National Forensic Doctor

Chapter 1396: Chapter 1320: Regulations

Shannan Province Changyang Prison.

On the massive stone signage over ten meters long, the seven characters in reddish-brown are striking, dignified, profound, and intimidating.

However, the outermost retractable gate significantly diminishes the majesty of the signage beside it. Without reading the text, it resembles the gate of a school.

In fact, the gate of Changyang Prison isn’t even taller than the gate of Changyang Science and Technology Vocational School. It’s just an ordinary retractable gate painted white. When cars need to come in and out, it retracts, otherwise, it extends out to only one and a half meters tall. Anyone with a certain degree of athletic ability could easily climb over this gate.

Because it’s a low retractable gate, the environment inside Changyang Prison, at least the external environment, is plainly visible from the roadside outside.

It’s composed of a main road, with greenery in the middle, and stretches far into the distance as a broad, flat area. The main road, spacious enough to be a six-lane highway, is flanked by low buildings, and further in, gray high walls enclose the living quarters of the inmates.

The warden had been waiting outside for a while. Upon seeing Jiang Yuan and his team’s convoy, he enthusiastically gave instructions and greeted them.

Yu Wenshu, who was with them, quickly got out of the car. The parties involved weren’t from the same system, so it was necessary to remain polite at this moment.

Jiang Yuan and Huang Qiangmin also got out and greeted the group across from them.

The warden brought not only many of his administrative staff but also had officials from departments like the prosecutor’s office waiting nearby.

For the prison, the prosecutor’s office is constantly a sword hanging over them. There are clear regulations for various acts and operations within the prison, and unexpected incidents—most of which are handled by the prosecutor’s office.

If an inmate has an unexpected death, it’s stipulated that the direct management personnel must arrive at the scene within 3 minutes. A delay would mean dereliction of duty, which could result in a 3-year sentence in court.

Of course, if it is truly an accidental death or suicide, and the direct management personnel arrive and handle it according to regulations, at most they might be fined, and the sub-warden, warden, and even prison director could avoid punishment.

The situation becomes obviously more complicated in murder cases.

"This is Lin Qingyun, Inspector Lin." After shaking hands with Jiang Yuan, the warden immediately introduced the prosecutor beside him and said, "From here on, I’ll ask Director Jiang to work with Inspector Lin. I’ll avoid suspicion, but of course, I’ll follow any commands you have."

His words weren’t very smooth, and indeed, it was somewhat difficult for him.

Inmate deaths are nearly the most troubling situation for the prison.

Before Jiang Yuan could speak, Huang Qiangmin stepped forward and said, "We’re just here to lend a hand, help where we can. For now, should we take a look at the surveillance footage?"

Lin Qingyun solemnly nodded, "We’ve been watching the surveillance these past couple of days. Yes, let’s take a look and talk afterward..."

Jiang Yuan and Huang Qiangmin exchanged a glance, relaxing slightly.

Liu Jinghui quietly rubbed his hands together, as if smelling an appetizing green fly.

Whether the surveillance footage is accessible is a watershed moment for this case.

In today’s prisons, particularly in the past decade, domestic prisons have achieved full coverage. Professional personnel install surveillance cameras to cover every corner, eliminating blind spots at the hardware level. noveldrama

If everything is in line with regulations, inmates’ activities within the prison, including using the bathroom and showering, are monitored. Naturally, this includes the death process of an inmate.

If this was a premeditated murder that even escaped routine prosecutor scrutiny, then it could indeed be called a locked-room murder.

A modern locked-room murder, still exposed to everyone’s eyes!

With everyone seated in the prison vehicle, they quickly arrived at the office building.

While walking inside, the prison staff passing by would, consciously or unconsciously, observe Jiang Yuan and others.

Liu Jinghui and Jiang Yuan would observe them in return.

Changyang Prison regularly detains over 4,000 inmates, with more than 600 staff. For a criminal investigation, neither number is trivial.

Besides being extremely strictly managed, the scale and operational model of a prison is no different from a large factory or mine. In fact, the industries within the prison are not small in scale, like the copper coil factory and cattle farm in Changyang Prison, which strictly adhere to an 8-hour workday.

In the past, many prisons had three shifts because the partial appropriation was changed to full appropriation, and once the prison enterprises’ income was fully handed over, the production motivation of the prison ceased.

Now, with the separation of prison and enterprise, Changyang Prison has also independently established a group company. The general manager of the company holds an equivalent rank to a warden and still has the status of a judicial police officer, making them a rather special presence.

The atmosphere inside the prison inevitably affected Jiang Yuan and the others.

The group silently walked into the surveillance duty room, finding a wall full of screens and a separate area with smaller screens.

"We’ve been watching the surveillance here for the past two days," Lin Qingyun explained, "After watching today, we’ll need to take some hard drives back."

"Then let’s first look at the situation on-site, the surveillance when the deceased fell," Jiang Yuan dismissed the pleasantries, focusing on immediately viewing the surveillance.

A prison officer silently stepped forward, waited a moment, and then started the surveillance.

The scene of the deceased collapsing in the cafeteria had already been scrutinized. It was now presented in a nine-grid multi-angle view, with full views of the cafeteria from front to back and vice versa, pointing to the counter, the door, and capturing the happenings in the adjacent rooms.

Jiang Yuan’s Level 3 technical defense monitoring skills could discern that the locations of these surveillance cameras were placed according to regulations, and the selected footage was conscientiously chosen, showing no signs of negligence.

Of course, camera positioning is simply one convenience; as for the content...

The footage showed the deceased initially rolling dough, suddenly clutching his stomach before staggering and collapsing onto the floor.

Immediately, a fellow inmate working in the cafeteria shouted, then a middle-aged man in prison uniform quickly ran over, called out to the deceased twice, then ran to call an officer over.

The officer asked a question upon arrival, then called on the walkie-talkie and started performing CPR on the fallen prisoner.

The entire process proceeded quickly. Despite the chaos in the cafeteria, they managed to maintain a semblance of order.

The prison officer operating the surveillance then explained, "The first person to call for help was on supervision duty, someone we select and train for good performance. The officer he summoned was the direct management personnel of the group, Wang Zhai..."

He briefly introduced the individuals appearing in the footage before going silent.

"What do you think?" Prosecutor Lin Qingshan asked impatiently.

"From just watching it like this, poisoning, maybe? I must conduct a post-mortem examination before determining anything," Jiang Yuan responded with a slight frown.

Determining a poisoning case isn’t easy; the challenge lies not in solving it but in identifying the type of poison, particularly with obscure biological toxins, which could remain undetected for a lifetime if checked blindly.

Liu Jinghui uttered an "hmm" and noted, "The entire video seems explanatory, except for the rescue segment where the cameras captured only the inmates’ backs. Whether anything transpired during that interval remains uncertain."