On the afternoon of December 24, 2010, 68-year-old villager Chen Minghua from Yaotang Township, Da County, Sichuan Province, saw his 54-year-old nephew Chen Shiping lying motionless on the ground in his own yard. He thought Chen Shiping had suffered a sudden illness. So he kept shouting in Chen Shiping’s ear: Chen Shiping, wake up! However, Chen Shiping did not respond at all.
Chen Minghua lifted Chen Shiping’s collar and saw a large bloody gash on his neck. He was frightened out of his wits and staggered outside, shouting: Help! The villagers who heard Chen Minghua’s shouts quickly came and helped Chen Minghua call the police.
On the day of the incident, after receiving the report, the police immediately conducted a careful inspection of the scene. The forensic doctor confirmed that Chen Shiping had been killed between 12:00 and 14:00 on the 24th. The deceased died from severe head injuries, and it was homicide. In addition, through the inspection and Chen Minghua’s identification, the killer had left at the scene a bloody knife, a yellow folding umbrella, and a pair of men’s black leather shoes and a dark gray outer garment that the killer had changed out of after committing the crime.
The police initially determined that the suspect had likely acted alone, was about 40 years old, and might have a criminal record. The suspect’s methods were cruel, and he was relatively cunning and had a certain ability to counter reconnaissance.
Through a careful search of the Chen home, the police confirmed that 4 whole pork legs and 2 sides of pork ribs were missing, and on the second floor of the Chen home, the police found obvious signs of ransacking.
Two days before the incident, Chen Shiping had just slaughtered a pig to prepare for the New Year. However, the most expensive cuts of pork were all missing. Based on this, the police determined that the suspect’s motive was financial gain.
Gaodipo Village in Yaotang Township, where the Chen family lived, is located in the mountainous area southwest of Da County and is at the border of Heshi Town’s Yaotang Township and Xinxing Township. Because Chen Minghua and his nephew lived in relatively difficult circumstances, in recent years their lives had mainly depended on support from the local government and villagers. Even the old house they lived in had been built with village funds in the 1960s. For this reason, the uncle and nephew were ordinarily both relatively friendly.
So who would commit such a vicious act against a 54-year-old solitary elderly man? After investigation and visits among the local villagers, the police further ruled out the possibility of revenge killing or a crime of passion, and determined that the reason the suspect killed Chen Shiping was to rob him of pork.
However, based on all these known conditions, the police did not find any relevant suspicious persons around the village.
Subsequently, based on the special geographical location of the crime scene at the junction of three townships, the police determined that the suspect might have been committing crimes while on the move.
The police immediately divided all their forces into multiple groups and, centered on Gaodipo Village where the crime occurred, launched an investigation around nearby villages and coal mines, focusing on collecting information about strangers who had entered Yaotang Township on the day of the incident.
Soon one clue attracted the police’s attention.
A nearby villager, who was also a local miner, reported that a man in his 30s, about 1.7 meters tall, relatively thin, holding a yellow umbrella, had once asked him for directions, asking which way to go to Yaotang Township.
The police then began focusing their investigation on this strange man. Following the trajectory of the strange man’s movements after entering Yaotang Township, the police carried out door-to-door investigations.
The day after the incident, a villager from Heshi Town said that a strange man had once asked him for directions, also asking how to get to Yaotang Township. The man was wearing a black jacket and was also holding a yellow umbrella.
In addition, during the investigation, the police also learned that before around 3 p.m. on the 24th, the strange man described by the villagers had been carrying a bloodstained bag and had stopped a motorcycle by the roadside before leaving the crime scene. So could the contents of the bag have been the pork missing from the Chen family?
The police found the motorcycle owner and had him take them to the place where the criminal suspect had gotten off. This was a farmers’ market with many pork stalls.
Obviously, if this strange man was the murderer, then his purpose in coming here must have been to sell the stolen goods. But the time of the incident was near the Spring Festival, and pork business in the farmers’ market was booming every day. Trying to track down pork trotters and pork ribs that were otherwise unremarkable was not easy. Just when they were at a loss, a conversation between two shop proprietresses caught the investigators’ attention.
The investigators heard one proprietress chatting, saying that yesterday she had gotten a great bargain, buying four pork trotters and one pig’s head for just over 100 yuan. The police investigators felt there might be something suspicious about this, so they went up and questioned the proprietress.
The proprietress and her husband recalled together that the man who sold the pork had also sold pork in this farmers’ market before. He seemed to be surnamed Tang and was from Guancun.
The proprietress’s husband also said that the man who sold the pork was a drug addict. Why? Because once, when the man who sold pork was taking out pork, a syringe dropped to the ground, and the man also looked listless, so he was certain this was a drug addict.
The investigators then found the pork that the strange man had sold at the time.
Later, Chen Minghua identified it, and this was the pork missing on the day of the incident. Therefore, this drug-addicted man surnamed Tang was determined by the police to be the key suspect in the 1224 homicide case. However, the investigation surrounding this drug-addicted man in the following days was not smooth.
The turning point in the case appeared on the fifth day after the incident. In view of the suspicion that the drug-addicted man surnamed Tang had been involved in drug use and petty theft, after the case-handling police entered relevant keywords into the Da County Public Security Bureau police database, a case information entry from the Guancun Police Station of the Da County Public Security Bureau made the case handlers’ eyes light up.
On December 14, 2010, a burglary occurred within the jurisdiction of the Guancun Police Station. At that time, through police investigation, Tang Mingyue was identified on the same day, December 14, as the criminal suspect in the burglary. Tang Mingyue was 36 years old, a drug addict, and in 2005 had been sentenced to 6 years in prison by the Da County People’s Court for robbery.
After the 1214 case occurred, when the police could not find Tang Mingyue himself for a time, they began to learn about Tang Mingyue’s family, hoping to find clues related to the case.
What was astonishing was that every member of Tang Mingyue’s family hated him to the bone, and not one person had anything good to say about him.
Tang Mingyue’s parents always used the word “disaster” to describe him. The two elderly people said that the Tang family had a total of five sons, and Tang Mingyue was the fourth in the family and the smartest and most clever child. But after Tang Mingyue later joined the military and was expelled from the army for theft, in the 1980s he went to Guangzhou to work, and from then on Tang Mingyue changed. They believed that was when Tang Mingyue became addicted to drugs.
Tang’s father said that before Tang Mingyue became addicted to drugs, the family’s life had been quite good. But after Tang Mingyue became addicted to drugs, for more than 20 years he not only never gave the family a single cent, but more often than not tried every possible way to sell off the family’s things to buy drugs. Over these years, Tang Mingyue’s second brother Tang Jian’s pig farm had been ruined by him in this way.
Tang Jian had raised more than 700 pigs in total. Within two months, Tang Mingyue stole about 150 of them and sold them. In order to get money to buy drugs, as long as something could be turned into money, he would even steal and sell piglets. He would sell a piglet for 10 or 20 yuan. Tang Mingyue not only stole pigs, but also feed, equipment, and sow farrowing beds. Over several years, Tang Jian’s losses totaled more than 200,000 yuan.
At the beginning, Tang Jian and his wife had borrowed 90,000 yuan from friends before building the pig farm. They had originally wanted to become rich by raising pigs. However, because of Tang Mingyue’s theft, the pig farm closed down after being open for only half a year.
Tang Jian had once taken Tang Mingyue to a drug rehabilitation center to detox, but it had no effect at all. After Tang Mingyue came out of the rehabilitation center, he still did not repent and continued stealing and using drugs.
Tang Jian said that over these years their family had paid too much for Tang Mingyue. His parents were old and sickly, and several brothers were deeply in debt. But Tang Mingyue not only did not think of repaying them, but instead became even worse. Sometimes he did not even spare his eldest brother, who was disabled.
Over the years, the Tang family could only dare to be angry but not speak out about the harm Tang Mingyue did to the family.
Tang Mingyue’s eldest brother said that the family did not dare to reprimand Tang Mingyue, because once they reprimanded him, he would become even more vicious, making the family simply afraid to discipline him.
Gradually, in order to satisfy his monthly drug expenses, Tang Mingyue began to target the surrounding villagers. He borrowed when he could, stole when he could not borrow, and when he really could not steal, he directly robbed. Therefore, the villagers also complained endlessly about the drug addict Tang Mingyue. It was precisely for this reason that the Tang family never took the initiative to contact Tang Mingyue, nor did they care about his whereabouts.
Tang Mingyue was a drug addict and had no proper occupation. He had no fixed place to live. Therefore, after the 1214 case occurred and until the 1224 case occurred, the police had never been able to find Tang Mingyue.
Through photo comparison of Tang Mingyue, and then through identification by several witnesses found along the route, the police finally determined that Tang Mingyue was the person who had asked for directions while holding an umbrella.
The police then set up surveillance on places where Tang Mingyue might appear, especially focusing on monitoring stations, hotels, and other places where drug addicts often appeared. But as day after day passed, Tang Mingyue still left no trace. Then one night, the police heard that Tang Mingyue had returned home, so they rushed to the Tang home overnight to arrest him.
But no one had expected that this arrest would encounter a result that no one could have anticipated.
Tang Mingyue’s parents told the police that Tang Mingyue’s body had already been buried on the 25th, and his second brother Tang Jian also gave feedback to the police that Tang Mingyue had already been buried. This made the police very surprised. How had Tang Mingyue suddenly died?
The Tang family said that Tang Mingyue had died by suicide on December 23, while the police had previously determined that on December 24 Tang Mingyue killed Chen Shiping in Yaotang Township. What was going on with this contradiction in time?
The development of events greatly exceeded the police’s expectations. They immediately found the first person to see Tang Mingyue’s body that day, namely Tang Mingyue’s second brother Tang Jian.
According to Tang Jian’s recollection, on the evening of December 22, a neighbor around his pig farm called to tell him that they had heard a miserable scream that seemed to be Tang Mingyue’s coming from the pig farm, saying that he did not want to live anymore. The neighbor suspected that Tang Mingyue had killed himself because his drug addiction had flared up. So Tang Jian hurried back to the pig farm from town. When he checked a room on the second floor, an astonishing scene appeared.
From the window, Tang Jian saw an extended left foot, the right foot bent, the shoe fallen off, both hands bent in front of the chest, curled up, and the head wrapped in a torn quilt. Then he put his head through the window and began calling, “Tang Mingyue, Tang Mingyue…” He shouted at least a dozen times.
Because his fourth brother Tang Mingyue had usually brought the family too much trouble, Tang Jian did not want to look at Tang Mingyue one more time. So after a simple discussion with the family, he spent 10,000 yuan to ask several neighbors for help, and after hastily tidying Tang Mingyue up a little, buried him simply.
When the Tang family learned of Tang Mingyue’s suicide, they had initially planned to call the police, but Tang Mingyue’s eldest brother told everyone that he had harmed so many people that there was no need to report it. He was their own brother, so just burying him was enough. It was not a big deal. For them, his death was a kind of release.
However, during the police’s subsequent inspection, they discovered some doubtful points.
The police conducted an on-site inspection at the place where Tang Mingyue died, namely the pig farm, and found that the scene had already been cleaned and destroyed. There were splatter bloodstains on the walls and floor, which showed that the possibility of Tang Mingyue’s suicide was not great.
The police then found the villagers who had helped tidy Tang Mingyue’s body before burial to investigate. Strangely, everyone believed that Tang Mingyue had already died by suicide.
The people who carried the corpse said the deceased was Tang Mingyue, the person who cut the corpse’s hair said the deceased was Tang Mingyue, the person who washed the corpse said it was Tang Mingyue, and the person who put the corpse into the coffin also said it was Tang Mingyue. This was strange. If, according to Tang Jian’s account, Tang Mingyue really had died by suicide on December 23, then who killed Chen Shiping afterward? Could it be that the police’s investigation direction was wrong?
With doubts, the police began peripheral investigations of the Tang family, asking about the situation at the time. Among them, Tang Mingyue’s second aunt provided the police with an important clue.
Tang Mingyue’s second aunt said that Tang Mingyue had eaten at her home at noon on the 24th. How could he be dead? The second aunt said that when he left, he even took a yellow umbrella and went in the direction of Yaotang. How could he be dead? Tang Mingyue’s second aunt did not believe that Tang Mingyue was already dead, so she did not attend his funeral.
After analyzing information from all sides, the police concluded: Tang Mingyue was not dead at all.
Since Tang Mingyue was not dead, then who was the “Tang Mingyue” who had supposedly committed suicide in the mouths of the Tang family and villagers? The police expanded the scope of their search. At that moment, on December 28, 2010, the Guancun Police Station received a report from a middle-aged woman. The reporter said that her husband Li Hong had been missing since going out on the evening of December 22. The reporter said that before going out, Li Hong had received a phone call from Tang Mingyue.
This reporter said that her husband Li Hong not only knew Tang Mingyue, but ordinarily also had dealings with him, and Tang Mingyue still owed Li Hong several thousand yuan in cash and had not repaid it until now. They as husband and wife were also looking for Tang Mingyue.
Why had Li Hong suddenly disappeared? Could this be directly related to Tang Mingyue?
As the investigation went deeper and deeper, the possibility that Tang Mingyue was still alive became greater and greater in the police’s suspicion. But to clarify whether the person buried by the Tang family was really Tang Mingyue, the only way was to open the coffin and examine the corpse.
After the police decided to open the coffin and examine the corpse, they encountered many difficulties. First, rural customs considered opening a coffin and examining a corpse unlucky; second, Tang Mingyue’s relatives believed that opening the coffin and examining his corpse was unnecessary, and even obstructed the police from doing so.
Eventually, with persuasion from the police and township officials, the Tang family finally agreed to the exhumation and postmortem examination, but the Tang family still firmly believed that Tang Mingyue had died by suicide, so not one of them came to the scene to watch.
The police called the villagers who had buried Tang Mingyue at the time to assist in the exhumation and postmortem examination.
Time passed minute by minute, and the coffin was finally opened.
These villagers looked carefully and said that the person in the coffin did not look like Tang Mingyue. After the deceased’s face was cleaned and treated, everyone found that the deceased was really not Tang Mingyue.
The clothes, trousers, and shoes on the deceased were identified by Tang Mingyue’s relatives as those Tang Mingyue had been wearing that day. It turned out that Tang Mingyue and the deceased had swapped clothes. From this it could be seen that Tang Mingyue had relatively strong counter-reconnaissance skills.
The police notified Li Hong’s family to come and identify him, and confirmed that the deceased was Li Hong.
Later, after forensic examination, it was determined that Li Hong died from being struck on the head with a blunt object, and the forensic doctor found a large number of Tang Mingyue’s fingerprints on Li Hong’s body. The police ultimately determined that Tang Mingyue was the murderer who killed Li Hong.
So why was Li Hong buried by the Tang family as Tang Mingyue? The villagers who encoffined Li Hong’s body that day gave this explanation: the deceased’s face was covered in blood, everyone thought he was a “disaster,” and the people helping had no interest in spending effort on him. They just wanted to bury him quickly and be done with it. He died in the pig farm where he lived. How could anyone else go to the pig farm to die? Only he himself could have died in the pig farm.
The villagers also said that from Tang Mingyue’s supposed suicide until the encoffining and burial, no one from the Tang family had appeared. All the matters were handled with the help of villagers.
The Tang family said that at the time they indeed had not gone to look, because the family hated Tang Mingyue to the bone, and the villagers hated him too. They thought it would be better to bury him quickly and then have peace. Their thinking at the time was just that simple.
It was precisely for these reasons that such a dramatic turn appeared in the case. So how exactly did Li Hong, who was mistaken for Tang Mingyue, die? Where was Tang Mingyue now? Facing such a criminal suspect who had committed two consecutive homicide cases, the police realized that Tang Mingyue must be found immediately, otherwise there would be endless trouble.
In order to capture Tang Mingyue as quickly as possible, a large arrest net was quickly spread within Dazhou City. At the same time, the police also posted reward notices everywhere to hunt Tang Mingyue. But after several days of stakeouts and screening, Tang Mingyue did not appear in the police’s field of vision. Until the last day of 2010, the police finally discovered Tang Mingyue near a hotel.
However, what surprised the police was that when they saw Tang Mingyue, Tang Mingyue was already lying dead in a passage outside the hotel. He was lying on his back, his body curled into a ball. After careful forensic inspection and autopsy, it was confirmed that he died of a drug overdose.
Through visits to the small hotel owner, the police confirmed that the criminal suspect Tang Mingyue had stayed in the small hotel for two or three days and had never gone out. Later, he probably came out to a passage outside the small hotel after injecting drugs.
Later, through investigation, including forensic examination and identification, eyewitnesses, investigative visits, witness testimony, DNA, traces and physical evidence left at the scene, and fingerprints, the police determined that both the 1214 and 1224 homicide cases were committed by Tang Mingyue.
After Tang Mingyue died, the Tang family did not come to claim the body, because in their view, Tang Mingyue’s death was a true relief for the Tang family and their entire village. But for the police, precisely because Tang Mingyue was dead, the police could only infer Tang Mingyue’s motive and process of killing based on some of the evidence and clues they had at hand.
According to the police’s inference, Li Hong’s death had been premeditated by Tang Mingyue. He used the excuse of repaying money to lure Li Hong to the pig farm, killed him, and faked the scene, thereby settling a debt. As for the death of the Five Guarantees household Chen Shiping, it was more likely that Tang Mingyue was committing a roving theft, was discovered by Chen Shiping, and killed him.
Tang Mingyue’s killing behavior caused the elderly Chen Minghua to lose his only relative, and Li Hong’s wife lost her beloved husband. The harm he brought to the families of the two victims was immeasurable.