, and the dredging pump just played a role.

By the time Zhao Zimeng and his entourage arrived at the scene, the water in the cofferdam had been pumped almost (the diameter of the cofferdam was about eight meters).

When two cars stopped on the embankment, the crowd automatically moved out of the way.

Director Ma has already sent people to maintain order at the scene.

At present, the top priority is to conduct an autopsy and remove the body of the deceased from the cofferdam, although the water in the cofferdam has been almost pumped, but the surrounding water is leaking into the cofferdam little by little, and the cofferdam may collapse at any time; Seeing that the sky was getting dark (when Ouyang Ping and his entourage arrived at the scene, the time was around half past five).

Ma Minglong led Zhao Zimeng and his entourage to Liu Zhiqiang and the other five people.

After briefly asking the five workers about the situation, Zhao Zimeng began to make preparations before the autopsy. Although the corpse was presented in front of everyone, the corpse was covered with mud, so it was imperative to wash the corpse with water, and the cleaning of the corpse must not be carried out in the cofferdam.