"We are Wuhan police, do you know why we are looking for you?"

  "I know, this day has finally come."

  Shen Mouli did not resist.

Before the police came in, he had just helped his father out of bed and took care of him to wash.

Before being taken away, he made a request to settle his father.

After the police agreed, he walked to the bed, gently took off his father's shoes, and helped him to lie down on the bed.

He is already familiar with this set of movements. For many years, his only job has been to take care of his sick father.

  This is the scene of the arrest of a murder suspect in a community in Guancheng District, Zhengzhou City, Henan Province on the afternoon of August 25.

  On the afternoon of April 27, 1992, a robbery and murder case occurred in a residential building in Jianghan District, Wuhan City. The victim was a 63-year-old woman.

The police judged that the suspects were two young men who were committing crimes on the fly. After nearly a year of investigation, the case has reached a bottleneck.

For 28 years, it has been difficult to make fundamental progress in the case.

  In June of this year, in a special operation to compare accumulated fingerprint homicide cases organized by the Ministry of Public Security, the Wuhan police obtained important clues from one of the suspects, and the investigation of the case showed light.

  The day after Shen Mouli was arrested, his accomplice and suspect Yu Mouhai was also arrested in Zhengzhou.

  So far, the case has become the longest homicide case uncovered by the Wuhan Public Security Bureau in recent years.

Homicide case caused by "make some money"

  "Your mother has something wrong, go home quickly!" Wu Hua's heart sank and put down the phone. He didn't dare to imagine what happened to his mother, so he hurried from his work to his mother's house.

  Zeng Xiumin's family is located in an old residential building in Jianghan District. The family has three sons.

Usually, she lives here with her husband and second son who has not yet married.

Street view of the community where Zeng Xiumin was killed.

Photo / Beijing News reporter Zhang Shengpo photo

  Wu Hua is the youngest of the family. When he rushed to the door of the unit building, the onlookers had surrounded the door and Zeng Xiumin was about to be carried into an ambulance.

Wu Hua seemed to have realized what was going on. He grabbed the door of the car and shouted "This is my mother". The staff stopped him and told him that the injured had to be rescued.

  28 years later, Wu Hua can't remember who called him to inform him, but he still remembers the scene where he grabbed the car door and called to his mother.

  According to the case report issued by the police: This is a robbery and murder case that evolved from a burglary case. There were two suspects, in their early twenties, of medium build. After they pried open the door of the deceased’s house with steel rods, they were discovered by the deceased during the theft. , And later killed him and escaped.

  It can be seen from the police investigation records that the suspect's modus operandi was not clever or even slightly clumsy. A large number of their fingerprints, steel drills used to pry the door were left on the scene, and there was even blood stains from one of them.

  After arriving at the case, Shen Mouli confessed to the police that they had committed the crime: he and Yu Mouhai met when they were teenagers and had a good relationship. In April 1992, they discussed taking a train from Zhengzhou to Wuhan to travel. Get some money by the way" (referring to theft).

The two each brought a folding knife.

After playing for a few days, the two of them had little money left, and the plan to "make some money" was implemented.

After strolling around, they came to the community where Zeng Xiumin was located and randomly selected her home.

Shen Li looked at the wind, and Yu was responsible for prying the door.

  However, they did not know that it was just after dinner in the afternoon. Zeng Xiumin was taking a nap. The two people who mistakenly thought that there was no one in the house pried open the door of the house and entered the living room, and heard an abnormal noise coming out of the bedroom. Zeng Xiumin met head on.

  Shen Mouli confessed, Zeng Xiumin panicked and began to shout, he and Yu Mouhai also panicked, and pulled the old man into the house together. Seeing the old man shouting constantly, they stabbed the old man with the folding knife they carried.

  The autopsy report revealed that Zeng Xiumin was hit at $17.

  After stealing more than 100 yuan in cash from Zeng Xiumin's home, the two hurriedly fled the scene.

The escape life of two suspects

  After escaping from Zeng Xiumin's house, Shen and Yu went straight to the railway station and drove back to Zhengzhou.

Because during the assault, Shen Mouli accidentally stabbed Yu Mouhai's left arm, he was a little "guilt", after arriving in Zhengzhou, the two went to Zhengzhou First People's Hospital to treat the wound for Yu Mouhai.

  "Later we went home separately." Shen Mouli confessed. Since then, the two continue to live in Zhengzhou as usual, and the trip to Wuhan has become a tacit secret for the two.

  Shen's mother-in-law, Wang Xiuhua, told reporters that Shen's mother died when she was very young. His father was assigned to a state-owned enterprise in Zhengzhou after he was discharged from the army and brought up Shen and a daughter alone.

Around 2005, Shen Mouli married his eldest daughter Zhang Lijuan. The two met at an electronics factory in Zhengzhou. At that time, Shen Mouli was 35 years old and had a primary school education and was a freight driver in an electronics factory. Zhang Lijuan had just graduated from college. Soon, he was in charge of reception work in the factory.

  At first, taking into account the education and age gap between the two, she did not agree with her daughter and Shen Mouli's marriage, but her daughter said that Shen Mouli took good care of her in life during her renting work in Zhengzhou.

  "For my sister and her marriage, my mother cried for a week at the time." Zhang Lijuan's younger sister Zhang Lixiu recalled. At that time, her sister only thought that Shen Mouli was good to her and that she was safe, so she decided to stay with him.

  Zhang Lixiu said that at the time, there was an unwritten rule in the electronics factory that the husband and wife could not work in the factory at the same time. Shen Mouli quietly quit her job in order to be with her sister, allowing her sister to keep her job.

  After resigning, Mr. Shen has delivered goods in the supermarket, drove an ambulance to the hospital, and drove a fast food restaurant by himself. However, for various reasons, he did not last long for each job and did not save much savings. .

Many years after marriage, he and his wife both rented houses.

  Wang Xiuhua said that about three or four years ago, her daughter borrowed money to buy a second-hand house in an old community. The house is about 110 square meters. It is occupied by her daughter's family of three and Shen Mouli's 70-year-old father.

In recent years, in order to take care of his sick father, Shen has completely stopped working and basically depends on his father’s monthly pension of about 3,000.

  Zhang Lijuan rarely talks to her parents about her married life. Wang Xiuhua only meets with Shen Mouli during the holidays. When it comes to this son-in-law, she can hardly give a specific and detailed evaluation, but vaguely feel that the son-in-law is not only very much to his father. For filial piety, he treats his daughters and granddaughters more generally.

Shen seldom transports his daughter to and from school like other parents. Most of his energy seems to be devoted to caring for his father, while the task of caring for his daughter basically falls on Zhang Lijuan.

  Because they live in the urban area of ​​Zhengzhou, Zhang Lixiu and Shen Mouli have more contact than their mother.

In her impression, Shen Mouli's "temper is okay", but she found that Shen Mouli often fell silent when eating, and was alone in a daze. Once, she teased her brother-in-law and said, "Is she a little depressed", Shen Mouli Answer, "I do have a mental problem."

  "He did feel a little depressed, but we thought he was joking at the time," Zhang Lixiu said.

  It is less than two kilometers on foot from Shen's home to Yu's Hai's home in the back street of Yanchang, but Shen's confession stated that the two have not communicated with each other for more than 20 years, and they have no WeChat or phone calls to each other.

The last time I met was a few days before I was caught, "I met on the road, said hello and left."

  The policeman handling the case had verified the relevant situation with Yu Mouhai. His explanation was that Shen Mouli had a habit of taking drugs a few years ago, and “something will happen sooner or later”, and he was afraid that this would involve the events of the year.

  Unlike Shen who needs to be unemployed to take care of the elderly at home, he has enjoyed many years of retirement.

  Yu Mouhai’s brother, Yu Mouming, told reporters that Yu Mouhai is 51 years old this year and has a son and a daughter. His daughter had been married the year before, and his son had just entered college.

Since the 1990s, Yu has worked as a temporary worker in the community defense team, as a security guard at a railway station, ran a kiosk at home, and worked in an underwear factory in Zhengzhou.

More than 20 years ago, he bought two houses near the residential area for rent. In the past ten years, he has hardly worked anymore, and his source of income is about 3,000 yuan in rent per month.

  Speaking of "Lao Yu", the old residents in the backstreet of the cigarette factory rarely know it.

Long Zhiqiang is 57 years old this year, and he grew up in the back street of Yanchang with Yu. He is the head of the residential building where Yu is located. He remembers that Yu dropped out of school after graduating from junior high school.

Long Zhiqiang said that he had hardly heard that such a sea had quarreled with others. "He is the kind of person who just waved his hand and stopped contacting the other party even if he was scolded. I definitely can't do it. ."

According to the street scene near the residential area where Yu Mouhai's family is located, a neighbor introduced that Yu Mouhai grew up here.

Photo / Beijing News reporter Zhang Shengpo photo

  Yumou’s family lives on the first floor. On weekdays, his daily fixed arrangement is to sit on the stone bench at the gate of the community and make a pot of hot tea. When he meets the neighbourhood, he asks people to drink tea and go home.

Once, Long Zhiqiang accompany him to drink tea, admonishing him during a chat that he should save money when he is old.

After a while, Yu told him that he had saved 10,000 yuan.

  Li Hui lives on the upper floor of Yu's Hai's house. In 1997, Yu met him when he was still in the shop. But over the years, he and Yu were only "nodding acquaintances" and didn't communicate much.

He noticed that Yu has a habit of never smoking cigarettes handed over by others, but only smokes a cheap cigarette of a local brand in Zhengzhou, "three yuan a pack."

  Wang Tao also noticed Yu Mouhai’s smoking habit and once consulted a criminal psychology teacher. The teacher told him that this may be Yu Mouhai’s over-defensive psychology. For example, he was afraid that someone would harm him by passing cigarettes. .

On October 15th, the locked door of Yu's home.

Photo / Beijing News reporter Zhang Shengpo photo

Inter-provincial hunt after 28 years

  Before taking over this case, Wang Tao had hesitated.

  He has been working at Wansong Police Station in Jianghan District, Wuhan City for 27 years, and he is almost at the age of retirement. In the second year of the incident, he had just started working.

"If you can't solve it, don't you give yourself a face." Wang Tao said that in July this year, after reading the file of that year, he gradually gained confidence and determined to take up the unsettled case 28 years ago.

  It was a pile of handwritten case files with a thickness of more than ten centimeters. The paper had turned yellow. It clearly recorded the on-site investigation transcripts and the process of the investigation.

  "After the incident, we collected five or six hundred personal information about the victims and the suspects, and compared them with the trace evidence extracted on the spot, but none of them overlapped." Hu Bin, head of the technical team of the Criminal Investigation Brigade, Jianghan Branch According to the introduction, at that time, the Criminal Investigation Department of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, the Jianghan District Bureau and the Wansong Police Station organized a large number of police forces to continuously expand the scope of detection, and to check the clues received one by one, and the high-risk and suspicious districts near the crime scene such as Jianghan, Jiangan and Qiaokou The personnel conducted a carpet inspection, and the interrogation and interrogation transcripts produced by the police were fifty to sixty centimeters high.

  "At that time, all the trace material evidence comparison work had to be performed manually. When encountering unclear material evidence, it may take more than half a day to compare one." Xiong Hanjie said, he was a technical investigator of the Jianghan branch at the time. The murder of Zeng Xiumin was the first homicide he entered the Criminal Investigation Technical Team to participate in the investigation.

  The investigation has been carried out for nearly a year before and after, but because video surveillance has not yet become popular that year, after it was basically determined that the two suspects were committing crimes and one of them was bleeding, the whereabouts of the suspects became a mystery, and it was difficult to make a major breakthrough in the case.

“Later, there was no one who could compare the evidence on the scene, and the case encountered a bottleneck.” Xiong Hanjie said that for many years thereafter, the technical team would input the evidence on the scene into the database for comparison at regular intervals, but Still nothing.

The case then entered a period of stagnation for up to 28 years.

  The turning point came in July this year.

In June, after the Wuhan epidemic, the Jianghan police reported to the Ministry of Public Security the traces and evidence collected on the spot in the Zeng Xiumin case in order to cooperate with the special operation of the concentrated comparison of fingerprint homicide cases organized by the Ministry of Public Security. One month later, the Ministry of Public Security sent a message: reported The trace evidence was successfully compared with the relevant characteristics of a Henan man.

  A 2012 criminal verdict issued by the Zhengzhou Guancheng District Court showed that in 2012, Shen Mouli sold a drug called "Huangpi". The police detected heroin from the drug and Shen Mouli was sentenced to detention. Two months.

His personal information was entered into the database of the public security system.

  “If this information comparison is not successful, the prospects for the investigation of the case are still not optimistic.” Hu Bin said that after determining the identity of the suspect, the task force spent another month to fix the evidence and investigate the suspect’s living conditions. Decided to go to Zhengzhou on August 25 for arrest.

Part of the file of the year.

Photo / Beijing News reporter Zhang Shengpo photo

Victim's son: I don't know whether to grieve or be pleased

  On the high-speed rail that was taken back to Wuhan from Zhengzhou, Shen's hands began to tremble. During the two-hour journey, he looked at the roof of the car and said nothing.

After arriving in Hankou, he proposed to call his wife. On the phone, he told Zhang Lijuan that he had arrived in Wuhan and might not go back this time.

  This is Shen's second visit to Wuhan in his life. Wang Tao remembers that he walked very slowly on the way out of the station.

  "It's been 28 years, but my heart is actually quite tormented. I often have headaches and can't sleep well..." Shen Mouli and Wang Tao said in the interrogation room.

  When the news of the investigation came, the second child Wu Jian was a little "surprised." He couldn't tell whether he should be grief or gratified. His mother's sisters were all high-lived. If there were no accidents, her mother might still be alive.

  For 28 years, the three brothers have always felt guilty about their mother. When the three of them sit together, they often talk about their mother's case unconsciously, but they always deliberately stop the conversation abruptly.

  "The thing I can't let go of is the 17 knives. How would it feel to be hit by those knives?" Wu Jian said.

  Zeng Xiumin's wife, Wu Tiecheng, is 96 years old. In the first half of last year, he warned his three sons that the case should still be questioned and the grievances should be reported.

  After the epidemic this year, he was seriously ill and was admitted to the hospital, making it difficult to communicate with the outside world.

"Now I just understand it in my heart."

Wu Jian said that after learning about the investigation of the case, his father nodded desperately and burst into tears, but he could no longer speak.

  Wu Jian said that after the verdict, they will go to the mother's grave and tell her formally about the investigation of the case.

  Zhang Lijuan doesn't want to care about Shen's affairs anymore. The two divorced last year, but they still live in a house.

  Last year, Shen Mouli divorced his wife. This is Shen Mouli’s bedroom. Photo/Photo by Beijing News reporter Zhang Shengpo

  "The gap between academic qualifications and age is still too big. If you can't talk about a lot of things together, you will leave because of disagreement." Zhang Lijuan said that she didn't know anything about Shen's things before marriage. Her daughter was only 12 years old and she didn't want her daughter. Affected by this incident, "I just want to lead a dull life with my daughter."

  Ten days after Shen Mouli was taken away, his father died.

Now, the house where the old man used to live has been cleaned up, and there is no trace of Shen and his son living here.

The bedroom where Shen Mouli's father once lived.

Photo / Beijing News reporter Zhang Shengpo photo

  (Shen Mouli, Yu Mouhai, Wu Hua, Zeng Xiumin, Wang Xiuhua, Zhang Lijuan, Zhang Lixiu, Long Zhiqiang, Li Hui, Wu Jian, and Wu Tie became pseudonyms in the text.)

  Text | Beijing News reporter Zhang Shengpo