At 5 PM on January 27, 2011, in Houbudonghu Village, Dengyoufang Town, Kangbao County, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, a shepherd named Mr. Qin was grazing his sheep in a small grove as usual. He suddenly noticed a strange phenomenon: several sheep scattered in different directions as if trying to avoid something. Mr. Qin found it puzzling, so he wanted to find out what was going on. When he walked over to that spot, he saw a dark mass in front of him. By then it was already getting dark, and Mr. Qin could not determine what it was, so he drove the flock home.

The next afternoon, Mr. Qin again drove his sheep to this small grove. When he approached the dark mass, he became certain that what he saw was a burned corpse.

Panicked, Mr. Qin hurriedly ran back to the village and reported the situation to the village officials, who then called the police.

When the police examined the scene, they found the body lying on its side on the ground, head south and feet north, in a curled-up posture. Police found a red bottle cap at the scene. They smelled it and detected the odor of diesel, which meant the body had likely been burned on the spot. In addition, there were clear motorcycle tire tracks at the scene. From this, the police inferred that after the victim was killed, he had been transported there by motorcycle and burned. So the biggest question facing the police was: who was the deceased?

If the deceased had been transported there by motorcycle for cremation, then the primary crime scene should not be far from this place.

South of the small grove, the police found another set of motorcycle tire tracks very similar to those at the cremation scene, and farther south were several villages. Therefore, the police preliminarily judged that the primary crime scene should be somewhere south of the small grove.

By this time, three hours had passed since the body was discovered, and the police still had no effective leads. In order to obtain valuable clues as quickly as possible, the forensic doctor performed an autopsy on the body.

Due to human instinctive reaction, at the scene where the body was burned, the deceased’s hands had been clasped over the shoulders in a hunched posture like a monkey, and the pockets of the deceased’s upper garment were blocked by the arms. But after the body was thawed at the funeral home, the deceased’s arms spread open, so the forensic doctor found a burned address book in the left upper pocket of the deceased.

After careful examination, the forensic doctor finally made a surprising discovery. The address book contained more than 10 phone numbers. Although most were burned and incomplete and could not be fully identified, after cautiously piecing together and checking each page, the forensic doctor found one complete mobile phone number and one mobile phone number missing a digit. Next to the complete mobile phone number was written the surname “Duan,” and next to the incomplete mobile phone number were the words “Third Sister.”

Following the only clue, the burned address book, the police began contacting the person with the complete mobile phone number, surnamed Duan. They found that the person was a villager from Beihao Village, Zhangji Town, Kangbao County, named Duan Zhong. The village where this person lived was in the southern area of the crime scene, and the motorcycle tire tracks found at the scene came from south of the small grove.

Based on these clues, the police quickly found Duan Zhong, hoping he could identify the deceased and provide some valuable clues for the investigation.

But when the police brought Duan Zhong to identify the deceased, some of his abnormal behavior immediately attracted the police’s attention.

At first, when the police asked Duan Zhong to identify photos of the corpse, he said he had no connection to the deceased. Later, the police discovered that the address book Duan Zhong carried also contained a phone number marked “Third Sister,” matching the phone number marked “Third Sister” in the deceased’s address book. Under repeated questioning by the investigating police, Duan Zhong said the deceased looked somewhat like his fourth brother-in-law, Liu Zhicheng.

Having grasped the key figure in the entire case, Duan Zhong, the police readily solved the whole case by following the trail.

It turned out that this was a murder case caused by family disputes. The three criminal suspects were Duan Zhong, Duan Zhong’s 84-year-old father-in-law Liu Xu, and Liu Xu’s eldest son Liu Zhiyuan. The deceased, Liu Zhicheng, was 46 years old and the youngest son of the criminal suspect Liu Xu.

An old man, together with his son-in-law and eldest son, had cruelly killed his youngest son and then burned the body to destroy the evidence. This alone was already unacceptable, and what was even more incredible was that on the third day after these three people were taken away by the police, local villagers spontaneously signed a joint petition to the judicial authorities pleading for these three criminal suspects.

Whenever the matter of Liu Xu killing his son was mentioned, the villagers became very agitated. In their eyes, the deceased Liu Zhicheng was a scourge in the village. He not only bullied his family but also harmed the surrounding neighbors. The villagers generally believed that Liu Zhicheng deserved to die, but they were full of sympathy for the three criminal suspects.

In his father Liu Xu’s impression, his youngest son Liu Zhicheng had many bad habits from childhood. At that time, when his father Liu Xu disciplined him a little, it still had some effect. But after Liu Zhicheng grew to 17, his father could no longer control him. After entering society, in the eyes of the villagers, Liu Zhicheng was a person who was lazy, idle, and even somewhat tyrannical. Because he had no proper job and spent money extravagantly, he often asked his parents and other relatives for money. Once his parents could not satisfy him, he would beat them.

On one occasion, Liu Zhicheng asked his father Liu Xu for his monthly subsistence allowance. Liu Xu said he did not have it. When Liu Zhicheng heard this, he flew into a rage. He tied his father to a motorcycle with a rope and dragged him along with the motorcycle, wanting to go together to Liu Zhicheng’s second sister’s place to ask for money. But could his father keep up with the speed of the motorcycle? In the end, Liu Zhicheng dragged his father more than ten meters with the motorcycle.

The eldest brother Liu Zhiyuan said that they did not dare tell the villagers about the family’s shameful affairs, fearing the villagers would laugh at them. Liu Zhicheng not only bullied his father, but did not even spare his mother. He beat his mother until she became incontinent. When his mother urinated on the ground, Liu Zhicheng made her lie on the ground and lick the urine clean. His mother was so ashamed and indignant that she took to her bed and died not long afterward. However, his mother’s death did not make Liu Zhicheng restrain himself. He became even more unbridled in demanding money and goods from his relatives to squander.

The money Liu Zhicheng obtained by all means was mainly spent in two areas: first, gambling; second, soliciting prostitutes. His father Liu Xu had saved more than 10,000 yuan by living frugally, originally intending to use it to get him a wife. But after Liu Zhicheng snatched the money away, he lost it all after gambling for two nights.

No one in the family dared resist Liu Zhicheng’s beatings and scoldings, because once anyone resisted, Liu Zhicheng would pick up a knife and try to slash them. Therefore, everyone could only endure silently.

At around 7:00 AM on January 27 of this year, Liu Zhicheng once again called his father Liu Xu demanding money. His father said he had no money. Liu Zhicheng would not accept this and told his father to go immediately to his eldest brother’s house in Dongjiaying Village. At that time, it was Duan Zhong who took his father-in-law there by motorcycle.

At around 11:00 AM, Liu Zhicheng, reeking of alcohol, arrived at his eldest brother Liu Zhiyuan’s house. As soon as he entered, he demanded money from his father. Because his father insisted on not giving it, Liu Zhicheng began to beat his father.

When Liu Zhiyuan and Duan Zhong saw this, they hurried forward to intervene, but as a result, Liu Zhicheng also began beating the two of them. After a period of chaos, Duan Zhong and the other two finally pinned Liu Zhicheng to the ground.

After being subdued by the three, Liu Zhicheng shouted at his father Liu Xu: “If you don’t kill me today, I’ll kill you!” Hearing these words, Liu Xu, in a fit of rage, lost his reason. He found a rope and tightly strangled Liu Zhicheng’s neck, killing him.

The three put Liu Zhicheng’s body into a hemp sack and placed it in the small west room of Liu Zhiyuan’s house. At around 7 PM, Duan Zhong and Liu Zhiyuan transported Liu Zhicheng’s body by motorcycle all the way to the woods north of Lianghuaiying Village, Chuzhangdi Township, Kangbao County, and burned it there.

In the end, the father Liu Xu was sentenced to 4 years in prison, with execution outside prison. Duan Zhong was sentenced to 2 years in prison, and Liu Zhiyuan was sentenced to 1 year in prison.