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墨書 Inktalez
This is the "most unusual" major criminal case since the founding of the nation, and it is also a case that reveals the "ugliness of human nature."
Like other major cases, the murderer is a demon who claims to have killed over forty people in a span of ten years. However, what sets this case apart is that the murderer is a beggar, and the victims he killed were also beggars.
Tragically, the reason the murderer was able to evade capture for so long was that during that era, beggars, being the most marginalized members of society, were often neglected by relevant authorities. In some areas, instead of providing shelter and aid, officials would simply abandon severely ill beggars in remote areas, leaving them to freeze or starve to death.
In fact, even some beggars who were clearly murdered would be treated as insignificant cases by authorities. After all, beggars are nameless; their families would not come forward to raise a fuss. This led to many victims of the murderer being recorded as unidentified individuals who died of natural causes.
Who exactly is this murderous demon? Why does he cruelly strip those beggars of their right to live?
Date of Incident: February 24, 2002.
Location: Hefei City, Feidong County, Anhui Province.
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On that morning, a sanitation worker was cleaning Tongji Bridge when he suddenly noticed something burning in the bridge hollow below. Typically, such bridge hollows are inhabited by wandering beggars and are filled with various types of garbage.
Worried that the fire might spread and cause casualties, the sanitation worker hurriedly climbed into the bridge hollow to investigate. To his surprise, although there were no beggars living there, he found a pile of garbage emitting thick smoke and a pungent burnt odor.
Out of curiosity, he poked at the garbage heap with a stick and was horrified to discover a charred corpse with its upper body almost reduced to a skeleton.
Minutes later, after receiving the report, police from Feidong arrived at the scene. Forensic technicians found that the upper body of the corpse was nearly skeletal and unrecognizable. However, fragments of clothing remaining on the lower half indicated that the deceased was likely a beggar.
Based on this, some police officers believed that the beggar likely set fire to garbage to keep warm in the cold weather, resulting in his accidental death by fire. Clearly, this unfounded judgment was an attempt by some to hastily close the case. However, this convenient assumption was quickly shattered by forensic experts and diligent officers.
First, at the scene of the incident in Bridge Hollow, technicians found a brick stained with blood and extracted suspicious fingerprints from it. Upon examination, the blood was confirmed to belong to the deceased.
Second, the autopsy revealed that the victim was a man in his sixties who had been brutally struck on the head with a brick until he was severely injured and then burned alive. This indicated that it was a heinous murder.
Sadly, although some officers were committed to uncovering the truth behind the case, after several days of investigation, they could not even determine the identity of the old beggar, let alone identify the murderer. Consequently, the case quickly became a cold case and was temporarily shelved.
However, what no one expected was that the matter did not end there, as a similar case occurred less than half a month later.
On the morning of March 6, 2002, the Hefei Fire Brigade received reports from the public about a fire in an abandoned house near Mingguang Road in the city. The firefighters quickly arrived at the scene and extinguished the blaze. To their shock, while inspecting the site, they discovered a charred head among the ashes.
Clearly, such a situation could not have been caused by an accidental fire. The fire brigade immediately notified the Hefei Public Security Bureau's criminal investigation team.
According to bystanders, the deceased was a middle-aged beggar with disabilities in both legs who could only crawl using his hands. The surrounding residents felt pity for him and allowed him to live in the abandoned house.
Subsequently, police found a small bottle of white liquor in one corner of the scene and extracted fingerprints from it.
Upon analysis, it was determined that this liquor had served as an accelerant for the fire. The autopsy indicated that the middle-aged beggar had made no attempt to resist; he had likely been killed in his sleep by having his throat slashed with a kitchen knife. This too was a brutal murder.
Incredibly, upon comparison, police discovered that the fingerprints on the liquor bottle matched those from ten days earlier in the case of another murdered beggar in Feidong County, strongly suggesting that both cases were committed by the same individual.
What puzzled law enforcement was that these two beggars had no connection to each other and could not have offended the same murderer. Furthermore, neither of them were professional beggars and had no money on them. Why then would someone resort to such brutal methods to kill beggars?
To everyone's shock, while the Hefei Police were investigating the case, another incident occurred on March 17th on Jiefang Road in Lu'an City, where a beggar was murdered. This time, the police finally took the matter seriously and quickly established a special investigation team.
Analyzing these three cases of beggar murders, it became evident that the killer was a serial murderer specifically targeting beggars.
From the methods employed by the perpetrator, it was clear that each victim had been killed with either a knife or a brick before being burned. The execution of these acts was extremely skilled, indicating that this was not the first time the killer had committed such crimes.
Consequently, the special investigation team immediately began examining past related records. They discovered that between February and October 2001, over ten cases of beggar murders had already occurred in places such as Jiangsu's Xuzhou City, Suqian City, and Anhui's Suxian.
In Hefei City and Lu'an City, from November 2001 to March 17, 2002, five consecutive cases of beggar murders had also taken place. So why had the Hefei Police been unaware of so many previous cases of beggar murders?
The answer is simple: it reflects the ugly side of human nature. The vast majority of people did not regard the lives of beggars as significant. Some departments even categorized previous cases of beggar murders as fires or accidents to maintain their crime-solving rates, failing to initiate proper investigations.
Are these elderly, sickly, and disabled beggars not human? Are their lives not worth anything?
Due to the inaction of certain departments, the killer grew increasingly brazen. In the case on March 17th, he even neglected to dispose of the body properly after committing murder; he simply walked away without fear of being caught by the police.
To the shame of some individuals, while the special investigation team was infuriated by this situation, another incident occurred on March 21st on Renmin Road in Lu'an City—the sixth case—where a young beggar, only thirteen or fourteen years old, was brutally stabbed over sixty times with a kitchen knife. Not only did he die tragically, but his body was also discarded in a large garbage bin. If it weren't for a passing driver who inadvertently discovered the body, this young beggar might have truly been treated like trash and dumped in a landfill.
Fortunately, there was a witness named Zhang.
Ultimately, based on Zhang's testimony, the police apprehended the suspect Liu Mingwu, who was sentenced to death by the court.
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