Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
墨書 Inktalez
This is a major criminal case referred to as one of the "Nine Major Difficult Cases" by the Ministry of Public Security in 2016.
In that year, the "Silver Serial Murder Case" was also successfully solved, which should have taken precedence. However, the difficulty in solving the "Silver Case" was primarily due to the limitations of forensic technology at that time.
The reason this case could overshadow the Silver Case is not only because the perpetrator ruthlessly killed three young girls but also due to the unprecedented efforts made by the police and the severe negative impact the case had nationwide.
Statistics show that in order to solve this case, public security agencies spent six years not only screening and investigating 13.14 million men but also conducting DNA tests on over 40,000 individuals, costing nearly 80 million yuan.
So, why was this case, which outraged countless people, so difficult to solve?
Date of Incident: April 18, 2010.
Location: Jiang County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province.
On that day, three little girls named Zhao, Yang, and Ji from Guxian Town in Jiang County took advantage of a rare Saturday afternoon to go to the creek in Gouxi Village to catch tadpoles. However, when evening came, their parents noticed that not only had the children not returned home, but they were also nowhere to be found by the creek.
Panic set in among the parents, who quickly called relatives and friends to help search. Armed with oil lamps and flashlights, they searched all night without any leads.
On the morning of April 19, 2010, an elderly man passing by an abandoned cave dwelling in Gouxi Village suddenly noticed a pile of jujube thorns placed at the entrance. He found it strange because locals usually put such thorns at doors to prevent livestock from escaping. But who would keep livestock in an abandoned cave dwelling?
Out of curiosity, he moved aside the thorns and entered the cave dwelling. To his shock, he found three bodies of young girls lying inside, causing him to tremble in fear and break into a cold sweat.
Upon receiving the report, the police immediately sealed off the scene and began their investigation. Preliminary autopsy results revealed that all three girls had suffered varying degrees of sexual assault before their deaths, which were determined to be caused by asphyxiation. After identification, it was confirmed that they were indeed Zhao, Yang, and Ji, who had mysteriously disappeared the day before.
Seeing the children’s lifeless eyes, their parents broke down in tears on the spot.
Through a meticulous investigation of the crime scene, the police retrieved the rope used by the suspect to bind the children, as well as two spent cigarette butts. The forensic team extracted DNA samples from the bodies and clothing of the three children. Unfortunately, after comparison, the DNA did not match any known profiles.
Additionally, on the road leading to the crime scene, the police found a surveillance camera. The footage showed that at 12:44 PM on April 18, three girls were seen walking towards Valley Floor with mineral water bottles in hand.
About ten minutes later, a man appeared from the direction of Valley Floor and then returned via another small path. He was seen coming back from Valley Floor again at 3:47 PM, passing through the monitored area once more. This raised questions about why the children's bodies were found one kilometer away in a Cave Dwelling.
The police speculated that this man must have encountered the three girls at Valley Floor and then harbored malicious intentions, ultimately using some means to take them to the abandoned Cave Dwelling where he sexually assaulted and murdered them.
Regrettably, due to the poor quality of the surveillance footage, extensive interviews and reward notices failed to identify the man. Given the heinous nature of the crime, public outrage was immense, prompting law enforcement at provincial, municipal, and county levels to solemnly pledge that they would not cease their efforts until the case was solved.
With leads from surveillance footage exhausted, investigators turned their focus to the suspect's DNA. Based on the brand of cigarettes he smoked, the location of the abandoned Cave Dwelling, and his behavior of leaving dates at its entrance, police concluded that he was likely a local resident.
Thus began a large-scale search operation centered around the crime scene, expanding outward in a spiral pattern. Due to high costs associated with DNA testing, police decided to first narrow down their search by comparing blood types. However, during this process, hot weather caused testing reagents to degrade quickly.
To ensure accurate blood testing results, officers would periodically prick their own fingers to check their blood types and confirm that their serum had not spoiled before testing suspicious individuals. Over time, all officers ended up with hundreds of needle marks on their hands; their fingers would swell and shrink repeatedly.
In subsequent years, the task force screened nearly 134,000 men living nearby and conducted DNA tests on over 30,000 individuals who matched the suspect's blood type.
Initially, the task force believed that such an extensive search would lead to a quick resolution of the case. However, after several years of investigation and considerable expenditure of resources, there was still no breakthrough.
Consequently, investigators suspected that the suspect might not be a local resident after all. They expanded their search radius from Jiang County to Yuncheng and then nationwide in pursuit of leads. In March 2015, after screening over 10,000 suspicious individuals from outside areas, the case once again reached an impasse.
As the police exhausted all means to solve the case, the tragic deaths of the three girls dealt a devastating blow to their families. Among them, the mother of Yang, one of the girls, was shopping at the time of the incident and faced blame from her family afterward; she struggled to forgive herself.
Children serve as the bonds that hold families together, and with their loss, the families fell apart. In 2011, unable to bear her family's indifference, Yang's mother ultimately chose to divorce.
After Zhao's incident, her mother wept daily. In 2011, overwhelmed by the pain of losing her daughter and the ensuing pressure, she decided to divorce her husband and relinquished custody of her younger son. Similarly, the tragic death of Ji shattered his family's peace, leading his parents to divorce as well.
Each time the special investigation team encountered these broken families, they felt immense pressure. Although they never abandoned their efforts to solve the case, some officers experienced a profound sense of frustration when faced with the reality that their efforts had not yet uncovered any leads on suspects.
Just when the special investigation team found themselves at a standstill, in March 2016, Liu Zhongyi, Deputy Director of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Public Security, organized a campaign to tackle unresolved homicide cases and listed this case as one of the primary targets.
From April 21 to 23, Liu Zhongyi led a working group along with various experts to Jiang County, where they conducted on-site investigations of the crime scene and surrounding environment and analyzed relevant physical evidence.
Based on the suspect's habit of stacking jujubes at the entrance of a cave dwelling, Liu Zhongyi believed that although this was an opportunistic crime, there must be a connection between the suspect and the local area, ruling out the possibility of an outsider committing the crime.
He then decided to start all investigative work from scratch and devised a more detailed and scientific investigation plan. At this point, the Ministry of Public Security's working group had a trump card: the Y Chromosome Re-examination Tracking Method.
Specifically, this method involved re-examining male DNA through Y Chromosome tracking to identify all male relatives sharing that Y Chromosome for individual testing to confirm potential suspects.
This technology not only significantly reduced the scope and speed of police investigations but also saved substantial time and money. With this method, on August 26, 2016, police successfully solved a major cold case known as the Silver Serial Murder Case; however, that is another story for another time.
Under Liu Zhongyi's direction, the special investigation team limited their search area to within 5 kilometers of the crime scene. Subsequently, large-scale blood sample collection began.
On July 1, 2016, during testing of the first batch of blood samples submitted for analysis, technicians discovered a Y Chromosome belonging to the Mei Clan that matched with that of a suspect.
Based on this clue, the investigation team immediately conducted a thorough search around the gathering point of the Mei Clan. However, the results were disappointing; there were no members of the Mei Clan that matched the criteria.
Nevertheless, the team did not give up. They meticulously reviewed the genealogy of the Mei Clan and discovered that in the 1930s, due to a lack of male heirs, a child was adopted from the family of a male member's sister into the Mei Clan.
This meant that the Y Chromosome being traced by the police originated from this adopted child. Upon investigation, it was found that the child's lineage belonged to another village and should have originally carried the surname Ji. However, despite the team's efforts, they could not locate any descendants of the Ji Clan.
At that moment, a donation list inscribed on a stone tablet in a local ancient building caught the police's attention. According to records from the Cultural Relics Bureau, there indeed had been a Ji Clan in that village during the late Qing Dynasty, but by the Republican era, due to various incidents, descendants of this Ji Clan had scattered into different lineages.
Although they had not found any descendants of the Ji Clan, this inscription broadened the police's perspective. The investigation team then shifted their focus away from the lineage of the Y Chromosome and defined key areas for further investigation based on the names listed on the stone tablet, conducting DNA tests on related individuals.
Soon, they zeroed in on a Zhu Clan.
Through DNA testing and comparison among male members of this clan, at 1 AM on July 21st, they successfully matched 28-year-old Zhu Zheng. In that moment, everyone embraced each other; six years of hardship and pain melted away in tears. Subsequently, the police apprehended Zhu Zheng that very night.
During interrogation, Zhu Zheng confessed to his crimes without hesitation.
Born in 1988, Zhu Zheng had always been looked down upon by his family due to his lack of intelligence and was raised like a fool, which instilled deep feelings of inferiority and humiliation in him. During his school years, he faced isolation from classmates because of his family's poor conditions.
Determined to prove himself, Zhu Zheng worked hard and achieved excellent grades to enter a prestigious high school.
However, having lived in a world of self-doubt for so long, he became infatuated with the internet during his first year of high school. He skipped classes daily and spent all his time in internet cafes, often going without food for an entire day just to save money for gaming. In that virtual world, he finally experienced what dignity felt like.
Gradually, he fell deeper into bad habits at the internet cafe—playing games and visiting unhealthy websites—eventually choosing to drop out and work instead. However, after several years without achieving anything significant, he reluctantly returned to his hometown.
On April 18, 2010, at noon, Zhu Zheng, feeling aimless, wandered near Gouxi Village and Valley Floor.
Around 12:45, he encountered three girls who were carrying empty bottles, preparing to catch tadpoles by the creek. At that moment, he had no malicious thoughts and instead took another path back to Valley Floor, seeking a shady spot to take a nap.
However, around 2 PM, Zhu Zheng was abruptly awakened by the sounds of laughter. The three girls had come near where he was sleeping, playing in the water.
Seeing the three barefoot children frolicking in the creek stirred dark thoughts within Zhu Zheng. He coerced the girls to an abandoned cave dwelling and bound their hands together with rope. Once he confirmed that no one was around, he committed an unspeakable crime.
Afterward, Zhu Zheng instinctively gathered a pile of thorny jujube branches to block the entrance of the cave dwelling before fleeing back home in a panic.
Fearing arrest by the police, he confided in his family about the murder. His family split into two factions: his sister advocated for turning themselves in, while his father insisted on fleeing for the sake of their reputation. Ultimately, his domineering father gave him 800 yuan to escape to another city, while his sister chose to divorce her husband to avoid dragging him down.
With his parents' protection, Zhu Zheng successfully evaded police scrutiny. While hiding out and working in another city, he dared not reveal his identity; he avoided the internet, refrained from making friends, and even used a fake identity when dating.
Two years later, believing the situation had calmed down, he quietly returned to Jiang County and found work as a chef in a restaurant. By 2015, Zhu Zheng had completely let his guard down and began to marry and have children, living a normal life. Little did he expect that less than a year into this new life, he would be apprehended by the police.
It can only be said that the Heavenly Net is vast and wide but not easily escaped. On July 22, 2016, as police escorted Zhu Zheng to identify the crime scene, a crowd filled an entire street, shouting for him to be killed. The police had no choice but to deploy a significant force to maintain order.
As Zhu Zheng was led back into the police car, the crowd erupted in fireworks to celebrate the resolution of the case. On June 15, 2018, following approval from the Supreme Court, Zhu Zheng was sentenced to death, and his family members who had aided him were also punished according to the law.
Thus concluded the nationally sensational Jiang County case involving the tragic fate of three girls on April 18. Although it took six years for justice to be served and was fraught with difficulties along the way, the police ultimately fulfilled their mission—bringing solace to the departed souls and their families while providing an explanation to the public.
Comment 0 Comment Count