met free Chapter 1150 Scene Identification, Case Closed
Chapter 1150 Scene Identification, Case Closed
He suddenly looked up, a hint of despair flashing in his eyes. "I really didn't mean to kill him, I was just so angry... Li Lu is mine, and no one can take her away from me..."
The interrogation lasted until 3 a.m., and Song Qiang's confession gradually corroborated the details of the crime scene investigation and forensic examination: from the sleeping pills in the coffee shop to the wrench at the culvert entrance, from the mud and sand in the trunk of the Cayenne to the fiber composition of the binding rope, each link was like a precise gear, seamlessly embedded in the chain of crime. When he finally signed the arrest warrant, his hand trembled so much that he could barely hold the pen, and it took him three tries to sign his name at the end of the "criminal suspect" column, his handwriting twisted like a centipede that had been stepped on.
As he stepped out of the interrogation room, the sky was already beginning to lighten. Xiao Wang took out his phone and sent Li Ming a text message: "Song Qiang confessed, motive: jealousy." As the notification popped up, he seemed to see Zhang Baoshan instructing students at the gym, sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows onto him, his dark blue jacket gleaming with a healthy sheen, as if he had never been swallowed by darkness. The motion-activated lights in the corridor flickered on and off with each footstep, illuminating the two gilded characters for "Justice" on the wall, and also illuminating the distorted humanity of those consumed by jealousy, revealing their ugly true forms in the pre-dawn light.
As the police car carrying Song Qiang stopped at the entrance of the culvert on National Highway 339, morning mist was seeping out of the culvert, condensing into a thin film of water on the asphalt. Two officers helped him out of the car, the shackles dragging on the gravel with a clattering sound. His orange prison uniform stood out like a glaring warning sign in the gloomy sky. His gaze had barely touched the barbed wire at the culvert entrance when he suddenly trembled violently, his knees buckled, and he collapsed to his knees, his forehead pressed against the damp ground, repeatedly muttering, "It's here...it's all here..."
Xiao Wang stood by the police cordon, the crime scene investigation record in his hand dampened by the morning mist. "Start with the coffee shop where you met Zhang Baoshan." His voice cut through the mist and landed on Song Qiang's pale face—the arrogance he displayed during the interrogation three days ago had now been devoured by fear, leaving only an empty shell.
Song Qiang's finger trembled as he pointed to a coffee shop beside the national highway. The word "OPEN" on the glass door was washed gray by the rain. "At 7:40 p.m. on May 9th, I arranged to meet him here," his Adam's apple bobbed, sweat dripping from his chin onto the front of his prison uniform. "I ordered two Americanos, and I added crushed clonazepam to his cup..." The coffee shop's surveillance footage showed that Song Qiang had gone to the restroom at 7:45 p.m. that evening, a duration that perfectly matched his confession of "crushing the drug." Furthermore, the drug components detected in Zhang Baoshan's stomach contents were identical to the clonazepam found in Song Qiang's home.
After walking about 300 meters along the national highway toward the culvert, Song Qiang stopped in an emergency lane where the tire tracks still bore the circles drawn by the police in chalk. "I stuffed him into the trunk of the Cayenne," he said, pointing to the center of the circle. "He was already unconscious, but his body was still convulsing, and his head was hitting the trunk partition with a 'thump' sound..." In the soil next to the circle, technicians had extracted Zhang Baoshan's DNA, and the impact marks on the Cayenne's trunk partition corresponded perfectly to the location of the "subcutaneous hematoma at the back of the head" in the forensic report, with the wound edges consistent with blunt force trauma.
The stone slab at the culvert entrance was temporarily moved aside, revealing a dark opening. A foul stench mixed with the mist assaulted the senses. "I pried open the stone slab with a crowbar," Song Qiang's voice trembled with tears, as he gestured with his fingers to indicate the prying motion. "The scratches on the edge of the stone slab were made at that time..." The metal scratches on the inside of the stone slab matched those found in Song Qiang's home, and the black rubber particles embedded in the scratches were identical to those found in Cayenne tires, confirming his confession that he "drove the crowbar there."
About three meters into the culvert, Song Qiang suddenly stopped at the base of the wall, where a square drawn in white chalk remained on the cement surface. "I dragged him out from here," he said, his gaze sweeping over the drag marks along the edge of the square. "His jacket got caught on the rebar at the base of the wall and torn..." The dark blue fibers inside the square, after testing, matched the nylon composition of Zhang Baoshan's jacket, and a 0.5-centimeter-long thread was still hanging on the exposed rebar at the base of the wall, perfectly matching the "fiber morphology of the torn clothing" in the forensic report.
“I hit him right here.” Song Qiang’s voice suddenly changed as he pointed to the flooded area inside the culvert, where plastic signs used by the police to mark evidence floated on the surface. “He suddenly woke up, grabbed my arm and bit me, so I took a wrench out of my bag…” He gestured as he swung his arm, “and smashed it down on his head, right on his temple…” Technicians had retrieved a wrench from the mud in the flooded area. The dark red stains on the opening were identified as Zhang Baoshan’s blood, and the shape of the “4x5cm contusion and laceration on the left temporal region” in the forensic report matched the striking surface of the wrench perfectly. The composition of the iron filings in the wound cavity was also consistent with the wrench.
Xiao Wang's laser pointer stopped on the binding marks inside the culvert. The dark green mark was embedded in the cement ground, its length matching Zhang Baoshan's height. "I used that roll of dark blue nylon rope to tie his wrists," Song Qiang's finger traced the mark. "The rope was bought online on May 7th and was kept in the trunk..." The binding mark was 2.5 centimeters wide, exactly the same diameter as the industrial rope Song Qiang bought online. The knotting method, according to forensic experts, was the same as the binding method used on his gym equipment. The skin tissue reaction at the edge of the rope mark also matched the forensic conclusion of "binding before death."
When they reached the deepest point of the floodwater, 7 meters inside the culvert, Song Qiang's body suddenly went limp, and he was supported by police officers to prevent himself from falling into the water. "I pushed him in," his voice was like cotton wool soaked in water, "He was still moving, so I held his head down and pushed him into the water..." In the water plants in the flooded area, technicians found several silver-white hairs, which DNA tests showed belonged to Zhang Baoshan. The distribution characteristics of "mud and sand in the trachea and bronchi" in the forensic report were completely consistent with the drowning process of "being pushed into the water and suffocating," and the types of diatoms in the alveoli were also consistent with the diatoms in the water in the culvert.
When identifying the process of disposing of the murder weapon, Song Qiang pointed to a pile of silt at the end of the culvert. "The wrench was thrown here," he said, tapping the top of the pile with his toe. "I cut the rope into small pieces and washed it away with the drain..." The pH value of the silt pile matched the degree of corrosion on the surface of the wrench perfectly, and 300 meters downstream at the drain, fiber residues with the same composition as the nylon rope that Song Qiang bought were found, and the shape of the break was consistent with the "scissor cutting" characteristics.
When pointing out the final exit route, Song Qiang's pace quickened noticeably, as if he were eager to escape this life-devouring depression. "I covered the stone slabs and drove along the national highway towards the viewing platform," he said, glancing back at the culvert.