Anhui's public toilet tossing case will be retried 13 years ago. In this case, a suspect was abolished.
Beijing News (reporter Zhang Jingshu intern Bo Qiyu) On July 6, Yang Zhongfen received a notice from the Anhui Provincial High Court to file a case review, and his 9-year-old son Zhou Yang’s murder will start a retrial.
The case occurred 13 years ago. Zhou Yang’s body was found in a public toilet. In 2011, the court first sentenced Zuo Degang, one of the defendants, to death for intentional homicide.
After Zuo Degang filed an appeal, the case underwent 5 trials in the next 9 years, including 4 times Zuo Degang was sentenced to death. However, in the final judgment on May 25 this year, Zuo Degang's death sentence was revoked, and his sentence has now been released.
"I have appealed to the court many times, and the appeal is to maintain Zuo Degang's death sentence." Yang Zhongfen said, as for the retrial time, the court has not yet notified.
9-year-old boy was killed in public toilet and found 43 days later
On February 25, 2007, Yang Zhongfen, a self-employed person in Yingshang County, Anhui Province, received notification from the police that the body of 9-year-old son Zhou Yang was found in the public toilet of the original district government in Jiangdianzi Town.
According to the criminal scientific appraisal from Yingshang County Public Security Bureau and the photos of the corpses, Zhou Yang caused mechanical suffocation due to neck injury.
The case has not been resolved. Until 2010, a suspect in a theft case reported to the judiciary that associates Zuo Degang, Chen Yongxuan, and Yang Shiqing were suspected of killing Zhou Yang.
On May 3, 2011, the Fuyang Intermediate Court opened the case to hear the case. The court found that Zuo Degang was guilty of intentional homicide and sentenced to death; to commit theft and sentenced to life imprisonment. Of the remaining two, Chen Yongxuan was sentenced to probation and Yang Shiqing was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The judgment document sorted out the process of the case. On January 13, 2007, Zuo Degang suspected that Zhou Yang had stolen the external air conditioner of his Internet cafe. He invited Chen Yongxuan and Yang Shiqing to find Jiang Yang at the gate of Jiangdian Middle School, and took him to the car shop near the original government of the town of Jiangdian Zizhen After punching and kicking, Zhou Yang fled to the public toilet and was chased by three people. Chen Yongxuan used Sheng Le and Zuo Degang to pinch Zhou Yang's neck by hand and killed him. The latter three threw the head of Zhou Yang's body south into the toilet pit and fled the scene by car.
Six trials of the case, the death penalty of a suspect was revoked
After the first trial, Zuo Degang filed an appeal. In the following 9 years, the case was returned for retrial for 4 times, and went through 5 more trials, of which Zuo Degang was sentenced to death 4 times.
The Beijing News reporter combed the verdicts in the case and found that after Zuo Degang’s first appeal, on 6 December 2011, the Anhui Provincial High Court made a ruling that part of the facts found in the original judgment were unclear and the evidence was insufficient, and ruled to revoke the original Sentenced and sent back for retrial.
The following year, Fuyang Intermediate People’s Court sentenced him to death again for intentional homicide. Zuo Degang appealed again. On October 29, 2013, the Anhui Provincial High Court held the original sentence of death sentence after the trial.
Since then, the case has been submitted to the Supreme People's Court for approval twice and was ruled to be sent back for retrial.
On May 25, 2020, the Anhui High Court made the final judgment. The judgment documents show that the court held that the original judgment found that the evidence of Zuo Degang and other three persons' intentional killing mainly relied on verbal evidence, but there was a contradiction in the key plots between Zuo Degang and his guilty confession. First, there are contradictions and the doubts have not been reasonably ruled out.
Therefore, Zuo Degang's death sentence was revoked and he was sentenced to nine years in prison for theft.
The complaint of the victim’s mother is launched again
After the final judgment of the Anhui Provincial High People's Court on May 25, Yang Zhongfen repeatedly approached the court to appeal and asked the court to file a case for review. "My appeal is to hope that the court can maintain the previous death sentence."
Yang Zhongfen said that according to the final judgment of the Anhui Provincial High Court in May this year, the nine-year prison sentence for the crime of theft committed by Zuo Degang has expired, and he was just released from prison not long ago. After many complaints, on July 6, she waited for the notice of the case review of the Higher People's Court of Anhui Province, and Zhou Yang's murder will start a retrial.