At the scene of a murder 26 years ago, the thick nylon rope left by the suspect was the only effective evidence left at the scene. With the development of forensic science and technology, the police will restart the sealed evidence. In March 2023, the police finally found clues to solve the case in the inspection results and successfully arrested the suspect who had been absconding for many years.
The rope is the only valuable evidence at the scene
On the evening of November 29, 1997, a burglary and homicide case occurred at the home of a merchant in a village in Laiwu City, Shandong Province, in which the victim's family of three was killed and all the cash used for business in the family was looted.
The results of the on-site investigation showed that the suspect entered through a broken window in the storage room of the victim's home. The windows of the storage room were equipped with iron lattices, and the suspects prepared thick nylon ropes and wooden sticks in advance, tied the ropes between the two window lattices, and then used the sticks to rotate the ropes to bend the window lattices, so that they could enter the room to commit crimes with almost no sound.
The murder weapon was taken away from the scene by the suspect, and the only valuable evidence left at the scene was the thick nylon rope used to prop up the window lattice. Due to the inspection technology at the time, after a large number of visits and investigations to no avail, the thick nylon rope was sealed as the only evidence.
Nylon rope left at the scene of the murder. More than 700 inspections in 2 years finally found clues
In 2021, the Criminal Police Detachment of the Public Security Bureau of Jinan City, Shandong Province conducted a further investigation of the city's homicide backlog, and the police decided to comprehensively extract the sample materials. During the inspection, the thick nylon rope was divided into nearly 2,000 small rope segments, and each small rope was divided into more than 10 single cotton threads, which were tested one by one after being sampled.
After 2 years and more than 700 continuous inspections, in March 2023, the test results of 4 samples pointed to the same clue, and the investigation of the case ushered in a huge breakthrough.
The people's police conducted an inspection and appraisal of the samples. Find out the suspect
The police handling the case and the inspection technical police finally determined that Zhang (male, 72 years old) from Tai'an City was suspected of committing a major crime. Subsequently, the police quickly formulated an arrest plan and arrested Zhang on November 14, 2023.
When he was young, Zhang worked as a farmer in a village in Tai'an, and often sold some vegetables and fruits to a nearby market in Laiwu during his spare time. Although he was dealt with by the public security organs for theft, it did not make Zhang wake up.
At the end of 1997, 46-year-old Zhang saw that he could not repay the loan to build a house through his normal income, so he finally chose to take a risk to rob and kill people. After committing the crime, Zhang went into hiding and rarely returned to the village to live, and the tiled house he borrowed money to build was almost deserted. At present, Zhang has been taken criminal compulsory measures in accordance with the law.
The suspect's home was overgrown with weeds. Behind the investigation of a homicide case 26 years ago is the perseverance of several generations of police, and it is also the development of forensic science and technology and the improvement of the criminal case investigation mechanism. At present, Jinan has maintained the current murder cases for 13 consecutive years. In 2023, the city's eight types of serious violent criminal cases will be fully investigated and solved.
2024
China Women's Daily, China Women's Movement
Source/Editor-in-charge of the Rule of Law Daily/Cai Lengyue's review/Yifan producer/Zhifei