 |
| In January, 13,000 police officers were deployed to search for Zeng Kaigui, after he shot dead his latest victim in the city of Nanjing. Zeng is suspected of killing six people in a rash of armed robberies since 2004, and has yet to be caught |
A 56-year-old farmer has been arrested for murder in a southern
Chinese village where 17 people, almost all teenagers, have vanished in
recent years.
When children started disappearing in Nanmen village, near the Chinese
city of Kunming, their distraught parents believed they had been kidnapped
to work in illegal brick factories.
No one thought, according to the parents of one missing teenager, that Zhang
Yongming, a quiet, chess-playing, farmer who lived in a wooden shack on the
edge of the village, might be responsible.
But on May 9, police investigating the disappearance of Han Yao, a 19-year-old
boy, found his bank and telephone calling cards inside Zhang's home. They
arrested the farmer shortly afterwards.
The teenager had gone missing in April, and was last seen near a large cold
storage unit a few hundred yards from Mr Zhang's house. As his family asked
around the village of a few thousand people, they discovered that at least
eight other youths had gone missing in exactly the same area in the last
five years, six of whom vanished in the last 15 months.
Now there are suspicions that Mr Zhang may be linked to as many as 17 deaths.
As the families of the missing children gathered outside his house earlier
this month, they witnessed policemen removing several green plastic bags of
evidence, including one that appeared to contain at least one bone.
"I know Zhang. Not a single person in the village doubted him until now,"
said Li Yudong, 42, whose 12-year-old son Hanxiong went missing on May 1,
2007. "Zhang never spoke to anyone, not even the people who lived next
to him. We used to see him every day but we never paid any attention to him.
Now, like everyone else, I think he may be responsible for my son's
disappearance.
We are all worried in the village, and the children are being escorted to and from school these days."
Mr Li said he had been working on the farm on the day his son had disappeared, and was surprised not to find him at home for lunch. When he did not return by 5pm, he reported the case to the police.
"We searched for him for months. We thought he must have been sent to work in a sweatshop or brick kiln. We spent all of our savings, some 80,000 yuan (£8,000) searching for him".
The local police has now admitted that Mr Zhang was sentenced to life for murder in 1978, in a case where he had dismembered his victim.
However, he was released in 1997.
Then, last December, he was found trying to strangle a 17-year-old, Zhang Jianyuan, with a belt outside his house. At the time, the villagers called the police, but Zhang laughed off the episode, saying that he was just fooling with the boy.
"We reported to the police that Zhang had tried to strangle this boy, but they simply told us he was mentally ill," said Xie Shunsheng, 39, whose 16 year-old boy Haijun went missing in January 2011.
"We are now going to the police station everyday, but they are not releasing any news, so we have no idea how the investigation is going," he added.
A special team has been sent from the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing to carry out the investigation, while the local police chief, Da Qiming, and another police official Zhao Huiyun, have been dismissed for failing to act on so many disappearances. The police declined to comment on the case.
Cai Wen, 40, whose 17-year-old boy Cai Yunwei went missing in February, said the entire village was tensed for the findings of the investigation. "People are nervous. We are begging the government to find our son for us."
Although China has a relatively low rate of violent crime, it has seen a spate of serial killings in recent years. In January, 13,000 police officers and two helicopters were deployed to search for Zeng Kaigui, a former People's Liberation Army soldier, after he shot dead his latest victim in the city of Nanjing. Zeng is suspected of killing six people in a rash of armed robberies since 2004, and has yet to be caught.
Last November, police arrested Yang Shubin and three of his associates. Yang would seduce women in bars before bringing them home, where his gang would tie them up and torture them for their bank details. Later, they chopped up their victims and fed them through a mincing machine.
Between 1998 and 2004, the gang made 2 million yuan (£200,000) from its victims.
In September, a low-level government official in Henan province was found to have set up a sex dungeon in which he had kept several women captive, and killed at least two.
In 2006, Yang Xinhai, the "monster killer" was convicted of killing 65 men, women and children.
We are all worried in the village, and the children are being escorted to and from school these days."
Mr Li said he had been working on the farm on the day his son had disappeared, and was surprised not to find him at home for lunch. When he did not return by 5pm, he reported the case to the police.
"We searched for him for months. We thought he must have been sent to work in a sweatshop or brick kiln. We spent all of our savings, some 80,000 yuan (£8,000) searching for him".
The local police has now admitted that Mr Zhang was sentenced to life for murder in 1978, in a case where he had dismembered his victim.
However, he was released in 1997.
Then, last December, he was found trying to strangle a 17-year-old, Zhang Jianyuan, with a belt outside his house. At the time, the villagers called the police, but Zhang laughed off the episode, saying that he was just fooling with the boy.
"We reported to the police that Zhang had tried to strangle this boy, but they simply told us he was mentally ill," said Xie Shunsheng, 39, whose 16 year-old boy Haijun went missing in January 2011.
"We are now going to the police station everyday, but they are not releasing any news, so we have no idea how the investigation is going," he added.
A special team has been sent from the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing to carry out the investigation, while the local police chief, Da Qiming, and another police official Zhao Huiyun, have been dismissed for failing to act on so many disappearances. The police declined to comment on the case.
Cai Wen, 40, whose 17-year-old boy Cai Yunwei went missing in February, said the entire village was tensed for the findings of the investigation. "People are nervous. We are begging the government to find our son for us."
Although China has a relatively low rate of violent crime, it has seen a spate of serial killings in recent years. In January, 13,000 police officers and two helicopters were deployed to search for Zeng Kaigui, a former People's Liberation Army soldier, after he shot dead his latest victim in the city of Nanjing. Zeng is suspected of killing six people in a rash of armed robberies since 2004, and has yet to be caught.
Last November, police arrested Yang Shubin and three of his associates. Yang would seduce women in bars before bringing them home, where his gang would tie them up and torture them for their bank details. Later, they chopped up their victims and fed them through a mincing machine.
Between 1998 and 2004, the gang made 2 million yuan (£200,000) from its victims.
In September, a low-level government official in Henan province was found to have set up a sex dungeon in which he had kept several women captive, and killed at least two.
In 2006, Yang Xinhai, the "monster killer" was convicted of killing 65 men, women and children.
0 komentar:
Speak up your mind
Tell us what you're thinking... !