Watching the three GMC Yukons drive away, the bruised and battered Hangman gang on the beach finally helped each other to their feet.
"#$@&!" Hector twisted his arm, which Jack had removed and then reattached, in agony. He pushed away the woman who tried to help him and stood up.
A subordinate approached his boss with a cell phone, his eyes glaring. "Do you want to contact me?"
Hector kicked him to the ground before he could finish his words. Hector hurled a barrage of curse words, "You idiot! Only two of them took action! We had over twenty! Do you want to spread this around the world?" The
enraged Hangman gang rushed forward, but Jack had barely managed to knock down a few when Clay, stripping off his bulletproof vest, joined the fray. Within ten minutes, the two of them had beaten over twenty men to the ground.
Although Clay explained that he was worried Jack might get hurt while fighting alone, someone knew he was definitely itching to do something.
Feeling so good from the fight, Jack kindly took the time to reattach the wrists and arms of those he'd dislocated. Jubal and Aubrey took the opportunity to inspect the tin huts.
Sadly, the Hangmen likely got their beating in vain. While one of the huts contained a small farm, likely producing and selling their own marijuana, no sickles were found, save for some shovels, shears, and other tools.
There was a diesel generator behind the greenhouse, but it ran on regular diesel. Hannah also checked all the Harley-Davidson motorcycles and other vehicles at the scene, but found nothing.
No cocaine was found on the gang members. According to their accounts, Plaza Delgado was indeed the Hangmen's territory, where the gang's main source of income was protection fees and the sale of marijuana.
Therefore, only by maintaining the proper "order" there could they maximize their profits. Therefore, they not only never bother American tourists, but also prevent certain ignorant idiots from causing trouble.
Shortly after the GMC Yukon left Aquila Beach, Lopez, who was waiting on the roadside with several police cars, approached.
"Looks like you've picked the wrong target," the former lieutenant said grimly. "We just found another body, another American."
"Who's his identity?" Jack's mood, which had just relaxed after beating someone up, suddenly soured. Could this be another serial killer case?
"A businessman named Robert Miller." Lopez pulled up the ID photo of a middle-aged white man, about forty or fifty, on his phone.
"How do you know it's connected to Lee Kern's case?" Aubrey curiously took Lopez's phone and flipped through the photos of the scene. Then he found the answer.
Robert Miller's ID photo shows a middle-aged white man, while the scene photo shows a body covered in black, its arms severed at the elbows and carelessly discarded.
At first glance, it might look like a charred corpse or someone of African descent, but the clothing on the body is intact. A closer look reveals it's been smeared with black paint and something is stuffed in its mouth.
"And there are two crime scenes this time. The Mexican police found his car and bloodstains in the parking lot of the dog racing track, and his body was found under an overpass two kilometers away."
After Lopez finished speaking, he took back his mobile phone and continued to ask, "Should we go to the crime scene first or the body scene?"
Jubal thought for a while and arranged, "Aubrey and Alice will go back to the hotel to investigate Robert Mueller's detailed information. Clay, Jiejie and Hannah will go to the crime scene. Agent Lopez and Jack will go to the body scene with me."
-
"The method of murder is obviously the same. The murder weapon is still a sickle. The cause of death is excessive blood loss and suffocation caused by a laceration to the neck." Jack examined the deceased's neck with a flashlight, and then shone it on his severed elbow.
"The method is much more brutal than before. Could this be considered an escalation of violence?" Jubal's experience with serial killers was clearly less than Jack's.
"Perhaps, but I sense a distinct sense of ritual." Jack approached the body and detected a distinct scent of beer.
"The muscle and blood vessel contractions aren't obvious, suggesting the arm was chopped off postmortem. Judging by the jagged, uneven wounds, I'm inclined to believe the tool was a saw, a common carpenter's saw.
The dismemberment and painting were all done posthumously. I have a feeling murder and torture weren't the killer's motives, but rather a purpose."
"Religious ritual? But this time the body wasn't strung up in a cross." If Jubal wasn't familiar with serial killers, then for Lopez, a former Mexican Marine lieutenant, this was new territory.
"The victim's mouth was stuffed with cigars, and beer was force-fed postmortem. These are classic ritual techniques," Jack paused before adding.
"But I can't discern what kind of superstitious cult this is. No iconic symbols were found at either scene, and the locations of the bodies are completely different.
Lee Kern's body was hung in a public square, displayed in plain sight, while here, beneath a rarely visited overpass."
Lopez, a Mexican, pondered for a long time, unable to pinpoint some local cult associated with similar ritual sacrifices. It wasn't because it was rare, but because similar bizarre superstitions were so numerous.
From Satanism to voodoo, Mexico rivals the US in this area, thanks to the "frequent exchanges" between the two countries.
"Is it possible the murderer originally intended to hang the body from the overpass, but was interrupted by some unforeseen circumstances?" Jubal said, looking up at the overpass deck, which was over twenty meters above the ground. He immediately dismissed his theory.
To get a body from such a high overpass, the best way wouldn't be to hang it from below, but to suspend it from the bridge itself.
"Ask about the crime scene, and that might confirm my suspicions," Jack said, video-calling Jiejie.
The dog racing track was closer to the overpass, and the three people there had already completed the on-site investigation. Jiejie used her phone to scan the scene for Jack and explained the situation.
"The left front tire of the Mondeo driven by the victim was punctured. It must have been done by the murderer, who ambushed Robert Miller as he was leaning over to investigate."
In the camera of Jiejie's phone, you can see that the driver's window glass and the exterior of the dark green car body of the Mondeo were splattered with arterial blood.
"Are there any other pools of blood or anything like that?" Jack asked.
Jiejie turned the phone around and finally shrugged. "It's the same as the previous crime scene, that's all."
(End of this chapter)