Qiandao Lake, these three words represent a lot of meanings.
It is a well-known 5A-level scenic spot in China......
It is the Xin'anjiang Reservoir that was built more than 60 years ago and submerged two ancient cities, 49 towns and villages, and 1,377 villages......
It is an important water intake point for well-known domestic water enterprises......
It is the main supplier of tap water in Hangzhou......
But when it comes to Qiandao Lake, many people of the older generation may think more of the big case that broke out on Qiandao Lake in 1994.
In that year, a total of 32 people, including 24 Taiwan compatriots, two tour guides, and 6 crew members, died on the cruise ship, and the people and the boat were engulfed in flames.
Why did these 32 people die, and by whom?
Let's take a closer look.
32 victims
In the early morning of April 1, 1994, a number of cruise ships were sailing normally on the surface of Qiandao Lake, and just as people were enjoying the scenery with a good mood, a cruise ship burning with fire broke into people's sight.
The crews of the other ships anxiously tried to communicate with the burning ship, but the deck of that ship was empty, there was no one, and they shouted for a long time without anyone responding.
The crew had no choice, so they called the police to deal with it.
When the police arrived, they towed the burning boat to shore and extinguished the fire on board.
During the whole process, no one appeared on the ship, and the passengers on the ship seemed to have evaporated.
Later, when the police opened the hatch of the ship's cabin, they found a badly burned body under the cabin.
The bodies add up to a total of 32.
After investigation, the police learned that the burning vessel was named Hai Rui, and it was a cruise ship that departed from the Xin'an River in Anhui Province and went all the way down the river to Qiandao Lake.
Of the 32 bodies found on board, 24 were tourists from Taiwan, two were tour guides, and six were crew members.
There were no signs of violence on their bodies, and at first glance, they looked as if they had simply been caught in flames.
At first, the local authorities did announce the results in this way, claiming that it was just an accidental fire.
But the families of the victims do not agree with this result.
After this incident, it caused a huge storm of public opinion on the other side of the strait.
Various voices of doubt and accusations have arisen one after another, and they have attracted a lot of attention in many overseas countries and regions.
In the midst of the huge turmoil, the Ministry of Public Security sent a group of criminal investigation experts to Qiandao Lake to assist in the investigation.
Among these experts is a forensic expert named Chen Shixian, who is a well-known figure in the forensic field.
After arriving at the scene, after careful investigation, Chen Shixian overturned the original conclusion and determined that it was a case of armed robbery and murder planned by locals.
And the number of perpetrators is not large, only 2 or 3 people commit crimes.
There were no visible wounds on the 32 bodies, and the reason why Chen Shixian identified the case as a robbery and murder was because he observed several details.
And according to the details he gave, the police did succeed in catching the murderer later.
Details of Chen Shixian's observations
The first detail is that the ladder leading from the hatch to the bottom of the hatch is missing.
From the hatch to the bottom of the ship, the height is high, there is no ladder to enter, and the crew on board will definitely be injured if they want to enter the cabin intact.
The 32 bodies had no obvious fractures, indicating that they had entered under the cabin with the help of ladders.
But all 32 of them were burned under the cabin of the ship, so where did the ladder go?
Can they still destroy the ladder in the cabin in the event of a fire?
Obviously impossible.
Then there is only one possibility, that someone drove them under the cabin, took the ladder and threw it away, causing them to be burned to death in the cabin of the ship.
This also explains why after the fire broke out on the boat, these people did not jump into the lake with the help of lifebuoys and other facilities, but all of them were crowded into the cabin and burned alive without knowing how to escape.
The second detail is that the burns on these people are top-heavy.
After autopsies, Chen Shixian found that the 32 bodies had severe burns to the head and upper body, but the burns to the feet were much milder.
Based on this discovery, Chen Shixian speculated that the fire was set by the murderer through the hatch of the ship.
After driving the passengers under the cabin, the killers lit a fire at the hatch of the ship, allowing the fire to enter the bilge and burn the passengers.
Because the fire came from above, the burns of the deceased showed their top-heavy characteristics.
The third detail is an empty gasoline drum.
Police found an empty gasoline drum on the deck of the boat, through which Chen speculated that the gasoline that had disappeared from the barrel was the source of the flames.
The murderers must have poured out the gasoline in the barrel and ignited it to create the fire on the ship.
The fourth detail is the belongings left on the bodies of the deceased.
Chen Shixian used the remaining belongings of the deceased to communicate with the families of the deceased.
It was found that although there was still a lot of money left in the hidden parts of the deceased's belts, underwear, socks, etc., the valuable watches, necklaces, rings and cash in their wallets had disappeared out of thin air.
The disappearance of money and jewelry indicates that the deceased had been looted during their lifetimes.
There won't be too many people robbing them, though.
Chen Shixian believes that if there are many robbers, they will inevitably conduct a strict search of the deceased, and will collect all the money and belongings of the deceased.
But they didn't do that, which shows that they are understaffed and can't control so many people.
So after threatening people to take off their jewelry and take out the money in their wallets, they gave up scraping.
In response to this conclusion, Chen Shixian believes that the number of robbers should be at most 2 to 3 people.
If there were more people, they would have been able to control the scene, and they would have been able to loot all the belongings on people's bodies.
And the reason why 2 or 3 people were able to calm these 32 people unscathed means that they were armed with guns.
They threatened the dead with guns and said things like they only robbed money and not their lives, so the dead did not resist, obediently handed over their money and belongings, and obediently entered the cabin.
The fifth detail is the route of the Hai Rui.
The Hai Rui travels all the way to Qiandao Lake from the waterway of Anhui Province, and the route it takes is a popular tourist route, and many cruise ships will also pass on this route at about the same time.
Through this detail, Chen Shixian speculated that the murderer committed the crime randomly.
If the murderer had been eyeing the ship for a long time and followed the ship all the way to the scene of the crime, then he would inevitably be discovered by other ships along the way.
And the police have investigated for so long and no one has reported the abnormality to the police, which shows that the murderer did not follow the crime, but committed the crime randomly.
As for the ambush, it is also unlikely.
Because the incident occurred in the waters of Huangniling, which is extremely vast and huge, and it happened to be late at night when they couldn't see their fingers, and if the robbers wanted to ambush the Hai Rui, they couldn't tell where it was.
Therefore, this can only be a random crime.
The killers were supposed to be locals who knew the local waters well, and they roamed the waters, picking and choosing the victim boats according to their mood.
The sixth detail is the speed of the Hai Jui.
Through understanding, Chen Shixian found that the speed of the Hai Rui was very fast, it was walking on the lake, and other civilian ships could not catch up at all.
With his understanding, the motorboat can catch up.
So, based on this detail, he speculated that the robbers should have chased the Hai Rui in a motorboat and entered the Hai Rui to commit the robbery.
The murderer was brought to justice
On April 11, 1994, 10 days after the incident, when Chen Shixian showed the details he had observed, the local police went all out to investigate the residents near the incident.
The focus of the investigation was mainly on locals with guns and jet skis.
After a lot of investigations, the police finally found a breakthrough point from a local population.
During a visit to a local man with a firearm, the police heard the local complain that a friend of his had borrowed his shotgun the other day, but that the friend had changed the bolt of his gun when he returned it to him.
From the local person, the police learned that the friend who borrowed the gun was named Wu Lihong.
After learning the news, the police immediately launched an investigation into Wu Lihong.
It didn't take long for a large amount of evidence to be discovered.
After investigation, Wu Lihong had bought a motorboat to do tourism business before, and his motorboat had been operating without a license for a long time.
And not long after the Qiandao Lake case, Wu Lihong happened to want to sell the motorboat.
Subsequently, the police found that Wu Lihong had also borrowed two other shotguns from others.
At the time of the incident, Wu Lihong had purchased three barrels of gasoline at a gas station, and the other two oil barrels were returned after they ran out, and one oil barrel had not been returned for a long time.
In addition, some people reported that Wu Lihong and his friend Yu Aijun went to the barber shop after the crime, and found burn marks on their heads during their haircuts.
After confirming this kind of evidence, the police directly took control of Wu Lihong and Yu Aijun.
Faced with a mountain of evidence, Wu Lihong and the others could not refute it, and quickly admitted that they had done it, and confessed to their other accomplice, Hu Zhihan.
So, on April 17, 1994, 17 days after the incident, all the murderers were arrested.
After all three participants were arrested, the truth also emerged.
The three murderers were all villagers near Huangniling, and before the crime, Wu Lihong bought a motorboat and used it for sightseeing business.
But because of his poor income, it was difficult to make money, so Wu Lihong found his friends Yu Aijun and Hu Zhihan.
The three of them discussed, and set their sights on the boats coming and going on Qiandao Lake.
Thinking that the tourists were very rich and would definitely make a fortune by grabbing a fortune, they borrowed shotguns and began to search for target boats on the surface of Qiandao Lake on the afternoon of March 31.
That night, they set their sights on the Hai Rui, and after chasing the Hai Rui in a motorboat, they boarded the Hai Rui with guns and threatened everyone with guns to hand over their money.
Because they claimed to have robbed money and not their lives, the people on board did not resist, and obediently handed over all the money, and entered the bilge under their coercion.
Then, fearing that they would be punished by the law, they lured the crowd into the bilge, removed the ladder from the bilge, dumped the gasoline they had brought with them, and burned the poor tourists, crew and guides.
Everything, as Chen Shixian speculated, there are not many discrepancies.
Because the crimes committed by Wu Lihong were so huge, on 17 June 1994, all three of them were sentenced to death by the court.
If people don't know about it, unless they do it, all the evil deeds committed by the perpetrator will inevitably leave traces, but it depends on whether they can be discovered.
Fortunately, these evidences did not escape Chen Shixian's eyes, so that these wicked people were punished!