At noon on April 17, 2015, in Weijiazhuang Village, Pingxiang County, Hebei Province, villagers found the body of a woman who had been hacked to death with a knife and reported it to the police.
Who could do such a thing to a woman? What happened to the sad story of the dead lying on the ground?
The victim | Pan Meixia
The story begins with the corpse of the woman lying on the ground, her name is Pan Meixia, she moved to Weijiazhuang Village with her family two years ago, her husband has been busy in the county for many years, his own factory, rarely returning home, and Pan Meixia's two children are boarded in school and can only come back once a week.
Therefore, most of the time, Pan Meixia lives alone, and for her own safety, she is usually low-key and peaceful, and her relationship with her neighbors is very good.
Because of living alone for a long time, Pan Meixia developed a habit of vigilance, and after the sky darkened slightly, she locked the door and did not open it again, even if a familiar neighbor knocked on the door, she never answered.
Pan Meixia's husband also took advantage of the only rest time to find craftsmen from the county and set up several door locks for the family, but what Pan Meixia did not expect was that the danger had been lurking near her.
Whenever it was late at night, a pair of eyes quietly peeked in from outside the door, and this pair of eyes actually spied on a whole year and quietly plotted an ulterior plan behind his back.
Back at the scene of the crime, the police quickly arrived at Weijiazhuang Village, where the victim Pan Meixia's place of death was at home, the door was hidden, the door lock of the gate was intact, the body appeared to lie on its side, and a kitchen knife was placed next to the west side of the head.
According to the information provided by the neighbors, this is the kitchen knife that the victim usually uses to cut vegetables. According to the DNA test of the kitchen knife by the police in the later stage, it was determined that the suspect used the kitchen knife to cut and injure more than 40 people.
After more in-depth investigation, it was found that the victim's home had not been turned over, and there was no loss of property, thus ruling out the possibility of the suspect stealing money.
So is it possible to kill or kill love? The police questioned the neighbors, Pan Meixia's reputation in the village is quite good, ruling out the possibility of vendetta, for what purpose did the suspect kill?
Pictured| police conduct an inspection of the wall of Pan Meixia's home
For Pan Meixia, neighbors told the police that she is a very vigilant person, usually the door locks are tightly closed, and the courtyard is tightly walled, entering Pan Meixia's bedroom requires four doors, facing many difficulties, how did the suspect sneak into the room in the middle of the night and kill Pan Meixia?
According to the investigation one by one, there is no trace of climbing on the wall, and there is no trace of violent lock picking, after eliminating many possibilities, the police speculate that the suspect sneaks into the victim's room in two ways, one is that the victim takes the initiative to open the door, and the other is to open the door with the key.
Both of these methods contradict the victim's high vigilance, so the police speculate that it may be an acquaintance who committed the crime.
Immediately after that, the police found two sock footprints on the floor of Pan Meixia's bedroom, and after measurement and analysis, it was determined that the suspect who left the footprints was more than 170 centimeters tall and thin.
After grasping this information, the police interrogated more than 2,000 people aged 18 to 50 in the village one by one, but they were all excluded one by one, which made them anxious, and the progress of the case also stagnated, but they did not give up, but further expanded the scope of investigation, changing the age range to 14 to 60 years old, but the result was disappointed by everyone, is the criminal suspect not a person from Weijiazhuang Village?
Pictured| there is no trace of prying the door of Pan Meixia's home
On May 16, 2015, the police went to the victim's mother-in-law's home again to understand the situation, and this time in the dialogue, revealed a humble detail: "My daughter-in-law now lives in a place that was newly built not long ago, after the cover was built, she moved in, after a few days she told me that the key to the big iron gate was missing, and she felt very strange at the time, but in the countryside, losing the key is a very normal thing, and she did not pay attention to it." ”
Pictured| Pan Meixia's father-in-law and mother-in-law crying silently, providing the police with clues about the loss of the keys to the home
This detail caused the police to suspect that there was no trace of forced entry into the deceased's home, so it is likely that the key was used to open the door to carry out the murder, pan Meixia's home has a total of six locks, five of which are kept by Pan Meixia, that is, the family, and the missing sixth key has become the key to solving the case.
Two years ago, Pan Meixia's husband, Jing Xiaohui, opened a small factory not far from the village, and after making a small sum of money, began planning to build a house in Weijiazhuang Village, which is Pan Meixia's current residence.
So could it be that the employees in the factory heard that Jing Xiaohui was going to build a new house in the village, and then plotted a plan to steal the key to the door of the house?
But Jing Xiaohui told the police that in addition to the factory's neighbors living in the village, there were also some temporary migrant workers, which was very difficult to investigate.
Under the premise of many difficulties, the police still conducted a general investigation of the employees in the factory that year, and one of the men attracted the attention of the police, who used to work as a janitor in Jing Xiaohui's factory, and has been living in Weijiazhuang Village since the factory was closed.
After questioning, the man's name is Zhang Yongmin, 65 years old, and the reason why he attracted attention was because the man himself had some disdainful previous convictions and a very bad reputation in the village.
According to the villagers, two years ago Zhang Yongmin got a key from nowhere, and tried to use the key to sneak into the home of a woman living alone in the village late at night to commit misconduct, but he did not expect to be caught by the woman's husband and beat Zhang Yongmin.
Since Zhang Yongmin has a similar previous conviction, will he commit the crime again? Could the missing sixth key have been hidden by Zhang Yongmin?
The police interrogated Zhang Yongmin, who replied without the slightest nervousness and said he was unaware of Pan Meixia's murder. Could it be that the suspect is someone else?
There was no clue from Zhang Yongmin's mouth, and the police had to conduct a detailed investigation of Zhang Yongmin's identity and activity trajectory, Zhang Yongmin is now guarding the door in another factory near the village, because he has lived in the security room for a long time, so his activity trajectory cannot be proved by ordinary people, which also adds a lot of difficulty to the police investigation.
The police came to the place where Zhang Yongmin worked, that is, the guard of the factory, found that the surrounding area was very empty, the flow of people was sparse, fortunately there was a good child stroller factory across the road, the baby car factory installed a monitor at its own expense, and the monitoring at the gate was just right to view Zhang Yongmin's guard.
So the police immediately took the surveillance and checked the trajectory of Zhang Yongmin's actions on the night of the April 16 crime, and sure enough, they found something.
According to the monitoring point of view, Zhang Yongmin turned on the lights all night, and when it was close to 12 o'clock in the morning, the shadow of the shadow could be faintly seen under the dim light of the guard, and it could be judged that Zhang Yongmin was still not sleeping at this time and seemed to be preparing something.
Two hours later, under another surveillance video, a loading truck on the road just illuminated Zhang Yongmin, who was riding his bicycle north to return to the guard, and at 12:00 to 2:00 on the night of the crime, Zhang Yongmin disappeared in a strange way, which coincided with the time of the victim's approximate death, so where did he go?
In order to better identify Zhang Yongmin's trajectory, the police took the surveillance in Weijiazhuang Village a month before the crime and found that Zhang Yongmin's behavior was getting more and more strange.
Zhang Yongmin lives with his family in the west of the village, but he frequently goes in and out of the east of the village, and almost every day at about 6 p.m. he will see him riding an electric car, which happens to be the place where Pan Meixia lives, and there must be some ulterior motive in this.
Figure | the figure of Zhang Yongmin riding a bicycle appeared many times in the surveillance
The police interrogated Zhang Yongmin again, but he still flatly denied the killing of Pan Meixia, and Cheng Zhenwei, the captain of the criminal police brigade, entered the interrogation room and asked Zhang Yongmin: "When did you know about Pan Meixia's murder?" ”
Zhang Yongmin paused and said, "I knew it the same day after Pan Meixia died, my daughter-in-law told me." ”
Cheng Zhenwei continued to ask, "Then what time did you hear about this?" ”
Zhang Yongmin said, "I heard about it before 12:30." ”
It was this short dialogue that allowed Cheng Zhenwei to catch Zhang Yongmin's loophole, the reporting time was noon, and the time of the police arrival was already 1 o'clock, before this, no one knew about these news, so how could Zhang Yongmin's wife learn the news of Pan Meixia's murder earlier than the police?
Pictured| Cheng Zhenwei, head of the criminal police detachment of the Pingxiang Public Security Bureau, is describing the interrogation process
The police quickly questioned Zhang Yongmin's wife, who told the police that she only learned of the incident and relayed it to Zhang Yongmin in the afternoon of the crime, so it can be seen that Zhang Yongmin is lying.
The police questioned Zhang Yongmin more carefully, Zhang Yongmin's answers were full of loopholes and very different from the facts, in the face of various questions from the police, Zhang Yongmin finally admitted the fact of killing Pan Meixia and confessed to the details of the crime.
Figure | criminal suspect Zhang Yongmin recalls the crime process
Zhang Yongmin is 65 years old this year, and Pan Meixia is only 40 years old, the two people have no grievances, no enmity, and no entanglement, but according to Zhang Yongmin's description, after he entered Pan Meixia's factory as a doorman, he can often see Pan Meixia, Pan Meixia is warm, often greets Zhang Yongmin, and when he comes and goes, he has evil thoughts about Pan Meixia in his heart.
A year before the incident, when Zhang Yongmin was on duty, according to the discussion of employees, he learned that Pan Meixia's husband Jing Xiaohui had built a house in the east of Weijiazhuang Village and was ready for Pan Meixia to live.
Finally, when the room was ready to hand over, the key was inserted in the iron door, and when no one noticed, Zhang Yongmin quickly took away a key and rode away in an electric car.
Zhang Yongmin, who had the key to Pan Meixia's house, began to patiently look for the opportunity to start, and this wait was a year, in the long wait, Zhang Yongmin carefully prepared a specific implementation plan, he looked for discarded shoes in the village, and hid in the guard, and also bought gloves, hemp rope, tape and other crime tools.
After Zhang Yongmin's daily stepping points, he finally found the perfect opportunity to commit the crime on April 17, 2015.
In the early morning of the same day, he took his prepared crime tools and rode a bicycle to Pan Meixia's home, opened the door with the stolen key, and sneaked into Pan Meixia's bedroom, and the small but very strange walking sound suddenly woke Pan Meixia.
But because there was no light and the surrounding area was pitch black, Pan Meixia trembled and said, "Who is it?" Zhang Yongmin did not speak, he continued to move forward, and finally walked to Pan Meixia's side, ready to carry out the misdeed, but Pan Meixia struggled to resist, and the two wrestled together.
Zhang Yongmin grabbed the hot water kettle next to the bed and smashed it Pan Meixia's head, Pan Meixia was in excruciating pain, struggled to break free and fled to the back room to hide, and quickly locked the door, Zhang Yongmin was angry, struggled to knock on the door and threatened Pan Meixia to open the door, seeing that the victim did not respond, he began to kick the door madly, but still did not open.
Pictured| Zhang Yongmin smashed the crime tool that hit Pan Meixia in the head
Zhang Yongmin lied that he was leaving, but in fact hid in the kitchen on the east side, picked up a kitchen knife and prepared to sneak up on Pan Meixia.
After a while, Pan Meixia saw that there was no movement outside the house, so she trembled and opened the bedroom door lock, walked out of the bedroom, because the surrounding was pitch black, Pan Meixia did not see Zhang Yongmin with a kitchen knife rushing over, and then a burst of cold and stinging from her shoulder violently hit the brain, she was very scared, began to struggle and resist, the two people fought together, because of the severe pain and fear surrounding Pan Meixia, soon she expended physical strength, Zhang Yongmin slashed at the kitchen knife to Pan Meixia, who was already dying.
Killing Zhang Yongmin, who had red eyes, did not stop until Pan Meixia's flesh and blood blurred, and he stopped his cruel behavior.
This appalling and cruel case finally saw the end, and soon attracted the attention of CCTV's legal channel "Frontline" column, the reporter interviewed Zhang Yongmin, who had already put on a prison uniform, he said: "I regret that two complete families were destroyed by me like this, and our family will not be able to lift its head because of my generation." ”
In the end, Zhang Yongmin was convicted of intentional homicide and arrested according to law, and what awaited him was a closed window and a long period of remorse.
The police only took 29 days to go from clueless to the arrest of the real murderer, but in these 29 days, the police conducted a carpet search of the population in the village and watched the surveillance in the village frame by frame, which is a huge workload that ordinary people cannot imagine.
Starting from the humble detail of the loss of a key, the police peeled back the cocoon step by step, followed the vine to find the melon, and solved the case with a high degree of insight, facing the professional spirit of the police perseverance and not being afraid of difficulties, even the cunning anti-reconnaissance criminals could not restore the legal net.
Pan Meixia in the case is a woman living alone, the sense of prevention is very high, but still did not escape the clutches of danger, which can not help but make the solitary people reading this article afraid.
According to the "Green Hill Capital 2021 Annual Consumption Report", China now has 92 million people living alone, which is equivalent to 1.1 Germany; 1.4 France; 2.5 Canada, which can be said to be a very large group, and these people do not include married husbands working outside the home and many other special situations, otherwise this number will be even larger, in the face of single-living people, especially women living alone, how should we pay attention to our personal safety?
If you live in a fixed residence for a long time, first choose a place with good transportation convenience and good security; secondly, you can install a monitor at home to monitor what abnormal situations are in your home when you are not at home; people at work or school should pay attention to protecting their privacy, do not disclose their home address to others, even friends should be cautious; hide personal information when sending couriers, erase their personal information when throwing courier boxes, do not open the door when receiving couriers, and let the takeaway workers put them at the door These small details may seem inconspicuous, but they cannot be overlooked.
Pan Meixia in the case because of a lost key, so that the prisoner has the opportunity to take advantage of, and lost his own life, people deplore, but also feel hate for Zhang Yongmin, if you are reading this article you are a person living alone, you must improve your awareness of prevention, do not trust others, pay attention to protect privacy, after the key is lost, you must change the lock in time, so that there will be no chance for danger to approach us.
For Zhang Yongmin, for his own selfish desires, he cruelly disregarded the lives of others, regarded the lives of others as grass, ignored the law, made people hate, and destroyed Pan Meixia's perfect family, Pan Meixia's children were still boarding in school, how sad would it be if they heard this news? How difficult will their life without their mother be? In the face of Zhang Yongmin's evil deeds, he was punished by the law, but the harm he committed to Pan Meixia's family will continue.
Finally, if you have any ideas or suggestions for this article, feel free to leave a comment in the comments section!