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In the middle of the night, a dark shadow climbed over the river embankment, walked straight into the river, and soon disappeared into the surging river. There are also two suicide notes on the bank of the river, and after investigation, it was Zhang Hao, a suspect in a murder case, who jumped into the river......
One morning 20 years later, Wang Chengjian, the owner of a machinery manufacturing company in Nantong Port, Jiangsu Province, was about to go to work in the company, and as soon as the door opened, he was immediately surrounded by a group of policemen.
"Different" bosses
Nantong Port, located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, is one of the major inland ports in mainland China. In addition to directly engaging in cargo transportation and other work, there are also many people working in the machinery factory in the port, specializing in the production of equipment and facilities required for cargo transportation, loading and unloading.
Wang Chengjian, 58, is the de facto operator of a machinery manufacturing company in Nantong Port. He has been living and working here for 20 years. He was plainly dressed and lived a plain life, looking no different from the people around him, but some of his details still vaguely revealed his difference.
In 2002, Wang Chengjian first arrived at Nantong Port. In the beginning, he was just an apprentice in a machine shop, working hard, not talking much, and was the boss's favorite kind of employee. But he has always been a good talker, but he made a special request for the way of payroll - to settle wages in cash.
In 2014, after accumulating a certain amount of funds and contacts, Wang Chengjian resigned and went on his own. In 2018, Wang Chengjian registered and opened a machinery manufacturing company in the name of his wife Xie Qiqi. Although the company has been in business for many years, no employee has ever seen his family, and no one has heard him talk about anything about his family.
The employees also found that the boss, who was not short of money, never went to the hospital to register for treatment when he was sick, and he couldn't hold on anymore, so he went to a small pharmacy nearby to buy medicine and take it......
People who work in Nantong Port often deal with all kinds of people, and Wang Chengjian's strangeness naturally did not attract the special attention of employees. It wasn't until the morning of August 27, 2022, that the truth was revealed.
That morning, Wang Chengjian finished breakfast and prepared to go to work at the company. As soon as he got out of the elevator of the apartment, he was quickly surrounded by the police who were already waiting outside.
20 years of secrecy
It all started in 2001. Zhang Hao, who was 36 years old at the time, and Xie Qiqi lived in a small town in Nantong City. On the way to and from work, he occasionally patronized a barber shop on the side of the road, and as soon as he came and went, he became acquainted with Liu Li, the proprietress of the barbershop, and slowly developed a lover relationship.
On the evening of May 22, 2002, Zhang Hao came to Liu Li's house as usual. After the two got tired of it for a while, Liu Li offered to borrow money from Zhang Hao, but Zhang Hao directly refused because of the large amount.
Liu Li was very dissatisfied with this and threatened to make the relationship between the two public. When Zhang Hao heard this, he immediately became angry, and suddenly pushed Liu Li out of bed and choked her neck. During the scuffle, seeing Liu Li resisting, Zhang Hao swung his fist and hit her in the face, and then picked up a coat and strangled her neck until she stopped struggling.
Seeing that Liu Li was not moving, Zhang Hao thought that the matter had come to this, so he simply didn't do anything, so he began to rummage through the boxes and cabinets to loot the belongings in the room, and carefully wiped off the fingerprints left on the bedside table, cabinets, etc., and then left Liu Li's residence on a motorcycle.
The next morning, Liu Li's family found Liu Li's body and called the police. The public security organs filed a case for investigation, and based on the victim's last two call records, locked Zhang Hao as a criminal suspect.
At this time, the public security organs received clues about Zhang Hao's whereabouts from the river patrol personnel, so they immediately rushed to the riverside, but only found two suicide notes left by Zhang Hao to his family, as well as ID cards, driver's licenses and other items.
After searching around, the police did not find any trace of Zhang Hao, could it be that Zhang Hao really disappeared?
It turned out that after Zhang Hao learned that the public security organs were looking for clues about the case, he fled in the northeast direction on a motorcycle on the same day, and fled nearly 1,000 kilometers in four or five days. But where can they flee to, and how will they live after that......
On the way to escape, these questions kept popping up in Zhang Hao's mind. In the end, with nowhere to stay, he chose to return to his hometown, and after living with distant relatives for a few days without knowing it, he hid by the Yangtze River at the foot of Wolf Mountain in Nantong.
Looking at the surging river, Zhang Hao suddenly came up with an idea: simply commit suicide by throwing himself into the river, and he will be gone. But when he stood by the river, Zhang Hao was timid again. When he hesitated, he suddenly realized that the embankment here is not high, and it can be easily crossed, and if he walks down the dirt road connecting the Yangtze River and the embankment, swims for a short time, and then goes ashore from the other side, he can "disappear" without noticing. In this way, it is possible to avoid arrest by "faking death" by forging the illusion of committing suicide by throwing himself into the river.
After leaving a suicide note and items that can prove his identity, Zhang Hao escaped smoothly according to the planned route, and then found someone to get a fake ID card, under the pseudonym "Wang Chengjian", to work in a machinery factory in Nantong Port and start a "new" life.
Zhang Hao, who was always worried about being arrested, had been living in fear, and even when he learned that his parents had died, he didn't dare to go home to take a look.
In 2004, Zhang Hao couldn't bear to miss his family and quietly got in touch with his wife Xie Qiqi. Although she knew that her husband was cheating and killed someone, in order to let the child have a complete home, Xie Qiqi still chose to forgive.
But paper can't contain fire after all. In August 2022, after being reported by the masses, the public security organs arrested Zhang Hao in Nantong City. Three months later, Xie Qiqi was also released on bail pending trial by the public security organs on suspicion of harboring. On November 9, 2023, Xie Qiqi was transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution.
Reviewing the "minutiae" of evidence
On August 27, 2022, due to the major and complex circumstances of the case, the Nantong Municipal Procuratorate was invited to intervene and guide the investigation in accordance with the law. After confirming that the case did not exceed the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution prescribed by law, the Second Procuratorate Department of the People's Procuratorate formed a case-handling team to carry out a comprehensive and detailed review of the evidence in the case, verifying one by one whether the evidence at the time of the case in 2002 and after Zhang Hao's arrival in 2022 corroborated each other, and repeatedly verified the extraction, storage, and whereabouts of physical evidence and sample materials.
After investigation, the procurator found that there was a big discrepancy between Zhang Hao's confession regarding the victim's death and the inquest record of the public security organ that year.
According to Zhang Hao's confession, when he left the crime scene, the victim was naked, lying face down on the ground, and his neck was still wrapped around a knotted long-sleeved coat. In the photos of the scene kept by the public security organs, the victim was dressed in long trousers, lying flat on his back, and his long-sleeved coat was wrapped around his neck but was untied.
Could it be that someone deliberately vandalized the scene? The victim's death is the key evidence for judging the cause of death, and there is no room for the slightest ambiguity.
After reviewing the records of that year, the public security organs confirmed that in his testimony, the victim's father had mentioned that he had turned over his daughter's body, untied the coat around his neck, and found a pair of pants in the room to put on it. However, time passed, the victim's father had died, and it was not possible to verify the testimony again, and the case reached an impasse.
At the suggestion of the prosecutor, the public security organs found another eyewitness who arrived at the scene before the victim's father, the victim's brother, to re-testify, and compared his testimony with Zhang Hao's confession, and found that the two people's descriptions of the victim's death were basically the same.
In addition, two hidden details of the inquest at the scene also attracted the attention of the prosecutor: the quilt fell on the north side of the bed, and the victim fell on the south side of the bed, which is consistent with the details of Zhang Hao's confession of beating the victim from the bed to the ground; These details provide strong evidence support for determining the facts of Zhang Hao's crime.
In the end, after comprehensively considering the circumstances of his crime and his attitude of admitting guilt, the procuratorate put forward a sentencing recommendation for Zhang Hao to be sentenced to life imprisonment.
On April 19, 2023, the Nantong Municipal Procuratorate prosecuted Zhang Hao on suspicion of intentional homicide in accordance with the law. On July 19, the Nantong Intermediate People's Court adopted the facts of the crime, the charges, and the sentencing recommendation of the procuratorate, and made a first-instance verdict in the intentional homicide case of Zhang Hao, sentencing him to life imprisonment and depriving him of political rights for life for intentional homicide. At present, the judgment has entered into force.
(The names of the persons involved in the article have been changed.) This article has been deleted, for more content, please pay attention to the next issue of "Fangyuan" in December)
[Source: Fangyuan Magazine]
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