In January 2005, Wulanchabu city in Inner Mongolia was frozen, and a series of bloody tragedies made the whole Wulanchabu City tremble.
At 12:00 on January 2, 2005, a female corpse covered with corn straw and plastic film was found in Pingdiquan Town, Urumqi city.
The police initially judged that the deceased was a taxi driver who was raped and killed two hours ago.
Around the same time, a 22-year-old woman was raped in the wilderness,
A few days later, a 16-year-old female worker was raped and stabbed five times, and killed.
The police found the body of another raped and murdered woman in an abandoned tomb.
Feb.25 Serial Raping and Murdering was listed as the second major homicide case supervised by the Ministry of public security in 2005.
After more than 300 days of continuous investigation, the police finally had a target.
On October 23, 2005, a middle-aged man named Zhao Zhihong was arrested by the police. Later, the man confessed that he raped 27 times and killed 10 women in several years.
During the interrogation, Zhao Zhihong also confessed to the police the details of his rape and murder of a woman in a toilet in Hohhot nine years ago, His description of these details that suddenly alarmed the detectives in the interrogation room.
It turns out that the murder case confessed by Zhao Zhihong was “solved” by them as early as nine years ago.
At that time, an 18-year-old young man named Huggeletu was identified as the murderer, and was executed the same year.
In a major homicide case that has been concluded and executed, another murderer suddenly appeared nine years later, both men confessed raping and killing the same woman in the same toilet. Is this an unjust case, a wrong case, or a case in the case?
This rape and murder case, which made a sensation in those years, has surfaced again. There were two “killers” in a rape and murder case in 9 years!
The Department of Public Security of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region promptly summoned Yan Feng, a witness in the rape and murder case nine years ago.
Yan recalled, on the evening of April 9, 1996, his co-worker Huggeletu and he had dinner together, and then went back to the workshop for the night shift. Because they drank some wine, in order to cover up the smell of wine, Huggeletu went out to buy bubble gum,
In no time he returned. and told Yan Feng that something bad had happened. Hugejiletu took him straight to the factory’s public bathroom and told Yan Feng that he had heard someone screaming in the women’s bathroom on his way for shopping. Something terrible must have happened.
After arriving at the public washroom, they noticed the light was dim. The two men shouted twice outside the washroom, no one answered, they lit a lighter and decided to go in and find out.
They saw a woman lay partially naked against the low wall, with her lower part of body exposed.
The two young men ran out of the alley, and saw a security booth right at the intersection, Hugejiletu suggested to call the police, Yan Feng said no and suggested to go back to the workshop.
Hugejiletu called the police anyway.
After Hugejiletu reporting the case to the police, that night the police separated the two young men and interrogated them. The same set of questions were asked for over ten times.
Halfway through the interrogation, Yan Feng heard tables and chairs moving in the other interrogation room, quite loudly, And then he heard screaming.
In the early morning of the next day, the detectives closed their interrogation towards Yan Feng. Once he was released from the police office, he came to Hugejiletu’s mother Aiyun Shang, and told her what had happened during the bloody night.
The horrible news brought by Yan Feng worried Jiggeletu’s parents.
After spending 48 hours in anxiety, the security guards of the No.1 Wool Mill approached them, that afternoon, they told them that the Xinchen Police Office had ordered them to get Hugejiletu’s bedding from his home, and told the poor family that their son had confessed to the murder.
Since then, Hugejiletu has been held in a detention center.
Later, after the first trial, the Intermediate People’s Court of Hohhot released their verdict, which says,
on the night of April 9, 1996, Hugejiletu slipped into a public toilet after drinking, raped and killed a young woman who was in the toilet.
Hugejiletu was sentenced to death for committing hooliganism and murder.
He appealed against the verdict of the first instance.
While waiting for the verdict of the second instance, his father Sanren Li saw the reasons for appeal written by his son, in the detention center, which says:
First, my joke with Yan Feng can not be used as witness testimony.
Second, I’m not afraid of death, but I want to die without being misjudged, I didn’t even try to strangle her, where did the blood come from?
Third, I am still young, I can still make contributions to the country.
What really happened was, Yan Feng, the colleague, expressed his concern while stopping Hugejiletu from reporting the case. He said to the young co-worker that the police might consider them as suspects.
“Even if you say you did it, the police would never it was us once they finish the investigation.” Hugejiletu replied.
And these words eventually became part of Hugejiletu’s incriminating testimony.
In addition, the most important hard evidence of the case is that the remaining blood sample from the finger suture of Huggeletu is completely consistence with the blood sample of the victim at her throat where she was strangled. However, based on the memory of a police officer who was in charge of the first scene investigation. no wounds and blood had been found on the body of the deceased.
The most important suspicion is that the police did not even compare the semen of Huggeletu with the residual semen in the victim’s corpse.
On June 5, 1996, Inner Mongolia Higher People’s Court ruled in the second instance: the original judgment should be maintained.
Five days later, Huggeletu was taken to the execution ground and shot. On the same day, his mother Aiyun Shang received a notice to collect his son’s body.
Qinggeletu was Hugejiletu’s third younger brother, only sixteen years old at the time. After Hugejiletu was executed, he took care of the cremation for his second older brother at the crematorium.
Qinggenetu recalls, he wrapped the body with a piece of cloth when he removed it from the stretcher, because it was very bloody, and he noticed his brother’s arms were very skinny.On the body of Hugejiletu there were deep and horrible marks showing that he had been strangled with rope.
After carrying it to the autopsy room, Qinggeletu saw two bullet holes on the corpse of his elder brother, once at the temple on the head, another at the back of the head.
Their mother Aiyun Shang told reporters, the young man may still be alive after the first shot, so they added the second shot.
On the northern plateau, spring comes late every year.
Even at Tomb-sweeping Day, it is still desolate and cold surrounding the grave of Hugejiletu.
For decades, Aiyun Shang has insisted to visit the grave of her son on this special day.
After Hugejiletu was shot, the couple had to bear the pain of losing their son, and also a bad name of their son being a rapist and murderer.Yet the legal verdict was final, unchangeable.
There was little the couple could do other than emotionally conclude that their son was incapable of rape or murder.
If the real murderer never comes out, there will be no way to prove his innocence.
On october 23, 2005, the serious serial rape and murder case in Ulanqab was finally solved. The suspect zhao Zhihong was arrested.
He confessed to 27 rapes and 10 murders over a ten-year period.
Among them was the Apr.9 Rape and Murder Case that took place in No.1 Wool Mill, Hohhot City, in 1996.
Such confession really alarmed the police.
They arranged senior police officers to interrogate Zhao Zhihong in turn, regarding the Apr.9 Rape and Murder Case.
Once week later, the police took Zhao Zhihong to the No.1 Wool Mill, to identify and restore the crime scene.
On November 28, 2006, The Huhu Intermediate People’s Court tried zhao Zhihong’s rape and murder case in private.
On Nov.28, 2006, the Huhohhot Intermediate People’s Court tried Zhao Zhihong’s rape and murder case in a closed court.
Out of all people’s expectation,
Out of everyone’s expectation,
When the public prosecution charged Zhao Zhihong, it accidentally forgot the Apr.9 Rape and Murder Case.
In court, when the prosecutor asked Zhao Zhihong to confess to the 9 cases,
Interestingly, even Zhao Zhihong himself curiously asked the prosecutors: But I killed ten, not nine! Why don’t you ask me what happened in the toilet at the No.1 Wool Mill’s worker family yard, about the rape and murder?
Tang Ji, a journalist at Xinhua News’s Inner Mongalia Bureau, has been following the case.
He made an urgent report to the central committee in the form of internal reference.
The Inner Mongolia Political and Legal Committee formed a verification team to review the case and concluded that there was insufficient evidence to sentence Hugejiletu to death.
On November 20, 2014, the Hugejiletu case was retried. On December 15, the Higher People’s Court of The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region acquitted Hugejiletu, the defendant in the original trial, and started the accountability process and state compensation.
On December 30, Inner Mongolia High People’s Court made a state compensation decision according to law, and decided to pay a total of 2,059,621.40 yuan to Li Sanren and Shang Aiyun.
On July 30, 2019, the Intermediate People’s Court of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, in accordance with the execution order, issued by the president of the Supreme People’s Court, executed zhao Zhihong, a criminal,
