Robert looked at Sophia through the glass, who calmly admired her fingers.
All departments in the police station gathered in the meeting room to review the case.
Ethan reported, "We got a call from her neighbor at 10:22 AM on December 10th. It took only 30 minutes from when the local officers received the call to when the criminal investigation team showed up at the scene."
He continued, "The officers responsible for trace detection at the crime scene first entered the room to survey and examine the scene."
"There were no signs of a struggle between the victim and the culprit inside, the door lock wasn't broken, and no other clues were found at the scene," Ethan explained the basics of the case.
Robert listened, deep in thought. There was no solid evidence that the culprit had cleaned the scene thoroughly after the murder. This suggested the culprit was smart and knew how to avoid getting caught.
But the weirdest part was the silver detachable scalpel left at the scene. It didn't fit with the careful behavior of the culprit.
"Then the forensic doctor examined the body. The initial on-site report showed that Tony died of hemorrhagic shock, with the time of death between 7 and 9 in the morning. He was also drugged with veterinary anesthetics before death, so there were no signs of struggle at the scene."
Ethan finished speaking and enlarged a photo on the electronic screen. "Take a look at this."
Everyone looked at the photo. In it, Tony lay on the ground, his limbs stiff. Below his chest and above his abdomen, several words were carved into his flesh: [Time's up.]
Robert immediately thought of revenge. There was a famous saying, "When the time comes, I will naturally come for you."
"After receiving the call, we found a legally sealed juvenile criminal record in the system. Upon reviewing it, we learned that the deceased killed Sophia's mother when he was under sixteen and was released from juvenile detention shortly after. She has a motive."
Ethan continued, "So we went to the hospital to bring her back. When she saw the photo of the deceased, she claimed she hadn't seen him in years."
He added, "Then I investigated her activities and found that she went home to sleep after getting off work at the hospital, went for a morning run nearby at 6:10 AM, and entered the hospital at 7:45 AM to start work until we arrived to take her away. Tony's time of death is between 7 and 9 AM."
"This directly proves that she had nothing to do with the victim's death. We let her go, but then Forensic doctor Ryan told us the time of death was wrong," Ethan said, looking at forensic doctor Ryan Martin.
Ryan explained, "Generally, the time of death can be roughly determined based on the body temperature at the scene. But if someone uses special techniques, they can artificially set the body temperature, creating a false time of death to escape conviction."
He continued, "The method the culprit used to change the body temperature was to put the body in 140-degree Fahrenheit water."
After death, the body cooled in stages. When the body's heat production didn't completely stop, the body temperature dropped by 1.04 degrees Fahrenheit per hour, a process that lasted about 4-5 hours.
After heat production completely stopped, the body temperature dropped by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit per hour.
Placing the body in hot water disrupted the natural cooling process of the body, aiming to interfere with the forensic doctor's assessment and potentially lead to an incorrect time of death determination during the initial on-site examination.
Ryan continued, "Based on the body's conditions, the time of death should be between 3:40 and 6:40 AM."
Ethan said, "We re-investigated the area around the scene and found that at 4:50 AM on the day of the incident, Sophia appeared on the surveillance at Riverside Apartments. This means she lied to us; she wasn't sleeping at her place before 6 AM."
She had the motive, the time, knew about anesthesia, could use a scalpel, and appeared just minutes away from the crime scene.
That was why they brought her back to the police station for questioning.
"Also, we still haven't found the victim's severed testicles and fingers," Ethan emphasized. "Not even in the sewer."
Hearing this, Robert felt a chill down his spine. This was a dangerous signal.
He gradually imagined the culprit brutally torturing the unconscious Tony, then cleaning the scene without a trace and taking away their trophies—the severed fingers and testicles. Only a serial killer would take trophies.
Tony's death could very well be the beginning of a serial murder case. And Sophia, the girl with a tragic fate who had worked hard to become so outstanding, was possibly related to it.