On February 27, 2000, a heartbreaking tragedy occurred in Luoyang, Henan. Three sixth-grade primary school students, after quietly leaving an arcade because they had overspent by 2.5 yuan, were tricked into returning by the arcade owner Jin Xiangwu and brutally killed. He then colluded with his elder brother to move the bodies and burn them to destroy the evidence. This bloody case, triggered by a trivial sum of money, exposed the perpetrator’s extreme cruelty and disregard for life, and caused a strong social shock locally.
I. Background: An Arcade and Three Boys
The crime scene was located in Luoyang City, and the arcade involved was operated by Jin Xiangwu. Jin Xiangwu was a local self-employed operator, and his elder brother Jin Xiangyu participated in helping destroy evidence after the incident. The three victims were all sixth-grade students of the First Primary School of Luoyang Bearing Factory: Duan Keke, Xue Yashan, and Du Ruofei. The three were of similar age, were close in daily life, and often visited the arcade together in their spare time. For primary school students at that time, arcade spending was not cheap, and the three had limited pocket money, which also planted the seeds for the later conflict.
II. The Incident: The Cost of 2.5 Yuan
On February 27, 2000, Duan Keke, Xue Yashan, and Du Ruofei went together to the arcade operated by Jin Xiangwu to play games. According to subsequent investigation, the three played in the arcade for more than two hours, during which their cumulative spending exceeded the money they had on hand, leaving them 2.5 yuan in debt. Worried that the owner would scold or detain them if he found out, the three slipped out of the arcade while Jin Xiangwu was not paying attention.
For an ordinary operator, a loss of 2.5 yuan would at most prompt a few complaints or be written off as bad luck. But Jin Xiangwu’s reaction went far beyond ordinary imagination. After discovering that the three had left, he did not choose to chase them or call the police, but instead adopted a highly deceptive method: using “free game play” as bait, he instructed other primary school students still playing in the arcade to trick Duan Keke and the other two into returning to the arcade. These exploited children did not know Jin Xiangwu’s true intentions and merely thought they were running an errand for the owner, so they brought the three boys who had already left back to the place that was about to become the murder scene.
After the three boys returned, Jin Xiangwu drove all the other children playing games out, leaving only himself and the three sixth-grade students in the arcade. He then killed the three. Regarding the specific method of killing, public reports did not disclose details, but judging from the subsequent act of burning the bodies to destroy evidence, the perpetrator showed a clear subjective intent and calm awareness of covering up during the crime, rather than a loss of control in a moment of impulse.
III. Destroying the Bodies: A Brothers’ Conspiracy to Cover Up
After killing the three boys, the first problem Jin Xiangwu faced was disposing of the bodies. He found his elder brother Jin Xiangyu, told him what had happened, and asked for help. Jin Xiangyu did not choose to persuade his younger brother to surrender, but instead participated in the actions to cover up the crime. The two brothers moved the three bodies from the urban area of Luoyang to a mountain gully near Yiyang County, where they burned the bodies to destroy them. Yiyang County is some distance from the urban area of Luoyang, and choosing this place to dump the bodies was clearly considered: far from the crime scene, the gully was sparsely visited, and burning was intended to completely destroy the bodies’ characteristics and eliminate traces.
However, the simultaneous disappearance of three primary school students is an event that cannot be ignored in any community. The families of Duan Keke, Xue Yashan, and Du Ruofei quickly discovered that the children had not returned, and after searching everywhere without success, they called the police. The three boys’ classmates and playmates were also questioned one by one, and the arcade, as a place the children often visited, naturally came into the sight of the police and family members.
IV. Investigation: Case Solved in Six Days
After the incident, the Luoyang Public Security Bureau mobilized police forces for concentrated investigation. Three minors had disappeared at the same time and were close to one another, so the police initially judged that the three might be together, and the last place they were seen pointed to Jin Xiangwu’s arcade. In the face of police investigation, Jin Xiangwu tried to cover up, but suspicions quickly converged: the three boys had entered his arcade, were tricked into returning after leaving, and then were never heard from again. The circumstance of instructing other primary school students to trick them was also a key clue pointing to Jin Xiangwu—those exploited children became witnesses, and their statements outlined the fact that the three were brought back to the arcade.
From the incident on February 27 to the arrest of the perpetrators on March 5, the Luoyang police took six days to complete the investigation. After Jin Xiangwu was captured, the full sequence of the case was reconstructed: from the three overspending and slipping away, to Jin Xiangwu tricking them back, to the killings, the moving of the bodies, the burning of the bodies to destroy evidence, and the participation of his elder brother Jin Xiangyu. The rapid resolution of the case benefited on the one hand from the pressure created by the close attention of the families and society after the three boys’ disappearance, and on the other hand from the many traceable links left in Jin Xiangwu’s chain of crime—the primary school students he instructed, the clear location of the arcade, and the movements of the two brothers in moving the bodies.
V. Trial and Judgment
After the investigation was concluded, the Luoyang Municipal People’s Procuratorate reviewed the case promptly and filed a public prosecution. On March 27, 2000, the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court held a hearing on the case. The court found that Jin Xiangwu, after the three primary school students left because they had overspent by 2.5 yuan, tricked them into returning by deceptive means and killed them; his actions constituted intentional homicide, with extremely vile circumstances and extremely serious consequences, and he was sentenced in the first instance to death with deprivation of political rights for life. Jin Xiangyu, knowing that his younger brother had killed people, still assisted in moving the bodies and burning them to destroy evidence, constituting the crime of covering up, and was given a heavier sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.