CCTV News: On a dark night in July 1994, a couple was brutally murdered on the edge of a national highway in Danyang, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province. After the incident, the murderer disappeared for more than 20 years, until September 2019, when three suspects were arrested and arrested. When the judicial organs handle cases, they are faced with some difficult problems: the statute of limitations for prosecution of cases has expired, can they still be held criminally responsible? Is the procedure for prosecution initiated? On October 13, the Rule of Law Online we focused on a robbery case approved by the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: For cases that exceed the statute of limitations for prosecution, whether they should be reported for approval of prosecution, for the three criminal suspects, if they do not approve the prosecution, then they are innocent, and once the prosecution is approved, according to the circumstances and consequences of their crime, it is very likely to be sentenced to death, so there is a world for them. Then this difficult problem is actually thrown to our case-handling personnel, because the right to approve the prosecution or the power to initiate the initiation of the approval of prosecution is in our procuratorial organs.
This is a simulated portrait of the main suspect in this murder case, published in July 1994, along with the portrait, there is also a reward notice, which is that the Jiangsu Provincial Public Security Department asked readers to assist in the investigation of a carjacking and murder case, and rewarded those who provided clues to solve the case by 50,000 yuan.
Victim's daughter Xiao Shi: I was six years old at the time, and listening to my family's words later, it was possible that something might happen, but at that time I had no idea of an accident. They stole so much for more than twenty years that my grandparents had no sons, my grandparents had no daughters, and I had no parents.
For the only daughter of the murdered couple, the death of her parents was a nightmare, and she could not imagine how desperate her parents were when they were violated.
At 5:00 a.m. on July 11, 1994, the Public Security Bureau of Danyang City, Zhenjiang, received an alarm from the masses that two victims, a man and a woman, had been found in a ditch near National Highway 312.
Hong Guoping, then captain of the criminal police brigade of the Danyang City Public Security Bureau: We immediately organized police forces to go to the scene to investigate.
After identification, the cause of death of the two men was the death of another person who stabbed the internal organs with a single-sided blade sharp object to cause hemorrhagic shock. Three kilometers from the scene of the incident, a taxi with a Wuxi license plate was parked on the side of the road, there was no one in the car, but there was a large amount of blood, and the criminal technicians extracted the fingerprints left by the suspect at the window. Two victims on the side of the national highway, a taxi that broke down, police speculated it must have been a robbery and murder case.
Hong Guoping, then captain of the criminal police brigade of the Danyang City Public Security Bureau: The first thing we think of is around this owner, whose car it is, the last time we saw where this car departed, who got on this car, mainly around this situation (investigation); the other is around who the deceased is, where the deceased is last, who the last person who saw him is, and the work around this is mainly divided into these two parts.
In the Wuxi Vehicle Management Office, the police handling the case determined the identity of the owner, the owner of the car named Shi Mou, through further confirmation, the owner of the car Shi Mou is a male victim, 35 years old at the time, the female victim is Zhu Mou, then 30 years old, the two are husband and wife.
Hong Guoping, then captain of the criminal police brigade of the Danyang City Public Security Bureau: After the case occurred at that time, we would not be limited to solving it from the perspective of carjacking and murder. We will conduct a comprehensive analysis around the victim's economic situation, communication situation, and emotional situation, and the analysis will be more in line with our judgment at that time - carjacking and killing.
After determining Shi's identity, the Danyang police carried out a large number of visits around the clue that he often waited for passengers at the Wuxi Railway Station. Soon, the police found the last taxi driver to see Shi Mou, this witness reported to the police, the night of the crime more than nine o'clock, there are three young people in their early twenties looking for their own taxi, they said that they are going to run a long distance to Zhenjiang, the price has been negotiated, but the road is far away Three people did not bring luggage, do not look like normal passengers, after the witnesses rejected them, they saw three people on Shi Mou's car.
Hong Guoping, then captain of the criminal police brigade of the Danyang City Public Security Bureau: (Witnesses) He also remembers the physical characteristics of these three people relatively clearly, why? [Because] he was getting into his car, he was too happy to talk about the price, and (later) saw the three men turn to the dead man's taxi, chat a few words and get into the taxi.
According to the descriptions of witnesses and the recollections of the surrounding masses, the three people were about one meter and seven meters tall, some of them spoke with accents from northern Jiangsu and Anhui, and one of them had bruises on his face. Around these three people, the police did a lot of investigation work, but failed to get more information about them, and the police in the scene platoon team received an important clue.
Hong Guoping, then captain of the criminal police brigade of the Danyang City Public Security Bureau: All the way to the place where Zhenjiang and Nanjing meet, some people reported seeing three people like this leaving by truck and heading toward Nanjing. We went to Nanjing to carry out a lot of investigation and visits, and finally no one found any trace of these three people.
From Danyang to Wuxi to Nanjing, the police interviewed and discharged three young men suspected of committing crimes, but due to the limited technical means at that time, the subsequent investigation reached an impasse.
In order to break the deadlock, the police thought of finding the murderer by issuing a reward notice and publishing a mock portrait, but there was no substantial progress. So the police adjusted the direction of the investigation and looked for the murderer by comparing fingerprints.
Nie Hongfeng, instructor of the Criminal Science and Technology Office of the Danyang Municipal Public Security Bureau: At that time, there was no fingerprint system in 1994, and it was all manually compared. It is to check the suspect, and then take the suspect's fingerprint to manually compare with the fingerprint on the spot, that is, one by one (fingerprint card) one by one.
After conducting visits, publishing notices, issuing co-investigations, and comparing fingerprints, the police investigation work has never made breakthrough progress. With the passage of time, even if the victims' families have no hope of solving the case, the Danyang police have never given up after so many years.
Zhang Ronghui, deputy director of the Danyang Municipal Public Security Bureau: We have been insisting on using the current means and technology to re-examine and find clues from it.
In 2019, Danyang police sorted out the evidence materials of a batch of homicide cases in previous years, and once again re-compared fingerprints one by one.
Nie Hongfeng, instructor of the Criminal Science and Technology Office of the Danyang Municipal Public Security Bureau: At that time, there were two on-site fingerprints in the system, one was a sweat fingerprint, one was a blood fingerprint, and the scene was compared to the sweat fingerprint, which was Kan's.
Danyang police immediately focused their investigation on the man named Kan Mou, a 45-year-old from Nanjing who committed multiple thefts in Nanjing between July and September 1994 and was sentenced by the Nanjing Qixia District People's Court in January 1995.
Lu Qinyong, commander of the Erling Squadron of the Danyang City Public Security Bureau: It was found that there were three suspects who committed the theft at that time, and it was Kan, Yao and Zhou. Then we reviewed the file and found that the characteristics and appearance of the three people in the file were basically the same as the objects of investigation in the 94711 case. Because in Nanjing, three people have committed many crimes together, which is also in line with a crime time period of our case. Several of them spoke with An Anhui accent and a Nanjing accent, and it just so happened that two of the three subjects we were looking through the file were from Nanjing, and the other was from Anhui, which was just in line with the results of our investigation at that time.
So will these three people be the perpetrators of the year? As the reconnaissance deepened, the three men were locked.
Lu Qinyong, squadron leader of the Erling Squadron of the Danyang Municipal Public Security Bureau: Among them, Zhou mou is a security guard in a shopping mall in Nanjing, Yao is a welder in Anhui, and Kan is a large truck driver in Jiangyin.
After grasping the trajectory of the three people, on September 21, 2019, the Danyang police decided to carry out arrests.
When arresting criminal suspect Kan, the police found that he had reprinted and published a meaningful video on the short video platform two months ago.
Lu Qinyong, commander of the Erling Squadron of the Danyang City Public Security Bureau: When Kan was captured, he didn't say anything at the time, probably anticipated it before, and it should have been said that it was normal at that time. Moreover, after the three subjects were arrested separately by our public security organs, they all confessed to the robbery and murder case at the same time after a simple interrogation.
For this case, the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate intervened in advance to guide the investigation.
Zhou Xuping, deputy chief procurator of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: Intervene in advance to guide the investigation and provide suggestions for the investigation of the public security organs, so as to guide the public security organs to comprehensively and accurately collect evidence and fix evidence, including standardized evidence; on the other hand, guiding the investigation can also allow us to strengthen investigation supervision and protect the legitimate rights and interests of criminal suspects.
Since the taxi in this case is an open means of transportation, just one sweat fingerprint of Kan can only indicate that the three of them have contact with the vehicle, and do not directly indicate that they are the perpetrators. To this end, after the three people arrived at the case, the police immediately extracted their fingerprints for comparison, and the results showed that the blood fingerprints at the scene of the crime were left by Yao.
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: Blood fingerprints, then there are blood samples of the victims on them, which can prove that they will leave this blood fingerprint at least after the crime was directly exposed to the victim's blood, which can directly prove the relationship between them and the crime in this case.
After 25 years, the unsolved case was finally solved. What really happened on the night of the incident? With the arrest of these three criminal suspects, various details before and after the crime were also revealed.
After Kan, Yao, and Zhou arrived at the case, they confessed that the three of them were relatives and related to their hometowns. In July 1994, they were playing in Shanghai, because the money they carried with them ran out, so Kan had the idea of robbery, and Yao and Zhou also agreed. After purchasing the knife for the crime, the three came to the Wuxi Railway Station to find the perpetrator.
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: At first, it was randomly selected in the taxi group at the Wuxi Railway Station, and the victims in this case felt that this was a long-distance bus and may have a relatively high income, so they agreed to carry the three defendants because they were not there the day before yesterday. He actually had some vigilance in his heart, so he called his wife when he set out.
The three of them and Shi Mou said that they were going to Nanjing, negotiated the price, paid a deposit of 200 yuan, and at 9 o'clock that night, they got on the car and sat down in the back row and began to leave for the road. When the vehicle traveled a certain distance, the three people got out of the car and began to discuss the details of the crime.
When the vehicle drove to a remote location, the three people in the back row began to move according to the original plan, Kan dealt with Zhu, Yao dealt with Shi, Zhou was worried that Shi and his wife called for help, strangled the victim's neck, and the three of them brutally killed Shi and his wife.
Chen Hao, procurator of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: The two victims were searched, and according to the facts of the case, they found gold necklaces and some cash from them.
After committing the crime, they abandoned Mr. and Mrs. Shi to a roadside ditch, and then fled the scene in a taxi along national highway 312. Later, the vehicle broke down, and the three abandoned the car and walked along the road for a while, then got into a large truck to escape Zhenjiang, and then came to Nanjing to carry out multiple thefts. If it is to make money as the three people confessed, why did they kill people with their hands?
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: It can also be seen from their confessions that their intention is not only to extract their belongings, but also to rob the car, fearing that the victim's cry for help will cause other trouble, so they directly killed the victim.
Chen Hao, procurator of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: After the crime was committed, the three of them were also thieves with weak hearts and formed an offensive and defensive alliance, and no one could tell them about this incident. Later, the three of them ganged up to steal, because the theft was also sentenced to prison by the court, and after they were released from prison, the three of them basically did not contact each other for more than ten years.
The robbery and murder occurred in July 1994, and the three people involved were sentenced for theft in September of the same year, and they have no criminal record since then. According to the law, the period for prosecution of "previous crimes" is calculated from the date of committing the "subsequent crimes", but even so, the 20-year statute of limitations for prosecution in this case has long passed. However, in China's criminal law, there are also some circumstances that are "not subject to the limitation period for prosecution", so does this case meet this situation?
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: This case occurred in 1994, so our country's criminal law was revised in 1997, and the provisions on whether prosecution is required have changed.
The Criminal Law implemented in China since 1997 has revised the provisions of the 1979 Criminal Law on "not subject to the limitation of the time limit for prosecution", from the original time limit for evading investigation or trial after the adoption of compulsory measures, to the current case filing and investigation or after the people's court accepts the case, those who evade investigation or trial are not subject to the limitation of the time limit for prosecution. However, there is a special case in the present case.
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: The criminal law of 1979 should be applied to this case, in other words, the three criminal suspects in this case were not taken compulsory measures by the investigation organs at that time, so this case has exceeded the statute of limitations for prosecution.
The maximum statutory penalty for robbery is the death penalty, and the period of prosecution is 20 years. According to Article 76 of the 1979 Criminal Law, if the maximum statutory sentence is life imprisonment or the death penalty, it will not be prosecuted after 20 years. If it is found after 20 years that prosecution is necessary, it must be reported to the Supreme People's Procuratorate for approval. So what is the "must be prosecuted" situation?
Peng Xinlin, deputy director of the Institute of Chinese Criminal Law of Beijing Normal University: After twenty years, what must be prosecuted generally means that this kind of crime is extremely harmful to society, and then the personal danger of the criminals is extremely great, and the social impact is extremely bad.
The Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate reviewed and found that although the case had passed the time limit for prosecution, there was a need for prosecution.
Zhou Xuping, deputy chief procurator of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: One is that there is evidence that the suspect committed a crime; the second aspect is that the crime of robbery in this case is robbery, which caused the death of two people, and the maximum statutory sentence is the death penalty; third, this case does not belong to the situation where the time limit for prosecution is not limited; the fourth aspect is that the criminal suspect's behavior has the necessity of prosecution, and the criminal suspect's criminal suspect's modus operandi in this case is particularly cruel and of a particularly bad nature; fifth, this criminal suspect has already arrived at the case. Prosecution can be accepted at any time. Therefore, considering these five aspects, it should be reported to the Supreme People's Procuratorate for approval of prosecution.
In order to further clarify the social impact of the case, the case-handling team also visited the Wuxi Railway Station and the crime site. When it comes to this case, the taxi drivers and the people near the scene of the crime still remember it vividly.
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: It caused a very big reaction among the surrounding villagers and had a very bad impact on social order at that time. Although it has been more than two decades, the surrounding villagers still remember this matter, especially the older villagers. There was also a lot of panic within Wuxi's taxi industry, when not only taxi drivers themselves, but also local taxi industry associations also asked taxi drivers not to receive orders from other places at night. It can be said that everyone is at risk, which has had a relatively bad impact on the local industry.
Considering the nature of the case, the circumstances, the harmful consequences, and the social impact, the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate reported to the Supreme People's Procuratorate for approval of prosecution step by step.
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: The Supreme People's Procuratorate's grasp of the prosecution is very strict, not only to ensure that the evidence in the case is indeed sufficient, but also to ensure that the case has the necessity of prosecution.
Applications for approval of prosecution must adhere to the strictest standard of proof. In this case, the fingerprints extracted at the scene were used as direct objective evidence, and when the procuratorial organs intervened in advance to guide the investigation, they found that their sources were not clearly recorded in the original case file.
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: After the incident, although a sweat fingerprint and a blood fingerprint extracted from the taxi at the scene were very critical, they also had innate deficiencies, the main reason being that these two fingerprints were not recorded in the on-site inspection record at that time, in other words, according to the current standard of evidence, the source of these two fingerprints is unknown.
Although Kan and the other three made a guilty confession after arriving at the case, if the source of these two fingerprints is unknown, then its legality is disputed, and the entire case will lose strong key evidence. To this end, the procurator in charge and the investigating police, together with the investigating police, asked the police who participated in the case handling that year, flipped through the relevant accounts, and finally found the answer.
Chen Hao, procurator of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: These two fingerprints appeared, one was in a case summary report submitted later, and the other was in a record book provided by an old investigator at that time, transferred the most original record book, and then questioned the old investigator at that time, and proved this through his testimony and objective evidence.
On July 6, 2020, the Supreme People's Procuratorate approved prosecution of the case. The Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate prosecuted Kan, Yao, and Zhou for robbery.
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: The crime of robbery stipulated in the Criminal Law includes both infringement of property and infringement of personal rights, so they directly commit violence against people in the process of robbing property, so according to the law, it constitutes the crime of robbery.
On November 4, 2020, the Zhenjiang Intermediate People's Court held a hearing on the case. During the trial, the three defendants had no objection to the facts and charges charged by the procuratorate.
After trial, the court held that in the crime of joint robbery, all three defendants played a major role and were all the main offenders. Based on the whole case, according to the provisions of the law, the procuratorial organ gave a sentencing recommendation for sentencing defendants Kan X and Yao X to death, and sentencing Zhou X to death with a two-year suspension of execution or life imprisonment.
Jiang Anling, deputy director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Procuratorate: All three defendants made confessions of guilt, but because the circumstances of the crime were particularly bad and the consequences were particularly serious, from the perspective of proportionality between criminal responsibility and punishment, we considered that although they voluntarily confessed guilt, they were not enough to be lenient.
At trial, the court held that the defendants Kan, Yao and Zhou had robbed others of their property by violent means, resulting in the death of both of them, and their acts had all constituted the crime of robbery. On December 28, 2020, the Zhenjiang Intermediate People's Court rendered a first-instance judgment sentencing Kan and Yao to death and Zhou to life imprisonment for robbery. The three people were ordered to compensate the plaintiff in the attached civil lawsuit for funeral expenses caused by the deaths of the two victims totaling about 100,000 yuan. After the verdict was pronounced, Kan and Yao appealed against the verdict.
At present, the case has entered the second-instance trial procedure.