Early one morning in March 2004, an exclamation shattered the tranquility of the fishing port town of Shenjiamen in Putuo District, Zhoushan City, Zhejiang Province. A murder occurred in a rental house on Bingang Road, and the woman Wu was killed. However, due to the limited technology at the time, the conditions for solving the case were insufficient, and ** has not been locked.
Until June 2020, after comparing massive DNA data, a man named Xie Moujin entered the sight of **.
After arriving at the case, Xie Moujin confessed that on March 1 of that year, the ship where he worked docked at Shenjiamen Fishing Port, and that night he met Wu and went to her temporary residence ** to prostitute. In the early morning of the next day, the two had a quarrel over prostitution, Xie Moujin strangled Wu's neck with a mobile phone charging cable, and then took advantage of the night to leave, and returned to Zhoushan again 16 years later.
I left before 12 o'clock that night, and as I left I saw that she was still moving. Xie Moujin's defense made the case that he thought was a coffin conclusive.
In November 2020, the case was transferred to the Zhoushan Municipal Procuratorate for review and prosecution. We found in many interrogations that Xie Moujin always argued that he had left before 12 o'clock that night, and Wu's neighbor at that time confirmed that there was still movement in Wu's room at about 5 o'clock in the morning the next day. The autopsy report of that year also did not specify the time of the victim's death, so it seems that the time of the crime is doubtful. In addition, the victim's identity is special and the contact with the person is complex, so there is a possibility that a third party will commit the crime.
*Could it be someone else? There were no other witnesses at the scene of the crime, only a few vague surveillance footage. ** It shows that that night, a man in black and the victim appeared near Bingang Road many times, and at about 5 a.m. the next day, the man appeared at the Bingang Road pier again, and then disappeared into the night.
When was Wu killed? Is the time when Xie Moujin left really as he argued? Who is the man in black in **? These issues are directly related to the determination of the case.
In order to solve the mystery, we returned to the scene of the crime many years ago and re-enacted the course of the crime. We repeatedly**synchronized audio and video recording and surveillance**, interrogated a certain gold again, determined supplementary investigation ideas for the suspicious points of the case, and guided ** further investigation.
Based on the autopsy records at the time of the crime, the public security organs deduced that the time of Wu's death was around 5 a.m. the next day, which was consistent with the testimony of Wu's neighbors, and the time of Wu's death was confirmed.
Next, the question left for us is, when did Xie Moujin leave the scene? whether it was before 12 o'clock, as he argued, or later; If he lies, how can he debunk the lie and lock the chain of evidence?
In the face of the impasse, we turned to the Zhejiang Provincial Procuratorate for support. The Zhejiang Provincial Procuratorate put forward the guiding opinions on the use of graphic investigation technology to compare the identity of relevant personnel such as images and gaits.
After repeated image comparison and big data analysis, we can determine that the man who appears many times in ** is Xie Moujin, confirming the time when he and Wu met, the time when they returned to their temporary residence together, and the fact that Xie Moujin appeared at the dock at 5 o'clock in the morning on the day of the crime. In front of the complete chain of evidence, his excuse of leaving before 12 o'clock that night was self-defeating.
In May 2021, our court prosecuted Xie Moujin on suspicion of intentional homicide. The Zhoushan City Intermediate People's Court sentenced Xie Moujin to death with a two-year reprieve, and deprived him of his political rights for life. After Xie Moujin appealed, in March 2022, the Zhejiang Provincial High Court made a final ruling rejecting the appeal and upholding the original judgment in accordance with the law.
After 18 years, the case has finally come to a successful conclusion. This is a pursuit of truth, a defense of fairness and justice. "Handling every case with high quality and efficiency" and ensuring that every case can stand the test of law and history is the basic value pursuit of procuratorial work in the new era, and it is also the original intention of each of our people's procurators to safeguard social fairness and justice!
The author is Wang Jing, senior prosecutor of the Zhoushan Municipal Procuratorate of Zhejiang Province).
*: Prosecutorial**Justice.com.