The crackdown on organized crime began with the arrest of the mother-in-law.

Chapter 1451 Clues Discovered During the Surrounding Area Investigation

He divided the group into two teams. One team was responsible for liaising with traffic police, urban management officers, and property management companies in the surrounding communities to retrieve all available surveillance footage along Heping Road and within a 3-kilometer radius. The other team focused on visiting shops, vegetable markets, gas stations, and other locations along and around Heping Road to inquire in detail about suspicious persons and vehicles before and after the time of the incident.

The surveillance investigation was like "finding a needle in a haystack." Heping Road, a major thoroughfare in the city center, has numerous surveillance cameras, but their quality varies greatly. There are high-definition security cameras, but also many old analog cameras installed by shops themselves, producing blurry images and unreliable angles. Xiao Wang led his team to the Criminal Investigation Detachment's surveillance analysis room, setting up six monitors and working in shifts 24 hours a day, reviewing the surveillance footage frame by frame. "From 6 PM on October 25th to 4 AM on October 26th, this period is crucial for the murderer to commit the crime, dismember the body, and dispose of it; we can't miss a single detail," Xiao Wang defined the core investigation period for his team. "Focus on white vans, especially those with obvious markings and unusual driving patterns, and also be wary of people carrying large packages and acting suspiciously."

The initial investigation didn't go smoothly. In the first 48 hours, the team reviewed over 200 hours of surveillance footage, identifying nearly a hundred white vans. However, after comparing each one, either the license plates were clearly identifiable but the owners' information proved irrelevant to the case, or the footage was too blurry to extract any useful features. Even more problematic was the fact that pipeline renovations were underway on a section of Heping Road, leaving two key surveillance points out of service, creating blind spots and significantly hindering the investigation. "Team Leader Wang, this can't go on. We're almost exhausted," a team member said, rubbing his red eyes, his voice weary. "Should we adjust our strategy and focus on the entrances and exits around the blind spots?"

Xiao Wang nodded. He knew that simply waiting for the right moment wouldn't work; they had to find a breakthrough. "You're right, blind spots in the surveillance system are areas the killer is most likely to exploit. Let's narrow our search to entrances and exits within a 500-meter radius of the blind spots, including the main gate of the residential complex, the back doors of shops, and parking lot entrances and exits, to see if we can find any traces of the white van entering or leaving the blind spots." He readjusted the focus of the surveillance search and contacted the technical department to request enhancement processing for some of the blurry surveillance footage, hoping to extract more useful information.

Just when the surveillance investigation was stalled, the team responsible for door-to-door inquiries reported their first potential lead. While visiting a convenience store on the south side of Heping Road, team member Li Chao was approached by the owner, Ms. Zhao, who recalled a detail: "Around 11 p.m. on October 25th, as I was about to close, I saw a white van parked on the roadside in front of the convenience store. The driver was a man, slightly overweight, with short hair, wearing a mask and hat, so I couldn't see his face. He didn't get out of the van; he stayed inside for about five minutes, and then drove west. I found it a bit strange, because it's rare for a van to stay parked there at this time, and the driver was very well covered up."

"Sister Zhao, are you sure it's a white van? Did you notice any markings on the vehicle, or any general characteristics of the license plate?" Li Chao quickly asked. Sister Zhao frowned and thought for a moment, "It's definitely white. The body looks a bit old. I didn't notice any markings, and the license plate was too dark to see clearly. But I remember the rear bumper seemed a bit deformed; the left side was lower than the right." This detail caught Li Chao's eye, and he immediately reported the situation to Xiao Wang.

After receiving the news, Xiao Wang immediately rushed to the convenience store to verify the situation with Sister Zhao again. "Sister Zhao, think carefully again, does that driver have any other obvious characteristics? For example, his height, voice, or whether he got out of the car to buy something?" Sister Zhao shook her head: "He didn't get out of the car, and I didn't hear him speak. It's hard to judge his height, I can only see that he was sitting in the driver's seat, and he was indeed on the heavier side." Xiao Wang asked his team to retrieve the surveillance footage from the convenience store entrance. Fortunately, although the convenience store's surveillance camera was old, it could capture the road in front of the store. After the technical department enhanced the image, although the license plate number could not be seen clearly, a white van could be clearly seen parked on the side of the road, and there was indeed obvious deformation on the left side of the rear bumper, which was completely consistent with Sister Zhao's description. More importantly, the surveillance showed that the van stopped in front of the convenience store at 11:17 pm on October 25th and drove away at 11:22 pm, heading towards the west side of Heping Road, which is the area where multiple pieces of body remains were found.

"This is very likely the vehicle we're looking for that dumped the body!" Xiao Wang couldn't hide his excitement and immediately reported the discovery to Li Ming. At the same time, he arranged for his team to focus their search on the white van with the "deformed left rear bumper." "Expand the search period to 4 PM on October 25th to 4 AM on October 26th, tracking the vehicle's movements. Simultaneously, search all registered white vans in the city, focusing on vehicles with repair records or deformed rear bumpers."

However, the tracking operation encountered another obstacle. After leaving the convenience store, the white van entered a blind spot in the surveillance cameras on the west side of Heping Road. When it reappeared at the next surveillance point, it had vanished. "The perpetrator may have switched vehicles in the blind spot or hidden the car somewhere," Xiao Wang analyzed. He led his team to search all parking lots, abandoned factories, and residential areas within the blind spot, but found no trace of the white van. The search for white vans throughout the city also progressed slowly. As of the morning of October 28, the team had checked more than 500 white vans, of which 17 had deformed or repaired rear bumpers. However, after verification, these vehicles all had alibis for the time of the incident and were ruled out as suspects.

Just when Xiao Wang was at his wit's end, the investigation team brought in a new clue. While visiting a vegetable market on the north side of Heping Road, a vegetable vendor named Mr. Liu mentioned that around 9 PM on October 25th, he saw Zhang Tao, a pork vendor in the market, arguing with a stranger in an alley behind the market. "Zhang Tao is usually quite mild-mannered and rarely argues. That night, when I was packing up my stall, I saw him struggling with a man in the alley. The man was on the heavier side, wearing a black coat and a hat, but I couldn't see his face clearly. They were arguing fiercely, it seemed to be about money. I heard Zhang Tao shout, 'Don't go too far, I can't give you this money.'"