In 1990, in Newington, Connecticut, USA, a young girl died tragically in her restaurant, her head blossoming, blood spattered, and the murderer took the money from the safe and escaped.
The local police could not solve the case and could only ask for help from The Chinese detective Li Changyu.
That night, Li Changyu had a 40-degree fever, still showed superb reasoning ability, and quickly locked in the real culprit with only a cigarette butt.
How did he solve the case? Let's take a look.
One. The Death of a Maiden
The story takes place in the small town of Newington, a popular Western restaurant called "Mr. Steakhouse".
Donner is the owner of the restaurant, and not only does he have a successful career and a happy marriage, but he also has a smart and capable daughter, Mary.
Mary, 24, who works as a restaurant manager, is attentive and friendly, winning the hearts and minds of all the townspeople.
But on this night, the arrival of an uninvited guest completely changed Mary's fate.
At 9 p.m., while Donner was resting at home, he suddenly received a phone call from the restaurant's security staff:
"Sir, I saw your restaurant close, but I didn't turn on the alarm bell, did I forget?"
Not long ago, in order to ensure the safety of the restaurant, Donner specially hired a security company, the security company installed an alarm bell for the restaurant, opened the alarm bell before closing the store, and if someone illegally invaded, the alarm bell would automatically alarm.
The restaurant closes at 7 a.m. every night, and now it's 9 a.m., and the alarm bell hasn't been turned on yet, so the security guards have called to ask about the situation.
After listening to the security guard,Donald was very surprised, the person responsible for closing the store was her daughter Mary, who has always been careful in her work and should not forget to open the alarm bell.
Thinking of this, he made several phone calls to Mary, but no one answered, so he had to go to the restaurant to see for himself.
Arriving at the restaurant, Donner found that everything was as usual, the doors and windows were closed, the tables and chairs were neat, except that the alarm bell was not turned on.
Perhaps Mary had been sloppy, donner did not take the matter to heart, and before leaving, he decided to check the safe, so he went to the office behind the kitchen.
When he pushed open the office door, he couldn't help screaming at the scene in front of him:
Mary collapsed in a pool of blood, her head blurred with blood, the ground full of blood, and she was dead of breath.
Watching his beloved daughter die, Donna turned pale and trembled as he called the police.
Soon, the police rushed to the scene, and after the scene survey, they came to two conclusions.
First, the victim was killed by a heavy blow to the head.
Second, the cash in the office safe is missing, which should be a burglary and murder case.
Just then, a car stopped outside the restaurant, and a young man got out of the car, and just when he tried to enter the restaurant, he was stopped outside by the police: "Who are you?" What are you here for? ”
The guy told the police that his name was Walter and he was the boyfriend of mary, the manager of the restaurant, and they had made an appointment to play at his house tonight, but he waited for a long time, and Mary did not come, and the phone was not answered, he felt strange, so he came to the restaurant to find her.
Since the case had not yet been made public, the police did not tell him that Mary had been killed, but casually found a reason to send him away.
After Walter left, the police continued to investigate the scene, but found nothing for the rest of the time.
Since the local police station had only 4 officers and was short of manpower and resources, they decided to ask Dr. Lee Chang-yu, who lived nearby, for help.
You don't have to say, the American police are really good at work, and when they encounter trouble, they will look for Li Changyu, but what they didn't expect was that Li Changyu actually refused this time.
It turned out that Li Changyu was unwell that night, and his fever reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which is equivalent to 40 degrees Celsius here, which can be said to be a very serious high fever.
He frankly refused the police's pleas for help: "I can't even walk now." ”
Unexpectedly, the other party directly said: "We sent an ambulance to pick you up!" ”
Li Changyu also thought that the other party was joking, and as a result, 20 minutes later, an ambulance stopped in front of the house.
Seeing that the other party was so persistent, Li Changyu had to agree.
Two. Lee Chang-yu appears
After Li Changyu arrived at the scene, he did not rush to the office where the crime occurred, but looked around in the huge restaurant.
With keen observation, he soon made several discoveries:
First of all, the doors and windows of the scene are intact and there is no sign of being destroyed, so how did the murderer come in? Either the door wasn't closed at the time, or the killer was an acquaintance.
Secondly, the restaurant was clean and every pair of cutlery at every table was set up, which was the state in which the work was completed, indicating that the employees had left work before Mary was killed.
Now that the work was done and it was time to leave work, why didn't Mary leave? Instead of staying alone in the office?
In addition, on a dining table, half a drink, a pack of cigarettes, an ashtray, a box of matches, and half-cut cigarette butts in the ashtray.
Li Changyu guessed that these things might have been left by the murderer, so he collected all the things and kept them and brought them back to the laboratory for testing.
After inspecting the hall, Li Changyu came to the real crime scene - the office.
The office was a mess, with blood everywhere on the walls and floor, but Li Changyu quickly grasped the point.
First, there is no trace of the safe being pried open, indicating that Mary opened it on her own initiative, so there are two possibilities, either she is voluntary or she is coerced.
Second, Mary's brain matter was found at the scene, and all the brain matter was punched out, indicating that the murderer had great strength and should be a man.
Third, there was blood everywhere in the office, except for a chair that was clean and not a single drop of blood was spilled, indicating that the murderer was sitting on this chair when he committed the crime, so he blocked the blood.
Generally speaking, it is more convenient to move while standing, and you can escape at any time, so what kind of murderer will kill people while sitting? Only those who knew about Mary and the restaurant, he knew that no one would come here again, so the state was relatively relaxed and there was no rush to leave the scene.
In addition, Li Changyu also collected a lot of blood and hair at the scene, and he collected all of them.
After returning to the torture center, Li Changyu and his team began to test the items.
At the same time, the police also investigated Mary's employees, friends, and others, and did not get any useful information.
When boyfriend Walter learned of Mary's death, he was devastated and provided a clue to the police.
Walt told the police that not long ago, he had a conflict with the local drag racing party, and the drag racing party boss let out harsh words: "I will kill you, I will kill you, I will kill your girlfriend!" ”
Therefore, drag racing may kill Mary out of revenge.
The police took the lead very seriously and listed the Drag Racing Boss as a key suspect.
In the face of the police's questioning, the drag racing party boss helplessly explained: "I was just talking, how can I really kill people?" ”
In this investigation, the police found that he really had an alibi, and in this way, the case once again fell into a dead end.
At this moment, the dejected police received a call from Li Changyu:
"I know who the murderer is."
Three. Restore the truth
In front of the police, Li Changyu integrated all the clues known so far and restored the entire process of the case, here please ring detective Conan's BGM!
Let's go back to 7 o'clock on the night of the crime, when the restaurant was closed.
The employees finished cleaning and left work one after another, but Mary did not leave, why?
Because she was waiting for someone.
According to the test results, half of the drinks and cigarette butts drunk on the table were left by Mary, which surprised Li Changyu, but also opened up the line of reasoning.
After the employees had all left, Mary sat alone at the dinner table, smoking a cigarette and drinking a drink the next, why was she doing this? Not to mention that her boyfriend is still waiting for her at home?
The only explanation was that she was waiting for someone, and that the person must have been an acquaintance, otherwise she could not have been so laid-back and patient.
Now, connecting the previous clues, the door and window of the scene are intact, the safe has no trace of the pry lock, there is no trace of resistance at the scene, and the murderer is not in a hurry to leave the scene, which confirms this:
The killer was an acquaintance of Mary's who had a date with Mary on the night of the crime, and Mary was defenseless against him.
So, who is this acquaintance?
Lee Chang-wook first locked the suspicion on Walt, who fully met the current conditions: a strong man, familiar with Mary, had an appointment that night, and knew the situation at the restaurant very well.
So, Li Changyu began to ask the people around him to understand some basic information about Walt.
Mary's father, Mr. Donner, said that Walt was a young man who was idle, did not have a decent job, liked to go to bars, and when he had no money, he asked Mary for money, and the reason why he was with Mary was for money.
Because of this, Mr. Donner opposed the relationship and often advised his daughter to break up, but Mary always had a deep affection for Walt.
In this way, Walt is very short of money, and he is thin-hearted, and has a motive to kill people for money.
To investigate further, Lee goes to Walt's favorite bar, where he gets very important clues.
The bartender at the bar told him that Walt was an infatuated man who had been drunk at the bar almost every day since Mary's death, crying to others:
"My girlfriend died so tragically, she was smashed on the head, I don't know who the murderer is, and if I let him be caught, I will never let him go!"
Hearing this, Lee Chang-yu was sure that Walter was Mary's killer.
Because the police never revealed a single detail of the case to the outside world, no one knew how Mary died, unless he was the murderer!
Although the real culprit is now locked, this sentence cannot be used as evidence in court.
At this moment, the bartender provided Li Changyu with a key clue:
One night, Walt got drunk at the bar, and the bartender drove him home, and as he passed a nearby park, Walt kept staring at the park grove and asking the bartender to drive a little slower in two places, and the bartender didn't know why, but he did.
After listening to these words, Li Changyu was already confident, and he called the police to inform: "I know who the murderer is, and I will immediately send someone to the park." ”
After a meticulous police search, a white package was dug up in the park grove, containing more than $5,000, about the same amount of money lost in the restaurant safe that night.
Li Changyu sent the notes back to the torture center, and after testing, found that Mary's blood was left on them, as well as several Of Walt's fingerprints.
In the face of ironclad evidence, Walter reluctantly confessed his crime.
It turned out that on the day of the crime, Walter had already agreed with Mary to pick her up at the restaurant when she was off work.
Because of this, Mary did not leave immediately after work, even if all the employees were gone, she was alone in the restaurant drinking, smoking, waiting for her boyfriend to arrive, so she never opened the alarm bell.
As a result, as soon as Walt arrived at the restaurant, he asked Mary for money, although Mary was a little sad, but under the soft and hard bubble of her boyfriend, she still softened her heart.
So Mary took her boyfriend to the office, opened the safe, and when Walt saw a lot of dollars, she was completely confused and couldn't help but take a little more.
Mary was fed up with his insatiable greed and advised him to find a job and stop taking women's money.
This sentence hurt Walt's self-esteem, and the two gradually quarreled, and in anger, Walt pulled out the gun in his pocket and smashed it madly at Mary with the butt of the gun.
By the time he reacted, Mary was already flesh and blood and was dead on the spot.
Walt looked at the blood on his body, was terrified, and hurriedly fled the restaurant, returned home to take a shower, and changed into clean clothes.
To make sure he left no evidence, he came to the restaurant again shortly after, not expecting that the police were already at the scene.
Therefore, he made up a temporary lie, saying that he and Mary had a date, but they could not contact Mary, because they were worried about Mary's safety.
Eventually, Walter was sentenced to 50 years in prison on suspicion of intentional homicide.
Poor Mary died at the hands of her beloved.
Four. Case Reflections
The reason for sharing today's case is not to publicize how powerful Li Changyu's cracking of the case is, but more importantly, I hope to use the case to arouse everyone's vigilance.
Chinese often say: If you don't listen to the old man, you will suffer losses in front of you. If Mary had listened to her father earlier and broken up with the scumbag in time, perhaps the tragedy behind would not have occurred.
This case tells us that girls must not fall in love with the brain, thinking that they can use love to impress boys, and try to awaken the scumbag's sincerity and conscience through sacrifice and dedication.
When the whole world is preventing you from falling in love, it means that there may really be a problem with the object of your love, and the consequences of being lonely and willful may eventually harm yourself.