"What?" Danny turned the steering wheel and pulled over. A van with a purple and yellow logo was parked on the street ahead. A young white woman in a FedEx uniform and a ponytail was loading and unloading packages beside the van.
"We'll talk about that later. Let's catch this Vásquez first." Jack opened the door and got out, drawing his sidearm.
Both men were wearing body armor, one with the NYPD logo and the other with the FBI logo. This slightly odd combination caused a commotion as soon as they
got out of the car. The young woman, bending over to collect the packages, realized something was wrong and looked back. Their eyes met, and she leaped up like a nimble antelope, dove into the traffic.
"Oh, come on, I hate chases." Danny turned around and saw Jack had already crossed the street. He sighed resignedly, sheathed his pistol, and followed.
By the time he finally made it through the traffic and across the street, the two men were no longer in sight. Fortunately, the shouts of passersby pointed him in the right direction, and he successfully tracked them to the back kitchen of a nearby fast food restaurant.
"Shoot! Kill me!" Marcia Vázquez was frantically confronting Jack, a meat cleaver in hand. "Shoot! Or I'll kill you!"
In stark contrast, Jack's voice across from her was a bit too calm. "Put down the knife! You're in enough trouble already, without the added charge of assaulting a police officer."
Danny quietly crept up behind the woman and was about to do something when he was surprised to see Jack sheath his gun.
"What are you going to do?" Danny said silently, baring his teeth at Jack, unsure of what he was up to.
"Come on, you have two choices: kill me and run, or turn and face my partner's gun." Jack waved his hand, challenging the fierce woman.
"Fuck you!" the woman rushed towards Jack, brandishing the meat cleaver.
The sharp blade sliced through the air, then froze in mid-air a split second later. Jack gripped the woman's wrist firmly, and with a slight shake, it sagged, the knife dropping to the ground with a clang.
"Watch out!" Danny warned. The woman didn't give up, her powerful right leg rising sharply, knee slamming into Jack's vitals.
"Bang!" A dull thud echoed, and Jack's left leg followed behind, their knees colliding forcefully. Jack's expression remained unchanged, while the woman's face twitched in pain.
"Whoosh!" Jack grasped the woman's armpit with his right hand and spun around, throwing her over his shoulder with a windmill throw, effortless as a pillow.
"You're under arrest, Marcia Vázquez,"
Danny said, handcuffing her and pulling the stunned woman to her feet. "Is this what you mean by not holding back when facing a serial killer?"
"Trust me, Danny, she's not a serial killer," Jack muttered, also quietly, without further explanation.
"What do you mean she's not the serial killer we're looking for?" Inside Mike Taylor's office at the CSI lab, the staff exchanged bewildered glances.
Jack's face wasn't filled with the joy of discovering the truth; instead, he looked a bit annoyed. "Remember the 'Heilbronn Ghost' case that happened in Germany and France? I think the CSI lab is in big trouble this time."
The "Heilbronn Ghost" is a famous unsolved case from the last century. In the 1990s, a mysterious serial killer appeared in Germany, committing over 40 murders over a 16-year period.
DNA technology was first used in criminal cases in the UK in 1985 and quickly spread across Europe, becoming a powerful tool for solving crimes and rapidly expanding its applications in various fields.
In 1993, a 62-year-old woman was found strangled with wire in a small town in southwestern Germany. Using the latest forensic technology, DNA fingerprinting, police recovered DNA from a teacup found at the scene. However, a
fingerprint database had not yet been established, and the police were unable to identify a suspect. They could only use DNA to identify the killer as a woman, and the case remained unsolved.
In 2001, another case of an antique dealer was reported in Freiburg, Germany, also attributed to strangulation, and the same DNA was found at the scene.
Seven months later, the same DNA was recovered from a drug injection needle at another murder scene. In 2007, two German narcotics officers were attacked, one dead and the other injured. The mysterious DNA was again found on a cartridge case at the scene.
German police spent $18 million and investigated over 800 female suspects in their pursuit of this mysterious killer, but like a ghost, her whereabouts became increasingly elusive.
As the investigation deepened, more cases were uncovered, and the mysterious killer's whereabouts spread across Europe, appearing in countries like France and Austria. Her total number of cases reached over 40, causing a sensation throughout Europe.
It wasn't until 2009 that the mysterious killer was finally apprehended. The truth was that "she" didn't exist. Further joint investigations by French and German police revealed that the swabs used by police in these European countries to collect DNA from crime scenes over the previous 16 years had been contaminated.
At the time, the cotton swabs used by police in Germany, France, and Austria all came from the same supplier, a cotton swab factory in Austria. Due to irregularities in the factory's disinfection procedures, the tips of these swabs were contaminated with the DNA of a single female employee.
No one knows how the German police felt upon discovering this truth, but after hearing Jack's speculation, everyone in the CSI lab was devastated.
Jack's statement that the CSI lab was in serious trouble was not without purpose. The contamination of DNA evidence could potentially implicate a series of recent convictions based on DNA evidence, and the implications are self-evident.
Some hard-won convictions could be overturned, and prosecutors would have to search for new evidence. If all goes wrong, some of the most vicious criminals could be acquitted.
Everyone, including Danny, realized the seriousness of the problem. "Fuck, I need to contact my sister Irene as soon as possible. At the family gathering last week, she was still complaining to me about how that serial rapist and murderer named Dick Reed scared the only witness into not daring to appear in court."
"Remember to contact your father, Commissioner Reagan. The NYPD also needs to formulate a response plan as soon as possible." Jack grabbed a box of cotton swabs on the table and turned to go out with Mike Taylor.
"Where are you going?" Stella Bonasiera asked hurriedly.
"Brooklyn, to verify Jack's guess." Mike Taylor replied in a deep voice.