One day in September 2008, police officers patrolling near the Shanghai South Railway Station suddenly heard panicked shouts: "Come on, someone is injured." They hurried to the nearby square park with the sound, and on a long chair in a gazebo, they found a young woman covered in blood.
The walls next to the chairs were stained with blood, the high heels worn by the women were thrown under the benches, and there were many oranges scattered nearby. Through preliminary observation, the woman's head has obvious marks of being hit by a heavy object, which is very shocking.
Strangely, women usually take a small bag when they go out, but the victim is empty and cannot prove his identity, plus it is late at night, the scene is dark, it is impossible to find witnesses, and the investigation of the case was once in a state of anxiety.
Who is this woman, and why did she come to the garden gazebo in the middle of the night? What exactly is the grudge between the murderer and her?
Eerie black shadows
In order to find out what really happened at the scene of the crime, the police took the surveillance: at about 10 o'clock that night, a young girl walked into the gazebo carrying a bag and sat alone inside.
"This girl should be the victim, and her clothes are about the same color." One of the policemen pointed to the screen and said. As soon as the words fell, several other police officers rushed up, and everyone stared intently at every detail on the video.
After sitting for a few minutes, the girl put her bag on a long chair and then lay down. "Could it be that she came to stay overnight?" Just when the police were confused, another man walked into the gazebo and sat across from the young girl.
On a big night, a man and a woman are in the gazebo, one sitting and one asleep, is it a coincidence or coincidence? More than ten minutes passed, and the two people did not make any big moves. Just when the police were eager to know the follow-up situation, the screen suddenly turned black without warning.
"What's going on here?" The police officer Zhang'er monk was confused, the surveillance was dark, and what happened to the two people sitting in the pavilion was the focus of everyone's attention.
The police clearly remember that when the murdered woman was found, it was around 12:20, and the park monitoring turned black at 11:00 p.m., that is, the time the young woman was killed was within this hour, and the video they got came from the only surveillance camera in the whole park, and now because the park lights went out to affect the judgment, which made everyone feel like a needle.
If you want to catch the murderer, you must know the specific time of the victim's attack. The police did not give up, constantly zooming in and comparing every detail, looking for clues in the dark picture.
Through unremitting efforts, they finally found several active figures near the gazebo in the blurred image, at this time the video showed that the time was about 11:30, the activity trajectory of those people did not seem to be abnormal, and the police inferred that the victim should not be in distress.
Suddenly, an eerie black shadow appeared on the screen, flashed near the pavilion, and quickly disappeared.
The originally somewhat tired police officers were instantly invigorated, who is this black shadow? From where did he enter near the gazebo?
Shredded fertility certificates
Whether this black shadow is the man sitting opposite the young woman, the police do not know, they only know that the black shadow will not appear in the surveillance for no reason, it must have entered the scene of the crime from somewhere.
The police sitting in front of the computer dialed the phone number of colleagues who were still investigating the scene, and after some communication, they learned that there was a very secret passage behind the pavilion.
Could the shadow have come in through this passage? With doubts, the police cheered up and continued to turn their attention to the surveillance screen, and found that there was no sign of people entering or leaving near this passage.
Just when everyone was a little discouraged, a phone call from the scene broke the deadlock. Under the bench opposite the victim, the police at the scene found several pieces of mutilated paper, which were pieced together and found that it was a birth certificate.
The man on the proof, from Fujian, is called Wang Jinping. Looking at the certificate brought from the scene, the police fell into meditation, this torn birth certificate, was the murderer accidentally left behind, or did it belong to the passers-by who rested here?
The police quickly approached the cleaner in charge of cleaning the park and learned that the last time she cleaned the gazebo was at six o'clock in the evening, when no pieces of shredded paper were found.
From the time the cleaner finished cleaning and found the victim, there was a gap of six hours, not excluding that these pieces of paper were left by passers-by who rested at night, to know what relationship this man named Wang Jinping had with the victim, it seems that only someone can be sent to the field to investigate.
Another group of personnel quickly heard the news and rushed to Fujian to look for people. Colleagues who remained in Shanghai had to continue to look for clues from the surveillance, and the black shadow that appeared out of thin air and the woman's disappearing bag were like a fog that always lingered in their hearts and lingered.
Recurring white light
As the minutes and seconds passed, the Shanghai team observed it for hours and found a suspicious white spot of light on the video.
In order to find out the truth, they came to the crime scene at 11 p.m. the next day, compared the light conditions and the angle of the surveillance probe, and restored the surveillance footage of the crime scene. It turned out that the strange white dot was in the same position and appeared again.
It turns out that this white dot on the screen is a reflection of a street lamp not far from the park, shining on the marble wall near the pavilion.
That is to say, if someone enters the scene of the crime and just blocks this position, the white point of light will disappear, and if it is removed, the point of light will continue to appear. At about 11:40 p.m. on the day of the crime, the white light appeared for the first time, which is likely to be the specific time when the murderer approached the victim.
The police standing near the pavilion are closely watching a path on the left, and if their analysis of the passage is correct, then the murderer is most likely to have entered the pavilion from this path.
However, what is puzzling is that the monitoring shows that the reflective point is only a few seconds after the first appearance, and then it lights up again, and more than ten minutes later, the black shadow that impressed all the police appeared in the picture, just when everyone held their breath and stared at the surveillance screen, the white dot lit up after two minutes, until the victim woman was found, and this faint white light has always existed.
When the reflective point blinks for the last time, the time on the monitor is displayed as 12:04, will this be the exact time when the victim was attacked?
Is this black shadow that appears twice under the cover of night the suspect in the gazebo murder?
How can a shadow that cannot see the appearance and figure at all determine the real culprit and rush to Fujian to gain what kind of gains does the working group rush to Fujian have?
A criminal suspect who lies
Shortly after arriving in Fujian, the police dialed Wang Jinping's phone and found that he had been in a state of shutdown, could it be that he was the black shadow that appeared in the middle of the night?
Through on-site visits, the police learned that Wang Jinping had a sister who was married to Shanghai, immediately returned to the city for control, and finally met Wang Jinping in a community in Shanghai on the afternoon of the third day of the crime.
After hearing the police coming, Wang Jinping flashed a trace of panic on his face, and he quickly explained that there had been too many phone calls recently, and a mobile phone that did not pay attention was stopped.
"What certificates have you done?" In the face of questioning by the police, he said that he had applied for an identity card, a household registration certificate, and a military service certificate, but he did not mention the birth certificate.
"Have you ever had a birth certificate?" The police asked.
Wang Jinping bowed his head and groaned for a moment, shook his head, and said, "No... I haven't had this proof. ”
Regardless of whether the shredded birth certificate is packed in the bag of the police at this moment, as long as the police immediately know how many certificates he has done, why does Wang Jinping open his eyes and talk nonsense?
According to the previous visit, the police learned that he had been working in his hometown in Fujian, came to Shanghai a year ago to join his sister, worked in a dance hall in Pudong, and on the afternoon of the crime, he was dismissed by the boss, and then disappeared. When the police rushed to his hometown in Fujian, they learned that Wang Jinping was going to go home, but for some reason he did not return.
"If you haven't done it, we'll find out when we check it." Hearing the words of the police, Wang Jinping's beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, and he struggled for a long time to admit that he had indeed applied for a birth certificate, and he was just lying.
The reason why he lied was because he talked about a girlfriend outside, saw the police come to the door, he guessed that there should be a case, afraid that things would make a big deal, and his wife knew that he had a lover outside, which would affect family harmony.
"My birth certificate was originally in my suitcase, but the suitcase was stolen two days ago." Wang Jinping told the police.
How much of his words are true or false, is it to confuse the police by throwing out the privacy of Xiao San outside, and is the lying Wang Jinping the real murderer of the Pavilion murder?
The murderer was someone else
According to Wang Jinping's account, the police took surveillance of the day he was stolen and found Wang Jinping carrying a suitcase and a bag near Chuansha Road. At about four o'clock in the afternoon, he left from an intersection with his suitcase missing, which shows that Wang Jinping said that he was stolen.
Subsequently, the police found Wang Jinping's lover, learned that the two had been staying together that night, and also went to a nearby barbecue stall to eat a supper, and there were witnesses and relevant surveillance proof that Wang Jinping did not have the conditions to go to the square garden to commit crimes.
Since it wasn't him, who was the real murderer?
It seems that the answer still has to be found in the surveillance video.
Through various efforts before, the police have learned the exact time of the victim's attack, about 12:04, they retrieved all the surveillance footage near the park, adjusted the time to 12 o'clock, more than a dozen computers started at the same time, and began to compare and track the killer's movements.
Soon, the back of a man with a bag appeared on Shilong Road near the park, and just as he was about to enter the subway, a probe happened to capture his close-up.
"See? The bag held by the man in his left hand is likely to be the victim's. The police paused the picture, trying to enlarge the picture to see his physical characteristics, but unfortunately several probes were in a very high position, and they could not see the man's appearance for a while.
To figure out what a man looks like, just relying on a few cameras is not enough. The police immediately visited and checked several sections of the road where he might appear, and finally found valid information near a small hotel.
Surveillance near the hotel could see that a bald man with a bag had passed by, and judging by his walking posture, it seemed that there were some sloped feet.
In the early stage of many times to check the monitoring plus reasonable inference, the bald man on the monitoring screen, the probability is a criminal suspect.
The last place where the bald man stayed was an urban village with a large number of small hotels, mixed with fish and eyes. It is reasonable to say that the general murderer will choose to quickly flee the local area after committing the crime, the young woman was killed very close to the railway station, why did this man return to the urban village after the murder, and did not leave Shanghai at the first time?
Relying on a blurry video screenshot alone, can the police successfully find the murderer? What is the relationship between the murderer and the victim?
Cross-provincial tracking
At this time, four days after the pavilion murder, the Shanghai police dispatched a large number of police forces, each holding a photo of the suspect, to conduct a visit and investigation in the urban village where he last appeared.
Everyone is racing against the clock to find clues, and everyone knows in their hearts that the sooner the criminal suspect is found, the less likely he is to escape, and the closer the day when the murderer is caught and the deceased is wronged.
Finally, Huangtian paid off, and in a small restaurant next to the residential building in the village, the police got good news.
"I know this man, who used to work in our hotel." The boss looked at it and said very firmly: "Some time ago, he just resigned, and he lives nearby on weekdays." ”
The police were overjoyed, and immediately took the hotel owner to the police station to watch the video, pointed to a person with a bag in his left hand and asked: "Is it him?" ”
The boss squinted his eyes for a moment and nodded, "Yes, his feet seem to have a disability, and he usually walks like this." ”
The progress of the case to this point can be described as willow and dark flowers. The owner of the hotel told the police that the bald man was named Wei Xing'an, more than fifty years old, and from Shandong. The police quickly contacted the railway station police station and found that Wei Xing'an left Shanghai by train for Tancheng in Shandong Province shortly after the crime.
Early the next morning, the police in charge of the arrest appeared in Tancheng, and they crouched near Wei Xing'an's hometown for a long time, never finding any trace of him.
Just as everyone was wondering where Wei Xing'an had gone, the Shandong police provided important clues, and they found Wei Xing'an's movements in another county dozens of kilometers away, and he was currently renting a small hotel.
The Shanghai police quickly rushed to the local area, and just as they had just finished their control, a sneaky figure appeared in the public eye. Everyone fixed their eyes on it, and it was Wei Xing'an who came.
As if sensing that danger was approaching, Wei Xing'an did not return to the hotel, but turned east and west into another room, and after a while, a dog bark came from the room he was in.
"On..." One of the police officers rushed up, and the others immediately surrounded the residence, and the police knocked on the door, and after a while, a bald head appeared in front of him.
"Who are you looking for?"
"Are you Wei Xing'an?" Hearing this, he turned his head and wanted to run, but was quickly pressed to the ground by the police who had been prepared for a long time, and Wei Xing'an yelled in his throat: "Kill people... Kill!" It attracted many nearby residents to come and watch.
"We're the police, so don't move." Originally, Wei Xing'an still wanted to struggle, but when he heard that the person coming was a policeman, he suddenly collapsed on the ground like a deflated leather ball and never said a word again.
The suspect was arrested
By the time Wei Xing'an was escorted back to Shanghai, a full eight days had passed since the Pavilion murder. In the face of interrogation, he was silent at first, until the police placed all the surveillance footage about him in the past few days in front of him, and Wei Xing'an's head was finally shrugged.
After stealing Wang Jinping's suitcase, he was worried that his deeds would be revealed, and he planned to escape by train overnight, and when he came to the vicinity of the square park, he suddenly saw a woman sleeping in the gazebo not far away, and there was a bag under her head.
"I thought there should be money in that bag, so I thought about it." According to Wei Xing'an, he waited until the lights in the park went out before he was ready to do it. The first time he came to the vicinity of the pavilion, he found that there were many people passing by, and he did not find the opportunity, so he left.
This coincides with the scene that the police saw in the video for the first time that the black shadow appeared and flashed by.
"I took the stones I had picked up in the woods and waited until they were all done." When Wei Xing'an walked into the pavilion for the second time, his body just covered the reflection point, and only then did the police see the white dot disappear for the second time.
Just when Wei Xing'an grabbed the bag, the woman suddenly woke up and shouted, Wei Xing'an aimed at her head and smashed it hard, afraid that the woman's scream would attract more people, and the fierce man smashed it several times before fleeing the scene with the bag.
The whole process lasted for more than two minutes, and the time for the white dot to reappear was also matched.
Wei Xing'an and the victim had no revenge, just because of greed for money, he committed such an evil deed, and what was even more hateful was that he did not repent after committing the crime, and actually returned to the single room he rented again, and slept peacefully before leaving Shanghai.
He thought that no one would find out if he committed such a crime at night, but he did not expect that the Shanghai police had been staring at the only surveillance screen in the park for several days, and finally found the clue from a reflection point that was not easy to be detected, and Shunten touched the melon to arrest him.
In the end, Wei Xing'an was severely punished by the law for robbery and intentional homicide, but unfortunately, the young woman paid the price of her life for the greed of the murderer. I have to sigh that the successful detection of this case is entirely dependent on the police's spirit of inquiring into the only clue and the determination to investigate the case, so that the truth will finally come out.