In 2004, in a small bungalow rental house on the western outskirts of Beijing, a father and daughter from Xinyang City, Henan Province, lived. The father is in his 40s, the daughter is less than 20 years old, and is apparently still a high school student.
On weekdays, the father and daughter see people are kind and warm, but the daughter always bows her head or covers her face with a hat, and the neighbors will know that the girl has serious burns on her face after a long time.
Art photo of Zhang Jing before being burned
The girl's name is Zhang Jing, and at this time, she should have sat in a spacious and bright classroom, studying with her beloved classmates and striving for her future.
But all this came to an abrupt end in the early hours of the morning one day six months ago. In the early hours of that morning, Zhang Jing, who was sleeping, was splashed with sulfuric acid for no reason, resulting in burns in many parts of her body, especially her face.
Since that day, Zhang Jing's only wish in his father's life is to cure his daughter's burns.
In just a few months, he and his daughter went to all the burn hospitals in Henan, and the effect was not particularly obvious. Finally, after being introduced, he took his daughter thousands of miles to Beijing for treatment.
Beijing Hospital
In order to save money, they did not choose to be hospitalized, but lived in a rental house. Recovery and treatment of burns is a long process, so they run to the hospital every few days to let the doctor see how well they are recovering, whether they need to improve the treatment plan, and so on.
Zhang Jing used to be a girl who always smiled and was sunny and confident, but now she only wanted to hide in the house by herself, and no one wanted to see her except her father.
In this way, the father and daughter comforted and encouraged each other, looking forward to the day when Zhang Jing's burns were completely cured.
Until now, when a reporter or relative asked what happened in the early hours of that morning, Zhang Jing was still in tears. She said that now, in the middle of the night, she remembered what had happened in the early hours of that morning, and the tears would still soak the pillowcase.
It was the evening of January 21, 2003, and in a girls' dormitory at a high school in Xinyang City, Henan Province, girls who had been studying for a day began to fall asleep one after another. In a province like Henan, where the population and the gaokao are, they know exactly how hard it is to get into a good university of their dreams.
At 12 o'clock in the evening, the last girl who picked up the lamp to read also turned off the lights, according to the weekday schedule, about 4-5 o'clock there will be girls up for morning reading.
Pick a girl who reads at night
When the clock was more than 2 a.m., the girls in the dormitory were suddenly awakened by a piercing scream. Everyone got up and turned on the light to see, only to see that the girl Zhang Jing had covered her face and walked around, screaming "pain" and "pain" in her mouth. Everyone came forward to care and inquire, only to see that Zhang Jing's body, face, ears, and hands had a great pungent smell, and some parts of her skin had been burned black.
Another girl on the bed next to Zhang Jing, Jingjing, also had a slight burning in her hand and kept rinsing her hands with water.
Because they were all high school students and had also done chemical experiments, everyone reacted quickly, which should be the reaction of sulfuric acid. Too late to think about it, the students immediately reported to the dormitory administrator, and then the school immediately called the police for help, and the ambulance also rushed to the school at the first time, pulling away Zhang Jing and Jingjing.
Ambulance
Fortunately, the concentration and dose of sulfuric acid were not particularly large, and eventually Zhang Jing was out of danger of life, but inevitably her face, hands and ears left a large area of burn marks.
For an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old flower girl, such an ending is too cruel.
Another girl, Jingjing, returned to school after a simple treatment.
At the same time as rescuing Zhang Jing, the school also called the police for the first time, because at the scene, someone deliberately and artificially threw sulfuric acid on Zhang Jing, who was asleep.
Because everyone was asleep in the middle of the night, no one saw the murderer's crime. And because there was no monitoring in the bedroom and the corridor at the time of the incident, the murderer fell into a stalemate for a while.
Because Zhang Jing was the most seriously injured, and Jingjing was only burned a little on her hand, the case-handling personnel agreed that the target of the murderer was Zhang Jing, and Jingjing was only affected when the murderer spilled sulfuric acid.
Sulfuric acid solution
With this tone, the case-handling personnel had to start the investigation from Zhang Jing in two directions:
After investigation, Zhang Jing belongs to the kind of more optimistic and cheerful students, although the academic performance is not particularly excellent, but in life is always smiling and giggling, and all the classmates get along very well, and did not hear any enemies or the like.
At that time, because the area around the school happened to be a bustling area, there were many shops that could sell sulfuric acid, plus passers-by who came and went, so there was no effective information on the source of sulfuric acid.
Therefore, the cracking of the case fell into a brief stalemate for a while.
Really when in the school, especially in the girls' dormitory, everyone discusses word by word, who is the real murderer. Most people said it must be some girl inside the dormitory. Because the reason is very simple, the girls' dormitory of the high school, the school for safety reasons, every night at a certain time, will lock the door downstairs. On the corridors and windows, there are anti-theft windows, in other words, people outside cannot sneak into the girls' dormitories.
For a while, the girls began to panic, and everyone thought that now that the murderer had not been caught, she would not commit the crime again, so whether the victim would be able to be herself.
Originally, this was just gossip and discussion between girls, but the speaker had no intention of listening. There is a girl named Ma Juan, who seems to be very concerned about this kind of discussion, and every time she encounters the topic, she will always listen to a few words or express her own remarks and opinions.
Over time, when the girls began to conclude that the murderer was among the girls, Ma Juan began to look a little flustered and anxious. Finally, one night, when several girls were discussing who the murderer of the sulfuric acid was again, Ma Juan suddenly said that she remembered that she seemed to have seen the murderer.
The crowd was puzzled and asked her not to make jokes. But Ma Juan had a serious face, she quietly took a few girls to the corner of the corridor, watched no one around, and then let go of the conversation box and talked about what she had seen and heard.
School corridors
Ma Juan said that at 10 o'clock in the night that Zhang Jing was poured sulfuric acid, she seemed to have seen a thin boy who followed a few girls and mixed in, and then disappeared. Because at that time, she was not sure if she was looking at the flowers, because there were also girls who dressed up like boys.
Seeing that the girl next to her did not believe it, Ma Juan began to say that she was later seen by the man, and was threatened, saying that if she made a sound or said it, she would be strangled. So, frightened, she went back to her dorm room and hid under the covers. At that time, she also saw the man holding a medicine bottle, which now seems to be sulfuric acid.
Hearing such a thing, the girls immediately panicked, and they were worried that if the man had not left, they would be in danger. Therefore, despite Ma Juan's strong obstruction, they ran out and immediately reported to the school.
After the school teachers got this news, they did not dare to be sloppy at all, and immediately organized security personnel and teachers to tightly seal the girls' dormitories and evacuate the girls to a safe place.
On the other hand, the case-handling personnel who had already received the news also immediately rushed to the scene, and in the past few days, students, parents, and society have given them a lot of pressure, and finally have clues that can solve the case.
However, the case-handling staff conducted a detailed search and arrangement of the entire girls' dormitory, and in the end there was no gain. Let's put it this way, there is no trace of outsiders mixing in the entire girls' dormitory.
Therefore, according to the girls, the case-handling staff found the source of this clue, that is, the girl Ma Juan.
Unexpectedly, before waiting for the case-handling personnel to routinely understand the situation, Ma Juan's psychological defense line collapsed instantly, and she said in a trembling voice that there was no need to look for it, there was no strange man at all, that is, she poured sulfuric acid on Zhang Jing.
As soon as the words came out, the case-handling staff did not return to God for half a day, and how could this seemingly well-behaved girl in front of her be a criminal who threw sulfuric acid at her classmates who lived day and night?
Girls who get along well in school
In the end, after repeatedly determining that Ma Juan was not joking, the case-handling staff put a pair of shiny handcuffs on Ma Juan and escorted her back to the police station.
In this way, in the doubts and puzzlements of her classmates, teachers and onlookers, Ma Juan finally turned back to the school, perhaps knowing that she would never have a chance to return here again.
When she arrived at the police station, she did not go through much interrogation, and Ma Juan gave a full account of her crime. After comparison, from the time, place, person, and sulfuric acid solvent used, the remaining bottles, purchase records, the confession of the chemical shop owner, etc., Ma Juan was sure that she was the murderer.
When the real case-handling personnel were ready to start asking Ma Juan about the motive for the crime, Ma Juan herself took the initiative to confess.
However, she smiled and said that it was really a creation, and the person she originally wanted to splash was not Zhang Jing, but a girl named Jingjing (pseudonym) in Zhang Jing's bedroom. It was only because Ma Juan did not go to Zhang Jing's bedroom much, it was the middle of the night, and in the panic, she found the wrong person and accidentally spilled sulfuric acid on Zhang Jing's body, and Jingjing next to her luckily escaped a disaster.
As for her motives for committing the crime, Ma Juan also explained it in great detail, summing it up as a word "jealousy".
It turned out that when Ma Juan was a child in elementary school and junior high school, she was an excellent student in the class, and she was the best among teachers and classmates. However, in high school, because the classmates were all excellent students from various junior high schools, she suddenly felt that she could not keep up with her studies, and her grades also fell to the middle and lower grades.
County high school classroom
At this time, Jingjing, a girl from the same place as herself, has maintained excellent academic performance, which can be said to be among the best. In this way, slowly Ma Juan began to be jealous of Jingjing, thinking that she had studied well and stole her own limelight. So she began to rack her brains, thinking about how to influence Jingjing's learning and make her a poor student.
Finally, under the influence of some film and television dramas, she thought of pouring crystals with sulfuric acid under jealousy, so that she would definitely be hospitalized, so that her academic performance would naturally decline. It is precisely because Ma Juan's substantive purpose is to influence Jingjing's learning, so she also diluted the sulfuric acid before she really started, so as to comfort herself and embolden herself.
This is why Ma Juan threw sulfuric acid at her classmates in the middle of the night, just because of "jealousy".
When she just admitted what she had done, the murderer Ma Juan seemed very flustered and frightened, so she took the initiative to admit all the crimes.
With the clearest authentication and physical evidence, I thought that Ma Juan would still directly admit guilt during the trial, but what the case-handling personnel did not expect was that Ma Juan retracted her confession many times and appealed against the judgment that had been issued many times.
It seems that after a short period of panic, Ma Juan did not really regret it in her heart. According to her own reasons for constant appeal, she was only impulsive at the time, and in the end did not cause death, both victims were burned and did not lose the ability to live, so the death sentence imposed by the court on her was inappropriate.
You see, by that time, she still did not admit guilt and continued to appeal, indicating that she still did not repent of this matter from the heart.
Fortunately, the just trial has always been there, and finally on October 14, 2003, the Intermediate People's Court of Xinyang City, Henan Province, finally ruled, sentenced Ma Juan to death, and upheld the original judgment.
At the end of the case, the High Court also reviewed the death penalty, did not accept a further appeal, and upheld the original judgment.
A just trial
A bottle of sulfuric acid changed the life trajectory of three high school girls in Xinyang, Henan.
Jealousy is what it is, jealousy is not to see others better than yourself. You can't see that others are more beautiful than yourself, you can't see others study better than yourself, you can't see others are richer, you can't see others happier than yourself, and so on.
In fact, jealousy can also be transformed into "disobedience", which is what normal people call "competitiveness". Through their own efforts, they will change what they are inferior to others, so that they can eventually overcome jealousy, and even turn themselves into the jealous people of others.