Ethan's Confession

　　"Where do you live?" "Apartment 601, Building 5, North Shore Community." "Did you buy the house for her?" "No, I rented it." "Are the items inside the house yours or hers?" "They're hers, but you could say they're mine too.

　　I paid for all those things." "Do you admit that her death is related to you?" Ethan pondered for a moment and said, "That depends on how you look at it." James suddenly realized that things couldn't be as smooth as he had hoped.

　　He raised his voice slightly, trying to dominate the situation.

　　"What do you mean by 'depends on how you look at it'? Just say whether or not you killed her!" "No, I didn't," Ethan immediately replied, looking up at James.

　　"What did you say?" James became slightly irritated.

　　"I didn't kill her!" Ethan repeated.

　　James was truly furious and wanted to pin Ethan down right here.

　　He picked up the test report and shouted, "This is the test report.

　　It has now been confirmed that the bloodstains found under the coffee table in Apartment 601, Building 5, North Shore Community, and the bloodstains in your car all belong to Sophia.

　　Furthermore, the marks on the front headlights of your car and the marks left at the scene where the body was found are identical.

　　All of this proves that you killed and disposed of the body.

　　Do you still want to argue?!" Ethan became nervous once again, resembling an innocent person being falsely accused.

　　He exclaimed, "I admit that I put her body in a box and threw it into the river, but I don't admit that I killed her!" "What did you say?" James had expected Ethan to lower his head and confess given this solid evidence.

　　But he hadn't anticipated that Ethan would admit to disposing of the body but not to the murder.

　　"I said I didn't kill Sophia, I only disposed of the body in the river," Ethan repeated.

　　"Nonsense! If you didn't kill her, then why did you dispose of the body? If the murderer isn't you, then who else could it be?" James grew increasingly furious, never considering that Ethan would still try to argue in the face of such solid evidence.

　　Ethan's face turned red, and his neck thickened as he argued, "I don't know who the murderer is, but it definitely isn't me!" "You..." James angrily erupted.

　　At this moment, he heard Benjamin cough lightly and then saw Benjamin give him a signal, so he took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

　　"Alright, let's ask in a different way.

　　Ethan, do you admit to taking Sophia's body to the stone bridge outside the suburbs last night and disposing of it?" "I admit it." Ethan's response this time was very straightforward, and his excited emotions also stabilized slightly.

　　"All the belongings of the men in Apartment 601 of Building 5 in the North Shore community disappeared.

　　Do you admit that you did these things?" "I admit it." "Do you admit that you cleaned up the crime scene?" "I admit it." "Then do you admit to killing Sophia?" "I don't admit it." The back-and-forth questioning between the two went very smoothly, but when James heard Ethan deny the murder once again, his anger was reignited.

　　If it weren't for his identity as a police officer, he would definitely have picked up a chair and smashed it onto Ethan.

　　Benjamin knew that James was losing his temper a bit, so he timely interrupted him and asked Ethan, "Why? Since you admitted to deliberately concealing traces of your presence in Apartment 601 of Building 5 in the North Shore community, cleaning up the crime scene, and disposing of the body, why don't you admit that you're the murderer?" Ethan turned his head to look at Benjamin and said naturally, "Because I didn't kill her, so I won't admit to killing someone." "If you didn't kill her, then why did you do everything else?" "I was afraid that you would suspect me." "Please explain in more detail." "Sophia and I did have a romantic relationship.

　　I rented a house for her and bought her many things.

　　I really liked her, so why would I kill her?" Ethan paused for a moment, seemingly organizing his thoughts.

　　"I still remember the situation when I arrived there yesterday.

　　When I opened the door, I saw her lying in a pool of blood.

　　I was terrified at that moment, and when I came to my senses, I found my hands covered in blood.

　　When I saw the blood on my hands, I knew it was over, that I couldn't escape suspicion.

　　Who would believe that I didn't kill her? In order to avoid suspicion, I took away everything in the room related to me, cleaned up the scene, and took the body to a remote suburb and threw it into the river.

　　I thought that by doing all this, you would never find me.

　　But I didn't expect that in just a few hours, you found me.

　　Honestly, if I had known that your investigation would be so swift, I wouldn't have chosen this path.

　　I would have called the police immediately." James snorted and said, "Do you think anyone will believe these words?" "I know it's hard for you to believe, but what I'm saying is the truth.

　　I didn't kill her, and I also don't have any reason to kill her," Ethan said.

　　Benjamin asked, "What about the things you took out of the room?"

　　"After disposing of the body in the river, my mind was in chaos.

　　As I walked halfway, I realized I couldn't bring the remaining items home, so I threw them all into a deep ditch by the roadside."

　　"Do you remember where you left them?"

　　"Not far from the repair shop.

　　After getting rid of the items, I parked the car at the repair shop."

　　Turning back to James, Benjamin said, "We must find those things."

　　"What about him?"

　　"Lock him up first.

　　We'll deal with him after we find the items he threw away," Benjamin said.

　　"Alright." James had someone lock Ethan up and then went with Benjamin and Emma to search for the items Ethan had discarded.

　　With a clear target in mind, it was much easier to find them.

　　Benjamin and the others drove to the vicinity of the repair shop and searched along the roadside.

　　It didn't take long before they discovered the items in a deep ditch.

　　They were packed in two large suitcases.

　　Luckily, the ditch was overgrown with weeds, so they hadn't been found by anyone else.

　　After finding these things, Benjamin opened the suitcases and started throwing everything out, looking absolutely crazy.

　　"Big brother, what are you doing? These are all evidence!" James tried to stop Benjamin.

　　But Benjamin didn't stop.

　　After throwing everything from the first suitcase onto the ground, he began to rummage through the second suitcase, continuously muttering, "Nothing, nothing, there's nothing."

　　"Big brother, what are you looking for?" James asked again.

　　After throwing everything out of the suitcases, Benjamin threw them on the ground and sat down with a smile, saying, "It's not here after all."

　　"Big brother, what exactly are you looking for?" James asked again.

　　"The necklace, the jewelry on the victim's body.

　　Do you remember that all the jewelry on the body was missing? If Ethan was the murderer, those things should be here, but there's nothing here.

　　This means he is not the killer."

　　Seeing Benjamin's crazed actions earlier, James thought he had gone insane.

　　However, when he heard that Benjamin was simply looking for the jewelry on the victim's body, he breathed a sigh of relief.

　　He began to pack the items back into the suitcases, saying, "Big brother, you should have said that earlier.

　　I think those things might have been hidden elsewhere, like in the car."

　　"If they were in the car, your people would have found them already.

　　In fact, they're not in the car," Benjamin said.

　　"I was just giving an example.

　　He could have hidden them in many places.

　　Maybe he threw those things somewhere else."

　　"No, that's not possible."

　　"Why are you so sure?"

　　"Think about the situation at that time.

　　If he killed Sophia, why would he take off her jewelry while cleaning up the scene? He didn't want to leave any clues on the body.

　　Don't forget that those pieces of jewelry are very valuable.

　　If they were left on the body, we could simply check with the jewelry company and find him."

　　"Alright, I'll go with your theory."

　　I ask again, since he cleaned up the scene and packed away all the items related to him in the room, there is no reason for him to put the jewelry in a different place." "Those things are very valuable, and they're small.

　　He might have put them in his pocket without thinking and then hid them somewhere else when he got back.

　　By the way, we found him in his company, so I think he may have hidden the jewelry in his office.

　　As long as we go back and look, we'll find it." "No," Benjamin shook his head, "What I mean is, he doesn't have a motive for murder." "Do you think this could be a case of robbery and murder, where the killer killed for the sake of the jewelry?" James asked.

　　"Why not?" Benjamin countered.

　　"Alright." James didn't want to argue with Benjamin about this, he couldn't completely rule out the possibility, "Do you remember the wound on the back of the victim's head? There must have been an argument between the two at that time, and he accidentally pushed Sophia down, causing her to hit her head on the corner of the coffee table and bleed a lot.

　　At that time, she might have fainted, and he thought she was dead." "A blow to the back of the head isn't a fatal injury," Benjamin reminded.

　　"I haven't finished yet.

　　While he was cleaning up the scene, Sophia suddenly woke up again.

　　He was scared and thought it was a vengeful ghost, so he covered her mouth with his hand and killed her a second time, truly killing her," James said.

　　"Clap clap clap--" Benjamin suddenly applauded, "Wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

　　Your reasoning is so good, you could write a novel." James knew Benjamin wasn't really praising him, but he didn't think he was wrong in his analysis, so he asked, "Do you have a different opinion?" Benjamin said, "Leaving aside everything else, let's just talk about the jewelry on the victim's body.

　　Even if we consider this to be a murder case caused by an accident, the biggest reaction a person has after accidentally killing someone is panic.

　　The vast majority of people would choose to flee the scene, only a very small number would stay and clean up.

　　I know you would say Ethan belongs to this small group of people, but these people wouldn't forget their panic and still think about taking the victim's belongings while cleaning up.

　　Only premeditated murder would involve taking the victim's belongings.

　　Here, I have to remind you, Ethan threw the body into the river, but he didn't throw these things with the body, he just casually threw them by the roadside.

　　This shows that he was indeed in a state of extreme panic at the time, to the point where he couldn't make the right choice." "I still insist that Ethan took away the jewelry," James said.

　　"We must find those jewelry first, only when we find them can we uncover the truth." Benjamin didn't want to continue the meaningless argument with James.

　　"I will find them, as long as I go back and interrogate Ethan, he will confess everything," James said.