Liaoyuan Farm is located in the southern part of Fengxian District, Shanghai. Far from the city center, the environment is beautiful, and the lives of the farm workers are quiet and comfortable.

On the afternoon of March 2, 2011, a hurried knock on the door broke the tranquility of the farm. The person knocking was Mr. Jin, the brother of the female homeowner Jin Lan. Because his sister usually worked the night shift and generally rested at home during the day, and now her cell phone could not be reached, Mr. Jin came to see what had happened at his sister’s home.

Mr. Jin knocked for a long time, but there was no movement at all inside. Worried, Mr. Jin took out the key his sister had left him and opened the door. Mr. Jin saw that his sister seemed to still be sleeping in bed.
When Mr. Jin walked to his sister’s bedside and lifted the blanket, he was instantly stunned. He saw his sister lying stiffly in bed without moving at all. Mr. Jin touched his sister’s body and found it was ice-cold and already rigid.

The victim Jin Lan was lying under the blanket, completely naked, with both arms raised and bent in a strange posture.

According to the autopsy results, the police inferred that Jin Lan’s time of death should have been around 8 p.m. the previous night. The police believed that Jin Lan had been pressed on the neck by another person, resulting in mechanical asphyxiation and death.

Obviously this was a cruel murder case, but what made the police feel strange was that they could not see the slightest trace of struggle on Jin Lan’s body.

This indicated that the murderer most likely launched a sudden attack when Jin Lan was completely off guard, catching her unprepared and causing her to be brutally killed without any resistance.

Mr. Jin told the police that the previous night he had even eaten dinner with his sister at her home and had left at around 6:00 p.m. At that time, Jin Lan had shown no abnormal behavior at all.

The randomly placed items at the crime scene and the turned-on electric blanket all matched the relaxed state of the victim before going to sleep. It was clear that when Mr. Jin left, Jin Lan had no sense that misfortune was about to befall her.

So after Mr. Jin left, who exactly came here? What happened between Jin Lan and the murderer that ultimately led to Jin Lan’s death?

Through visits to the victim’s neighbors and colleagues, the police learned that the victim Jin Lan was usually gentle and kind, and no one had seen her quarrel or blush with anyone, so the police quickly ruled out the possibility of a vendetta killing. Jin Lan’s husband was a taxi driver, driving in the urban area of Shanghai, which was very far from Liaoyuan Farm, that is, from their home, so he usually lived at his parents’ home in the urban area. Therefore, only Jin Lan was left at home alone.

Moreover, because of work, Jin Lan often had to leave in the early morning to go to the night shift, so the police analyzed whether the tragedy might have occurred during this period.

While the police were carrying out the scene investigation, Jin Lan’s husband Wang Yaowen, who had been driving a taxi in the urban area and rarely returned to their home at Liaoyuan Farm, also learned the news of his wife’s murder. He immediately rushed to the scene at the first opportunity.

Facing his wife of more than 10 years, now tragically killed, Wang Yaowen could hardly speak. This had originally been a happy and sweet family. Twelve years earlier, Wang Yaowen and Jin Lan, who had worked in the same unit, fell in love and married. The following year after marriage they had a child, and the family of three lived happily together.

Later, because the factory’s performance was poor, in order to improve the family’s financial situation, Wang Yaowen resigned from his factory job and began driving a taxi.

Because Fengxian District is a far suburb of Shanghai, there were fewer taxi passengers, so Wang Yaowen spent most of his time picking up passengers in the urban area far from Fengxian District. For convenience, he often took the child to live at his parents’ home in the urban area. The couple spent little time together, but this time the two were separated forever by death.

The police were still carefully searching the crime scene for any traces the murderer might have left. The opened drawers, the clothes scattered on the floor, and the victim’s wallet on the table all seemed to tell the police about the murderer’s motive and process.

The police found that the bank cards in Jin Lan’s wallet were all still there, but the cash was gone. They also found that besides the cash, Jin Lan’s mobile phone and jewelry and other items were also missing. All of this seemed to show that this was a case caused by robbery. But why did the murderer strip off the victim’s clothes? Could it be that during a burglary he was discovered by Jin Lan, and this then turned from theft into a vicious case of robbery, rape, and murder?

The police’s investigation and visits to nearby neighbors did not obtain any valuable clues. That night no one saw anyone enter or leave the victim’s room, and no one heard any abnormal noises. At the same time, because the community where the crime occurred was located on a remote farm, surveillance cameras had not yet been widely installed, so the police could not grasp the situation of people and vehicles entering and leaving the community that night. The peripheral investigation encountered difficulties, but the investigators conducting the crime scene examination discovered some abnormal circumstances.

After repeated searches of the crime scene by the police, including in the washing machine and on the balcony, none of the victim’s underwear or outer clothing was found. A middle-aged woman was at home alone, her husband was outside driving a taxi, she was lying in bed completely naked, and her underwear and outer clothing could not be found. This was very abnormal. The police suspected whether the murderer had a perverted tendency and took away the victim’s underwear and outer clothing.
In addition, the police also discovered more doubts at the scene.

The police found that the clothing cabinets on both sides of the TV cabinet in the room had been rummaged through, but only the outer layers had been disturbed. Through this kind of surface-level rummaging, it would generally be difficult to find valuable items placed deeper inside. In other words, the suspect might have wanted to create the illusion of stolen property.

What made the police even more suspicious was that the crime scene was on the fourth floor, and the door was the only route by which the suspect could enter and leave the crime scene. However, the investigators found that the door lock showed no signs of being damaged. The lock of the outer security door was intact, and the lock of the inner wooden door was also intact. There were also no obvious pry marks on the door frame. Therefore, the police suspected that the suspect had used a “soft entry.”

The so-called “soft entry” is a term used by the police in handling cases, meaning that the suspect entered with the owner’s permission. This showed that no matter who the murderer was, he was able to enter Jin Lan’s room without hindrance, and he was very likely someone acquainted with her.

From the entrance to the bedroom, one still had to pass through a narrow hallway and a small living room. The investigators saw that the victim’s shoes were still neatly placed by the wall at the entrance, and on the kitchen table on one side of the hallway, the bowls, chopsticks, and cups and dishes were also neatly arranged. All items were in their original positions, with nothing randomly or disorderly placed or appearing where it should not be. Everything was very neat, without any feeling of chaos. This indicated that the victim and the suspect had not engaged in a violent struggle at the scene.

After forensic examination, Jin Lan had not been sexually assaulted, so why did the suspect take away her intimate clothing from the scene?

Soft entry, a staged scene, and a completely unguarded victim—all these signs led the police to conclude that the criminal suspect must have been someone very well acquainted with Jin Lan. So who could this person be? Through investigation, the police found that Jin Lan’s usual social circle was very simple. Apart from her brother, only her husband Wang Yaowen had a key to the house.

Could the murderer be one of these two people?

Through interviews and investigation, Mr. Jin’s suspicion was quickly eliminated, and the police turned their suspicious eyes toward Wang Yaowen. Could this seemingly honest and simple taxi driver really be the murderer who killed his wife? The first thing the police had to verify was whether Wang Yaowen had been to the scene that night.

Wang Yaowen told the police that he had been operating his taxi in the urban area until 11 o’clock that night and had not returned to their home on the farm. His statement was corroborated by the neighbors, who all said they had not seen him or his car that night. It seemed Wang Yaowen was telling the truth.
In order to further clarify Wang Yaowen’s activity trajectory on the night of the crime, the investigators found the taxi company where he worked and retrieved the driving data of the taxi he had been driving at the time of the crime.

From the driving trajectory of Wang Yaowen’s taxi on the evening of March 1, he indeed had not been to Fengxian District at the time of the crime. Wang Yaowen’s suspicion seemed to be eliminated, but a piece of information inadvertently revealed by the fleet manager attracted the investigators’ attention.

The manager said that Wang Yaowen’s work performance had not been very good recently, that he was about half a month behind in handing over operating revenue, and that he usually liked to gamble a little.

The Spring Festival period was the peak season for taxi operations, yet Wang Yaowen could not hand over his operating revenue. Where had the money he earned gone? Was it related to his liking for gambling? Connecting this with the missing mobile phone and gold and silver jewelry at the crime scene, Wang Yaowen’s suspicion still could not be eliminated. The police once again found Wang Yaowen and questioned him.

Facing the police’s questions, this time Wang Yaowen chose a long silence.

While interrogating Wang Yaowen, investigators conducting peripheral investigation also found Jin Lan’s missing gold necklace in a pawnshop in Minhang, and the person who pawned it was her husband Wang Yaowen.

Faced with so much ironclad evidence, Wang Yaowen could no longer continue to deny it and finally confessed to the criminal facts of murdering his wife.

It turned out that on the night of the crime, Wang Yaowen asked Jin Lan for money to pay off gambling debts. Jin Lan was unwilling to give it, and the two began to argue. Jin Lan wanted to call her brother to come over, and in a panic Wang Yaowen viciously grabbed Jin Lan by the neck.

After Jin Lan died, in order to cover up his crime, Wang Yaowen faked the scene. He stripped off Jin Lan’s clothes, trying to create the false appearance of a gangster burglary, rape, and murder, and took the clothes away from the scene in an attempt to lead the police investigation astray.

Wang Yaowen said that he had someone else drive his taxi outside for him, so when he secretly returned home, no one discovered his movements.

Just like that, because of her husband’s gambling, Jin Lan died in the marital home where she and Wang Yaowen had married, at the hands of her own husband. And on the wall behind Jin Lan’s naked body hung their affectionate wedding photo from years before.

Wang Yaowen said that Jin Lan had once strongly urged him not to gamble anymore, saying that if he gambled again this family would be destroyed by him, and in the end this family really was destroyed by him.

In the victim’s photo album, the police found a photo with a line of English written below it: Love means you have never to say sorry. A once happy and fulfilling family was thus destroyed in an instant.

In the detention center, Wang Yaowen expressed his remorse to the police countless times, but all of this came too late. He said that after killing his wife, he did not dare to see his parents, and did not dare to let his 13-year-old son know that his father had personally killed his mother, but what use was saying this?

From the very first day he walked into the casino, this ending had already been destined. Wang Yaowen began to realize that gambling is actually a demon, and like drugs, once you are contaminated by it, it is very hard to extricate yourself.