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墨書 Inktalez
When it comes to shocking unsolved cases, the Nanjing Dismemberment Case stands out, but little do people know that there are many other cases even more terrifying.
At the turn of the century, Sichuan's Nanchong City was known as one of the top ten violent cities. This reputation stemmed not only from the 1988 Nanchong fan riot but also from the presence of various thugs and gangsters roaming the streets, armed with knives.
In May 2001, flyers suddenly appeared on the streets of Nanchong, proclaiming, "Kill 600 students to accompany boss Luo to the grave."
Who boss Luo was is another matter; what’s important is that no one took this as a joke. In just 20 days, this small city experienced multiple major criminal incidents, resulting in the deaths of 11 young people and one serious injury.
Terrifyingly, half of the victims were women, all subjected to brutal treatment—some decapitated, others buried in desolate areas, with methods that were extremely cruel.
Date of incident: May 13, 2001.
Location: Xinjian Town, Nanchong City, Sichuan Province.
*
That afternoon at 4 PM, several elementary school students were playing by the Jialing River in Nanmenba Village. Suddenly, one student pulled out a round object from the water that resembled a pig's head.
Coincidentally, an elderly man out for exercise happened to pass by. He took a closer look and realized that the "pig head," which had turned white from soaking in water, was actually staring back at him with bulging eyes.
Oh my God! This is no pig's head; it’s a human head!
Ten minutes later, police from the Gao Ping District of Nanchong arrived at the scene. After examining the head, forensic experts determined that it belonged to a man around 20 years old. Based on the severed surface of the head, police concluded it had been cut off with a sharp weapon like a knife or axe. In other words, this was a heinous murder case.
Given the state of decomposition and how long it had been submerged in water, they estimated that the victim had died only one or two days prior. Thus, it was urgent for police to quickly identify the victim and solve the case within the critical 72-hour window. Fortunately, the face of the head remained relatively intact.
The day after police issued a notice seeking information about the body, an elderly couple came to the police station to identify the head. Tragically, it belonged to their son Su Dengchun, who had been brutally beheaded.
According to his parents, Su Dengchun had worked as a chef at a small eatery in Shunqing District. He was introverted and honest; apart from his girlfriend Pu Yanyan whom he met six months earlier, he had very few friends and no known enemies.
On the night of May 12th after finishing work, Su Dengchun and Pu Yanyan went to her home in Gao Ping District for dinner. Afterward, they went out shopping together and never returned home.
Pu Yanyan was a girl from Hubei, who had interned for eight months in the forensic department of the Jialing District police. Although she chose not to stay with the criminal police team due to personality issues, her professional knowledge and experience were still quite solid.
With Su Dengchun's brutal death, questions arose about her possible involvement. Where was she at that moment? With these doubts in mind, the police began investigating the whereabouts of both individuals. However, after three days of effort, there was still no progress in the case. A sense of foreboding settled over everyone, leading them to believe that Pu Yanyan might be in grave danger.
On May 16, workers at a hydropower station located 20 kilometers downstream from where Su Dengchun's head was found discovered that the intake gate was blocked by foreign objects. To their shock, while clearing it out, they unearthed a severed head with long hair. The sight of the swollen face and wide-open eyes caused one worker to faint on the spot.
Upon identification, the long-haired female head was confirmed to be Pu Yanyan, whom the police had been desperately searching for. The extreme pain and anger evident on her face led investigators to conclude that she had suffered greatly before her death, just like her boyfriend Su Dengchun.
Such a heinous crime immediately drew the attention of the Provincial Public Security Department. The police quickly established a special task force to solve the case. To gather more evidence, they ordered a thorough search of the victim's body.
That evening, a former Lianfang team member in his forties learned about the case through acquaintances and suspected that the bodies might have been discarded along the riverbank near where Su Dengchun's head was found. This area had seen a rise in violent crimes such as rape and robbery in recent years.
However, his concerns were dismissed by the leaders of the Gao Ping District Public Security Bureau, so he decided to search for evidence on his own.
As he scoured along the riverbank, he suddenly caught a whiff of a terrible stench. Following it into the depths of the reeds, he stumbled upon four headless corpses.
The task force could hardly believe their eyes when they discovered that these four bodies were located just 200 meters from where Su Dengchun's head had been found.
It was clear that there had been significant oversight by the officers responsible for searching the area. Upon examination, two of the bodies were identified as belonging to Su Dengchun and Pu Yanyan. The horrific state of their remains shocked every officer present.
Su Dengchun's headless body was covered in bruises and scars from severe beatings. The marks around his neck indicated that he had been strangled—tortured before being decapitated with a kitchen knife and his head discarded into the Jialing River.
In contrast, Pu Yanyan's corpse was even more gruesome; her left breast had been brutally kicked with a shoe, her index fingers were severed and missing, and there were multiple bleeding wounds on her inner thighs. The forensic examination suggested these injuries were inflicted by someone stepping on her.
Although Pu Yanyan's lower body was mutilated beyond recognition, leaving no possibility for examination, the nature of her thigh injuries indicated that she had likely been assaulted. The sight of her body left officers stunned; they could hardly fathom that such monstrous perpetrators existed in this world.
Learning from past mistakes, this time the police conducted a thorough search in the vicinity and soon found tools like knives and some women's clothing along with several used condoms in a nearby pond. Unfortunately, any biological evidence had been washed away by water, making it difficult to collect proof.
Moreover, even more shocking was that alongside Pu Yanyan and Su Dengchun's headless bodies were two additional young male corpses without heads. Forensic experts estimated these boys were likely under 16 years old and possibly still students.
After an investigation, the police quickly identified the two young men as students from Gao Ping No. 2 Middle School. After several days of searching, their heads were also found on the riverbank downstream. At this point, the identities of all four victims had been confirmed.
Through repeated investigations, it was determined that Pu Yanyan and Su Dengchun had simple social relationships and had no enemies. Furthermore, this couple had no connection to the two students, and none of the four were wealthy. The police were unable to determine the nature of the case.
Based on the results of the crime scene investigation, the special investigation team analyzed: First, the killer had severed all ten fingers of Pu Yanyan, which suggested that this was not merely an act of abuse; rather, it indicated that Pu Yanyan had fiercely resisted during the assault, leaving behind biological evidence under her fingernails.
Second, the use of a condom during the rape suggested that the perpetrator intended to avoid leaving biological evidence, indicating that he was likely a repeat offender with prior convictions and DNA samples on record.
Third, evidence from the scene suggested that there were at least three perpetrators involved.
What could drive such a violent gang to commit these crimes? It is important to note that in 2001, a nationwide crackdown on crime was underway, causing many criminal organizations to lie low and refrain from committing offenses. So who dared to act brazenly and commit such heinous acts at this time?
Even more terrifying was the discovery two days later, on May 18, when two highly decomposed bodies were found in Nanchong City’s Jialing District. Upon investigation, it was revealed that this was a couple from Guangan who had been brutally murdered.
The male victim was named Hu Fei, 20 years old, a student at Chuanbei Medical College. The female victim was Zhu Xiao, 21 years old, a student at Nanchong Vocational School. The police discovered that this unfortunate girl’s fate mirrored that of Pu Yanyan's; once again, there were no traces left by the perpetrator at the scene.
Tragically, autopsy results indicated that Hu Fei died later than Zhu Xiao. This meant that the killer raped Zhu Xiao in front of Hu Fei before murdering both of them.
It was learned that this couple went missing on May 5 at noon, meaning they died before Pu Yanyan and Su Dengchun. Although they were not decapitated, the methods used in their murders were strikingly similar. The special investigation team suspected that the perpetrator might have committed other crimes as well and immediately decided to investigate recent similar cases.
The results revealed that on April 26, near Chuanbei Medical College, two couples—four students in total—had been murdered, with female victims also having been raped. However, this time biological evidence was extracted from one of the victims' bodies.
On April 29, another couple of students from Chuanbei Medical College was also killed. The details of this case closely resembled those from May 18. Alarmingly, these incidents were not isolated.
In the early hours of April 4, four masked assailants broke into a residential building near Nanchong Vocational School and attacked three female students who were interning there. Two of them were brutally raped while another managed to escape due to her menstrual cycle.
However, before leaving, one assailant inflicted a stab wound on her lower body out of frustration, causing serious injury. Fortunately, none of the three were killed and fingerprints and other evidence were left at the scene.
The special investigation team concluded through analysis that multiple cases occurring between April 26 and May 18 were all perpetrated by the same criminal gang. In these incidents, a total of twelve people were brutally murdered and one seriously injured; among these thirteen individuals, eleven were students—only Pu Yanyan and Su Dengchun were working adults.
Although the police sealed off all information afterward, they could not stop the spread of rumors. Thus, when flyers appeared on the streets of Nanchong stating, "Kill 600 students to accompany boss Luo," the public was filled with terror.
It is important to note that boss Luo had been a notorious gang leader in Nanchong for over ten years, having committed countless crimes with his subordinates.
In May, boss Luo was set to be sentenced to death, leading the public to attribute these incidents to his underlings.
Under the pressure of rumors, the Nanchong police faced immense stress, with the Ministry of Public Security and the Provincial Public Security Department demanding a resolution to the case within a limited timeframe to quell public speculation. However, the case was not difficult to solve; through interviews and investigations, the special investigation team quickly found an elderly man guarding a watermelon stand near the scene of the May 18 incident.
According to the old man’s recollection, at 9 PM on the 18th, four suspicious young men came to his stand. After exchanging a few days of free labor for food and shelter, they left in the afternoon of the 21st.
Based on the old man's description, the police created composite sketches. At this time, officers reviewing past cases also discovered a lead: on April 19 at 11 PM, a couple had been robbed at knife-point by four young men who also attempted to assault the wife.
Fortunately, several passersby on bicycles intervened, causing the four young men to abandon their assault. However, they did steal the couple's belongings, including their mobile phones and pagers.
Upon identification, the couple recognized that the composite sketches matched those four young men. Clearly, these individuals were likely suspects in a series of major crimes.
Through technical investigation, police discovered that after their pager was stolen, it received over 200 calls within 30 days. This indicated that it was likely being used by the assailants.
After screening through these calls, most were from public phones. However, one mobile number caught their attention. Upon investigation, it belonged to Li Furong, a local thug in Nanchong who had previously been imprisoned for fighting and theft.
During interrogation, Li Furong revealed that the caller was an old prison mate named Liu Tianlong and that Zhao Qiang was also his prison mate who used the pager.
Furthermore, Li Furong mentioned that Liu Tianlong had drunkenly boasted about having killed several female students. Connecting this with recent rumors, Li Furong believed that these crimes were definitely committed by Liu Tianlong and Zhao Qiang's group.
Based on Li Furong's information, the special investigation team immediately began investigating Liu Tianlong and Zhao Qiang and urgently retrieved their fingerprints recorded during their previous incarceration along with those of other inmates.
Through comparison, it was ultimately confirmed that Liu Tianlong, Zhao Qiang, Liu Tianbin, and Liao Xiong's fingerprints matched those found at the May 4 crime scene. Clearly, these four had significant suspicion of involvement in the crimes.
Unfortunately, due to a severe shortage of police resources at that time, they were unable to compare fingerprints promptly. This oversight resulted in no progress in solving the May 4 case; otherwise, perhaps the subsequent tragedies on May 16 and May 18 could have been prevented.
After identifying the suspects, the special investigation team immediately launched a large-scale manhunt. On the morning of May 25, the police apprehended Zhao Qiang, who was preparing to escape by train, and that afternoon, they captured Liao Xiong near a teahouse in Gaoping District. The Liu brothers, Liu Tianlong and Liu Tianbin, were also arrested on May 26.
Incredibly, during interrogation, Zhao Qiang confessed to two other cases that the police were unaware of.
One incident occurred on October 5, 2000, when Zhao Qiang and Liu Tianlong murdered a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl who had run away from home and disposed of her body in a cave. Based on Zhao Qiang's testimony, the police found the girl's remains in the cave.
The other incident took place on October 10, 2000, when the four of them robbed a couple at Xishan Scenic Area and raped the woman. The leader, Liu Tianbin, forced Liao Xiong to kill the couple to bring him into their gang and buried their bodies hastily with branches and dirt.
It wasn't until two months later, on December 4, that a dog belonging to a passerby dragged out a thigh bone from the dense forest, leading to the discovery of the bodies. This was the long-unsolved December 4 case.
According to several confessions, the two couples who were victims near Chuanbei Medical College in the April 26 case were not their doing; this was also the only case where biological evidence was found inside a female victim. After comparison, the police confirmed that this case was committed by another gang.
As for who this gang was and whether they had been captured remains unknown. In the May 13 case, only Su Dengchun and Pu Yanyan were their targets. The two students, both under sixteen years old, were simply unfortunate to have seen them nearby; to prevent any potential witnesses, they killed both.
Because Pu Yanyan had previously scratched them, Liu Tianbin brutally severed all ten of her fingers out of fear that skin flakes under her nails would expose them.
Since Pu Yanyan and the other three victims died with their eyes open, Zhao Qiang recalled an old saying: if a person dies while staring at you and you look back at them, they will never find peace. Therefore, the four took turns beheading all four corpses and discarded their heads into the Jialing River. This marked the successful resolution of the Nanchong Shocking Decapitation Case.
Within just one year, this gang committed eleven crimes, resulting in eleven deaths and one serious injury; such heinous acts could not be saved by any divine intervention.
On November 20, 2001, the four were taken to the execution ground for a firing squad execution.
At least 100,000 citizens attended the public trial event, creating an unprecedented scene in Nanchong City where streets were deserted. The impact of this case on the local community was immense.
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