Chapter 634

The following morning.

Robbery-Murder Division.

The Lieutenant walked into the First Squadron office humming a little tune and saw two men sitting by his desk.

Luke and Chanclin.

“Good morning, Captains.” The Lieutenant frowned his white eyebrows, “What’s going on with you two captains getting together so early in the morning?”

Luke said, “Nothing much, just wanted to find you for some information.”

“Wait, that tone of voice strikes me as somewhat familiar.” The lieutenant waved his hand and bristled, “Isn’t that a common communication phrase I use with suspects?”

Luke laughed, “I’m not interested in a suspect your age.

The case we’re investigating involves a forty year old homicide and wanted to see if you remember anything about it?”

“A case from forty years ago?” The lieutenant froze slightly, as if caught in a memory.

Luke said, “That’s right, the Silver Cross case.”

“The Silver Cross case?” The lieutenant muttered, “Give a hint.”

“The victim, a seventeen year old white youth by the name of Silmer Goss, was tied up with his hands and feet on his knees before he was asphyxiated with a piece of rope around his neck.

A silver cross was also placed behind the body ……”

“Wait, I remember ……” the lieutenant interrupted Luke and continued, “The silver cross necklace was wearing black rope and the cross was made of plastic and looked very cheap. ”

Luke nodded, “That’s right.”

The lieutenant asked, “After all this time, I might not remember the other case if it was any other, but this one left a lasting impression on me, but are the two cases related?”

“The tech team found a fingerprint at the crime scene where Garian Coffey was killed that matches the fingerprint found at the scene of the Silver Cross case forty years ago.”

The lieutenant sighed, “We never found a suspect that matched that fingerprint, and I didn’t realize that decades had passed and we’d actually found out something new.

It’s incredible.”

Chen Kelin asked, “How many clues do you remember about that case?”

The lieutenant shook his head, “Don’t get your hopes up, too much time has passed in this case, I’d have to re-read the file to find out.”

Luke took out the dossier on the Silver Cross case and handed it to the lieutenant.

The Vice Squad took the somewhat aged dossier and muttered, “Forty years, I didn’t think I’d be a cop for that long.”

The lieutenant took his glasses out of the drawer and began to look through the dossier.

Luke was not in a hurry, made a cup of tea and quietly waited aside, the dossier he had read last night, but not all the clues of the case could be reflected in the dossier, the vice squad, as the case officer of that year, would have a deeper understanding of the case.

The team members arrived at the office one after another, and they all examined the dossier of the Silver Cross case in turn.

Jenny lamented, “The victim in the Silver Cross case was only seventeen years old, he should have had great years and youth, it’s too bad ……”

Jackson chimed in, “Seeing his body, his parents must be heartbroken.”

Black nodded, “It is indeed quite sad, he was still that young ……”

The vice squad hummed, “You guys lamented too early.

Back then, we investigated Silmer Goss’s background, although he was still underage, he was an unabashed bad boy, racing cars, taking drugs, bullying his classmates ……”

Jenny sighed, “Who hasn’t done something wrong when he was young, and only when he grows up and matures can he understand what’s right and what’s wrong.

What I lament is that God didn’t even give him a chance to correct himself.”

The lieutenant corrected, “Not God, but the murderer didn’t give him a chance.”

Jenny frowned, “Lieutenant, why does it feel like you have some opinion of the dead man ……”

Vice Squad said, “That’s because I know him better than you do, and even if he grows up, he’s not going to get any better, the best he can do is go to jail.”

Luke interrupted the two, “Lieutenant, tell us about the case.”

“No problem, however, the case has gone on for a long time, and there’s not much I can recall.”

Chen Kelin said, “That’s still more detailed than what’s on the dossier.”

“That’s for sure.” The vice squad briefly looked through the dossier again before slowly saying, “The victim of the Silver Cross case, Silmer Goss, was killed on August 12, 1983, and the place of death was the backyard of his house.

There were no witnesses, no surveillance, and no murder weapon was found.

The clues about the suspect came from two sources, on the one hand, it was the visit to the surrounding neighbors, shortly before the murder, they had seen a suspicious figure appearing near the house of Silmer Goss, no one could see the suspicious person’s face, but from the size of the person, it should be a male.

Another thing is that a suspicious fingerprint was found at the crime scene, which did not match the fingerprints of Silmer Goss’s family members and was probably left by the murderer.

Based on these two points, we did a lot of investigation and found some suspicious people with motives, but they were all ruled out one by one. In the years after the case, I also never gave up on the investigation of the case, but there were never any clues in the case, and it eventually became an unsolved case.”

The vice squad once again lamented, “I really didn’t expect to find another clue to that fingerprint after forty years.”

Chen Kelin pursued, “Lieutenant, do you think these two cases have anything in common?”

The vice squad thought for a moment, “The deceased in the Silver Cross case came from a white middle-class family, and there’s a big gap between them and the Coffey family, and there’s no connection. Other than the fact that both cases took place in Los Angeles, I don’t see a connection at the moment.”

“Tell me about the suspects in the Silver Cross case.” Luke wanted to know if the people involved in the two cases were connected.

The vice squad took off their glasses and said, “As I said before, the deceased, Silmer Goss, was a no-nonsense bad boy who had complicated peripheral relationships and offended a lot of people despite his young age, adding to the difficulty of our investigation back then.

We identified two key suspects after a preliminary lineup.

Sorry, it’s been too long, I can’t remember the names …… “The vice squad once again flipped through the dossier and looked them up.

“João Morrison, he’s a black father whose son goes to the same school as Silmer Goss, and just shortly before the murder, Silmer Goss took a few of his classmates and blocked João Morrison’s son in the restroom and beat him up and urinated on him, causing João Morrison’s son to be afraid to go to school.

This infuriated João Morrison, and he also found the school to seek redress, but those days were different from nowadays, and the school authorities did not give João Morrison a satisfactory answer.

João Morrison also found his way to the home of Silmer Goss more than once and had a confrontation with Silmer Goss’s parents as well.

According to neighbors, João Morrison had also been in Silmer Goss’s neighborhood on the day of his murder, and he had the time and motive to commit the crime.

He admitted to having been in the vicinity of Silmer Goss’s neighborhood, but did not admit to having been inside Silmer Goss’s home.

We did not find evidence of his crime, and he did not match the fingerprints found at the scene left by the suspected killer.”

Jackson said, “School violence.”

Blackie added, “And apparently racism.”

The lieutenant said, “You guys are right, it was hard to deal with that kind of thing in those days.”

Blacky grumbled, “Actually, it’s the same in this day and age.”

Luke continued, “What about the other suspect?”

The vice squad looked down at the dossier and replied, “Wang Shaokang, yes, a very individual Chinese young man, he must have been less than twenty years old at the time.

Wang Shaokang’s mother worked in a restaurant and arrived home every night around ten o’clock, one day Wang Shaokang waited until after ten o’clock and his mother still hadn’t come home.

Worried about his mother’s well-being, he called to inquire, but the restaurant’s phone went unanswered, so he went to his mother’s restaurant to look for her.

Halfway there, he found an injured person on the side of the road, covered in blood and in a serious condition, none other than his mother.

Before he could get his mother to the hospital, his mother died.

Later, after police identification, his mother died in a car accident, and the driver of the car was none other than Silmer Goss.”

“Wait.” Xiao Hei spread his hands, “Since Silmer Goss drove Wang Shaokang’s mother to death, shouldn’t he be in prison? Why would he die at home?”

“That’s the problem, Silmer Goss was indicted on the charge of hitting and killing someone with his car, however, for various reasons, the sentence was short, three years of probation, and the only real punishment was one hundred hours of community service and seven thousand dollars in restitution.

As you can imagine, Wang Shaokang’s family was furious.

We have learned about Wang Shaokang’s peripheral relations, and he has said more than once that he would definitely avenge his mother’s death, and since the law could not give him justice, he would use his own means to obtain it.

He also has enough motive to kill.” Although the vice squad spoke vaguely, everyone could hear that the cause was still race.

Kuro sighed, “Those were some damn times.

I suddenly feel that it’s not unacceptable for this guy to be killed.”

“This case has already passed forty years, back then we didn’t even find the real culprit, and now many clues and evidence have disappeared with time, wanting to solve the case ……,” the vice squad shook his head, obviously not holding much hope.

Matthew shrugged, “Technology is also evolving ……”

“What?” The lieutenant didn’t hear clearly.

Matthew cleared his throat, “I’m saying that although the more time passes, the more difficult the case is to solve, technology has also been developing over the past forty years, and the forensic and identification techniques are not comparable to what they were forty years ago.

With the help of modern technology, there’s no chance that new clues to the case can be found.”

The lieutenant looked at the other for a moment, “Let’s hope so.”

Luke summarized, “You all have a point, the case is difficult to solve after forty years.

And technological development has the potential to uncover new clues.

So, we can think differently, we re-investigate the Silver Cross case, not to find the murderer of the Silver Cross case, not to mention finding evidence to convict.

Rather, by understanding the Silver Cross case, we find what this case has in common with the murders of Galian Coffey and Blanche Kerouac.

It’s not easy to detect and convict a forty year old case, so let’s convict the killers of Garian Coffey and Blanche Kerouac.” Luke finished and looked at the crowd, “Captain Chen, what do you think?”

“We can try.”

Luke arranged the tasks, “OK, then let’s split the investigation.

You lead the investigation into the suspect subject of the Silver Cross case, Joao Morrison.

I’ll lead the investigation into Wang Shaokang, the suspect subject of the Silver Cross case.

Lieutenant, you were involved in the investigation of the Silver Cross Keys case back then, so I want you to contact the family of the deceased to see if they can provide some valuable clues.”

“Back then, the deceased’s parents were in their forties.” The Vice Squad pointed a finger to his head, “So, I advise you not to expect too much from two people in their eighties.

Moreover, are you sure you want to tell this news to two eighty-somethings?

I don’t know if they can handle it?”

Luke didn’t want to cause trouble either, “Then you should talk to the other family members of the deceased first and decide for yourself based on the situation.”

The lieutenant bristled, “Thank you for trusting me.”