Chapter 92

"Mr. Edwards, do you know less than I do?" Zoey said sarcastically, "It's because you're a man, you can't truly empathize with the feeling of being undervalued as a woman. After all, people always selectively ignore things that don't benefit them."

For the first time, Alexander didn't retort Zoey.

Instead, he seriously considered what she said.

He indeed grew up in a privileged environment, with an older brother. His parents loved him and his brother equally, but as the youngest in the family, he sometimes received a bit more love than his brother.

However, this favoritism was almost imperceptible.

The material support from their parents made them feel valued.

Because whatever they gave to his brother, they also provided for him.

Alexander couldn't help but wonder, if his brother or he were a girl, how would their parents treat them?

He thought about it but couldn't imagine his parents as bad people.

No matter how he thought about it, his parents treated them equally.

Because his family was wealthy, and his mother always expressed that she especially wished he could be a girl.

Favoring males over females didn't exist in their family. But what if they weren't wealthy?

Thinking about being poor, Alexander's gaze instantly fell on Zoey. "Zoey, I remember you have a younger brother, right?"

Zoey didn't know why Derek was brought up again but responded with a yes.

Alexander recalled that he had never heard Zoey mention her family, let alone Derek.

He asked, "So how is your relationship?"

Zoey honestly replied, "Terrible."

Alexander fell silent.

Alexander imagined Zoey as his sister, and he probably wouldn't get along with her either. With her personality, being her brother... he didn't even dare to continue thinking about it.

He thought his reasoning was successful and said, "It's normal for siblings to have conflicts. You must have had happy times growing up, right?"

Zoey didn't answer his question.

Instead, she asked him, "Do you know that most families with a brother-sister combination favor males over females?"

Alexander was stunned by Zoey's gaze.

He had never heard of this, but he vaguely understood from Zoey's words that her family might be like this.

He connected this with recent investigations, all favoring males over females.

So, could Zoey's prickly personality be related to growing up in a family that favored males over females?

But it didn't make sense.

Generally, children who lacked love were insecure and gradually developed a people-pleasing personality. But looking at Zoey's irritable personality, she seemed more like someone who was spoiled growing up.

Thinking this, they unknowingly arrived at the church entrance.

Robert and a few others were standing at the entrance, looking at their phones with serious expressions.

Alexander and Zoey walked up to them, and no one spoke.

Alexander took the initiative to speak, "Officer Davis, has the autopsy report come in?"

Robert was so engrossed that he didn't notice Alexander until he spoke. He looked up at Alexander, "You're back? How did it go? The autopsy report is in our group chat, didn't you see it?"

Alexander and Zoey both took out their phones, and opened the group chat.

Alexander had just received it, but Zoey's group chat had no new messages.

Alexander said, "I just received it; the signal here is terrible."

Zoey walked around looking for a signal with her old phone, but no matter where she went, the group chat messages remained the same, with no updates.

Impatient, she moved closer to Alexander to look at his phone together.

Alexander placed his phone in a central position so they could both see.

Apart from the ligature marks on the neck, the three bodies had no obvious external injuries. The lips, cheeks, earlobes, nail beds, hands, feet, and lower parts of the body showed significant cyanosis; the facial skin and conjunctiva had petechial hemorrhages; the livor mortis was prominent and appeared early, indicating that the cause of death for the three victims was mechanical asphyxia, specifically hanging.

There were no ligature marks on the hands, and the ligature marks on the neck extending to the back of the ears were clean and singular, indicating that there were no signs of struggle when they were hanged, likely because the killer hanged them while they were unconscious. However, the forensic pathologist did not detect any drugs in the victims' bodies.

But it couldn't be ruled out that the victims were given a small amount of sedatives, and the killer waited for the drugs to metabolize before hanging them.

Most notably, the forensic pathologist found semen residues in all three victims, but since the vaginal openings had not returned to their original state and there were no signs of sexual activity, the forensic pathologist determined that the victims were raped before being killed.

Strangely, only in Faye's body were two types of semen found. The forensic pathologist determined through activity testing that one type of sperm entered the victim's body about 20 hours earlier than the other.

As for fingerprints, due to the excessive number of fingerprints found on the three victims, they wouldn't be detailed here. The forensic team would match them after collecting fingerprints from the villagers. The known autopsy results were as above.

Every sentence of the autopsy report was like a sharp blade piercing the hearts of the entire criminal investigation team.

They were just young girls who had barely seen the world outside the village, cruelly murdered by the killer!

Alexander, usually very composed, trembled as he held his phone. "What a scum of society!"

Dennis was also furious, his tone filled with indignation for the victims. "Why doesn't our country have laws? For rapists of young girls, they should all be chemically castrated! Then executed! They shouldn't live!"

Robert sighed deeply but didn't express any opinion.

He had seen too many such cases, and each time he was extremely angry. He turned his anger into motivation to solve the case, to avenge the girls as soon as possible.

Jordan said, "The forensic pathologist only found two types of semen in Faye's body, one of which is the same as in Janet and Sadie. The different one entered the body the day before the incident, so we can't determine if there are two killers."

"It seems this killer has no anti-detection awareness, leaving such crucial evidence!" Alexander said, "At this time, the men working in the village should be back, right? Let's move!"

"Alright, you go ahead. I'll wait here for the technical team to come back. I'll join you once they're here to guard the crime scene, I'll join you." Robert finished, and the group quickly left the church.

Zoey, Alexander, and Jordan formed a team to collect samples from each household starting from the village entrance.