Chapter 447 Methanol and drowning
"In recent weeks, three women have been abducted and murdered from different locations in Los Angeles."
Jiejie showed several female avatars on the screen, all of which were white women with good looks and temperament.
"Sydney Otto, 23, a bank teller, killed 15 days ago; Vicki Hager, 39, an art teacher, killed 6 days ago; and Linda Dean, 28, a bartender, 2 days ago Killed before.
The places where they disappeared were distributed in various corners of Los Angeles, and their social backgrounds were completely different. It took less than 24 hours from the time when the three disappeared to the time when their abandoned bodies were found, and the places where they dumped their bodies were all in public places. "
"It seems like the killer made no secret of what he did," Emily said.
Jiejie nodded, and then showed the photos of when the police found the body, "Garcia cleaned up the snacks in the refrigerator after sorting out these photos. Jack, you need to replenish the inventory as soon as possible."
The three corpses that appeared on the screen were all naked and wrapped in blue waterproof membrane.
"Looks like a floating corpse?" Rhett squinted and stared at the projection on the screen, a little unsure.
The body was white all over, and the skin at the joints was wrinkled layer by layer, as if it had been soaked in water for many days, but there was no obvious swelling, and it looked different from ordinary floating corpses.
"The place where the body was abandoned doesn't look like it's at the seaside or the river. It's a garbage dump. Did it drown somewhere else and then be transported to the place where the body was abandoned? Isn't it a bit unnecessary?"
Jack was very puzzled. It was common for people to abandon corpses after killing people in other ways, but it was relatively rare for drowned corpses to be fished out and discarded separately. Moreover, the time of death was so short that it was unheard of.
"This is not the weirdest place." Jiejie shook her head and handed out the forensic examination report to everyone.
"They didn't drown in the water."
"Methanol?" Rhett opened the report and said in surprise.
"Methanol was found in the lungs of every deceased person, which means they were drowned alive by methanol!"
Emily held her chin and flipped through the report, "This is different from throwing a person directly into the water. If the purpose is to torture the deceased, the murderer needs to have a sufficiently private place."
"Garcia is really excited here." Jiejie shrugged, pressed the remote control in her hand, and three photos of the soles of her feet appeared on the screen.
"A piece of skin was removed from the palm of the sole of each deceased's right foot."
"Methanol and skin? What is this guy doing?" Even Rossi, the most experienced person among them, frowned.
"Methanol is the saturated monohydric alcohol with the simplest structure. It was first discovered in retort wood and has a wide range of uses. Pure methanol has only a slight alcohol smell." Encyclopedia began today's science popularization.
"Is this thing poisonous?" When analyzing the case, no one hates Red's eloquent explanation. Of course, the premise is that he can understand it. For example, now, Emily will take the initiative to ask questions.
"It is of low toxicity and one of the most hated fusel alcohols among winemakers. Taking 5-10 ml of it will cause a person to become comatose within 8-36 hours.
15 ml can cause retinitis, which is blindness, within 48 hours, and 30-100 ml can cause damage to the central nervous system, leading to respiratory weakness and death. "
Jack answered directly with a smirk on his face, taking Red's path, leaving Red with no way to go.
“The way to detoxify is to drink a lot of spirits with an alcohol content of more than 60%, because methanol itself is not very toxic, but the metabolites formaldehyde and formic acid produced in the human body are highly toxic.
Ethanol can compete with methanol for alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver, giving the body time to eliminate methanol. "
Rhett opened his mouth, and the expression on his face turned out to be a little aggrieved for a moment.
Emily punched her new landlord in the face and told him to shut up.
Jack shrugged in a funny way, "Well, I was just studying winemaking recently, so I checked some information. Methanol is one of the culprits of hangovers after drinking. Next, I will give the time back to Dr. Reid to talk about this thing. Use it."
Rhett coughed lightly, collected his thoughts, and resumed his science time.
“Methanol has a wide range of uses, including solvents, antifreeze, polyester raw materials, and explosives. During World War II, the German army also added it to rocket fuel.
It can even be used to make plant growth promoters to increase crop yields. Of course, its most widespread use is to separate other chemicals. "
"So we can't narrow down the scope of suspects by tracking purchase records?" Rossi felt dizzy and finally came to this conclusion.
Rhett hesitated for a moment, then nodded, "I think so, even if the murderer needs enough to soak the entire corpse, it would be relatively easy to obtain it.
Because methanol is also used in biofuels, California's agriculture is very developed, and many people can make it at home. "
"Perhaps we can temporarily focus on the corpses themselves. Don't you think it's strange? All the deceased were naked, but no signs of sexual assault were found on their bodies. In fact, they conform to basic public aesthetics. , isn’t there some contradiction?”
Jack knocked on the table and offered a new perspective.
"Indeed, even an incompetent sadist like Robert Napper will vent his depression and frustration on his victims, which actually manifests as excessive killing, just like the 'Boston Killer'."
——
The Robert Napper that Reid is talking about is another example of Scotland Yard's incompetence in the UK in the 1990s.
This pervert likes to attack women with children, with as many as 86 victims. Jack has seen one of the cases, which is quite hypertensive.
In July 1992, a 23-year-old British female model named Rachel Rachel took her two-year-old son Alex for a walk in Wimbledon Park in London.
Robert Napper attacked them in broad daylight by a pond. He lifted 2-year-old Alex and knocked him unconscious. Then he knocked down Rachel and dragged mother and son into the bushes.
Robert Napper slit his mother's throat in front of two-year-old Alex, and then attempted a forcible examination, a process that didn't go smoothly for his own reasons.
So during this period, Robert Napper stabbed Rachel Rachel 49 times in total with a sharp weapon.
When the police arrived at the scene, they saw Rachel lying in a pool of blood. Young Alex was clutching his disheveled mother and kept shouting "Wake up, get up, mom!" "
He also put a note on his mother's wound, seemingly trying to stop her bleeding. It is said that the Scotland Yard police officers who saw this scene collapsed on the spot.
It took nearly a decade for Scotland Yard to catch the murderer with the help of DNA technology, during which time a homeless man was wrongly convicted, a policewoman suffered from PTSD, and a police cameraman suffered a mental breakdown.
After a long judicial process, it was finally 16 years after Rachel Rachel was murdered that she was successfully convicted, and Robert Napper, whose crime methods were not very clever, was imprisoned in a mental hospital.
——
"And then there's this. Regarding the fact that the skin on the soles of the deceased's feet was removed, it can't be inferred from a sexual aspect. Foot fetish doesn't seem to be like this either?" Emily continued to ask more questions.
Keep asking for monthly votes.