In 2007, 16-year-old Zhou Yang, a 16-year-old boy in Jiangdianzi Town, Yingshang County, Fuyang City, Anhui Province, was killed because his body was found in a public toilet in the town. This case is also known as the "juvenile sunken corpse case."

　　Three years after Zhou Yang was murdered, the public security organs targeted Zuo Degang, a villager in Jiangdianzi Town, and three other suspects.

In the following 10 years, Zuo Degang experienced many life and death ups and downs: the Fuyang Intermediate Court was sentenced to death in the first instance, and the case was sent back for retrial and then sentenced to death. Later, the Anhui High Court maintained the death sentence, but the Supreme Law did not approve the death penalty. The case went back to the Fuyang Intermediate People’s Court, which sentenced Zuo Degang to death for the third time. The Anhui High Court upheld the sentence. The Supreme Law again denied the death penalty. In June 2020, the Anhui High Court will retry Zuo Degang. crime.

　　The matter is still not over. More than a month later, Zuo Degang was arrested again. After that, the Anhui High Court announced its decision to retry the case.

　　Zhou Yang’s mother, Yang Zhongfen’s mentality, has been constantly changing with each judgment, but Yang Zhongfen’s appeal is only one: the hope that the law will severely punish the murderer of his son.

　　On November 24, Yang Zhongfen told The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) that she hoped and believed that the Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court could find out the facts that had not been ascertained before, and give her son justice.

　　Xu Xin, Zuo Degang's defender, said that there was no new evidence in the retrial. He hoped that the Anhui Provincial High Court would again acquit Zuo Degang.

　　The 16-year-old boy was sentenced to death in the “sinking public toilet” and the owner of the Internet cafe was sentenced to death

　　Zhou Yang is the only son in the family and grew up with his grandparents.

　　On the afternoon of January 14, 2007, Zhou Yang went missing after going out to play.

On February 25 of the same year (the eighth day of the Lunar New Year), a villager found a corpse when he went to the toilet of the original town government to collect manure.

It was identified that the deceased was Zhou Yang, who had been missing for more than a month. The cause of death was mechanical suffocation caused by a neck injury.

　　After the incident, the public security organs conducted a large number of investigations, but they have never been able to locate the suspect.

　　According to the first-instance judgment of the case, in October 2009, Liu Daosheng, a man from Huangba Township, Yingshang County, was arrested on suspicion of theft.

Later, during the police interrogation, Liu Daosheng provided a major clue: Zhou Yang was killed by Zuo Degang and others.

At this time, three years have passed since Zhou Yang's body was discovered.

　　Liu Daosheng’s testimony stated: When he chatted with Zuo Degang, the other party said that Zhou Yang took him several hundred dollars and stole his air conditioner.

Angrily, Zuo Degang, Yang Shiqing and Chen Yongxuan took Zhou Yang to the side of the expressway and killed him and threw them into the toilet in the original town government courtyard.

　　53-year-old Zuo Degang is also a native of Jiangdianzi, and he ran an Internet cafe in the town when the crime occurred.

He was sentenced to one and a half years imprisonment and one and a half years probation for the crime of intentional injury in 2006.

In October 2009, Zuo Degang, Liu Daosheng and others were detained by the Yingshang County Public Security Bureau on suspicion of theft.

　　Subsequently, Zuo Degang made a guilty confession during the police interrogation: he suspected that Zhou Yang had stolen the air conditioner of the Internet cafe, so he asked Yang Shiqing and Chen Yongxuan to ask Zhou Yang in Shi Xiujian's taxi.

Zhou Yang said that he didn't steal, and the three beat Zhou Yang.

Zhou Yang was knocked to the ground and ran away. The three of them rushed to the garbage dump in the public toilet. Chen Yongxuan used a rope to tie Zhou Yang’s neck from behind Zhou Yang. Zhou Yang stopped moving for five or six minutes.

Afterwards, Zuo Degang and Chen Yongxuan carried Zhou Yang's body to the toilet and threw it into the cesspit.

　　Chen Yongxuan’s confession in the investigative agency was basically the same as Zuo Degang’s confession, but there were discrepancies in some details. For example, Chen Yong claimed that the rope was taken out by Zuo Degang. Zuo Degang took the rope to tie Zhouyang’s neck first, and he participated later. Yes, the whole process takes less than a minute.

　　In the first trial, Zuo Degang, Yang Shiqing, and Chen Yongxuan all denied killing Zhou Yang, arguing that the guilty confession they made in the investigation agency was the result of torture.

Their defenders also pointed out that the facts of the three murders were unclear and the evidence could not form a complete chain. The confession of the three was illegal.

　　In this regard, the Fuyang Intermediate People’s Court listed 8 items. For example, the main plots of the antecedents, participants, process and methods of the confession of Chen Yongxuan and Zuo Degang and Yang Shiqing are the same; Shi Xiujian’s testimony and the three confessions can mutually confirm each other. Wait.

　　Based on the comprehensive evaluation of the evidence in the case, the Fuyang Intermediate People's Court held that the prosecution agency accused the three defendants of killing Zhou Yang and was convicted.

　　In May 2011, the Fuyang Intermediate People's Court made a judgment, sentenced Zuo Degang to death, sentenced Chen Yongxuan to death with a two-year reprieve, and sentenced Yang Shiqing to 10 years in prison.

　　The Supreme Law twice disapproved the death penalty, and the Anhui High Court commuted not guilty

　　After the judgment of the first instance, Zuo Degang and others refused to accept the judgment and appealed separately.

The Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court held that some of the facts found in the original judgment were unclear and insufficient evidence. In December 2011, it ruled to revoke the original sentence and sent it back to Fuyang Intermediate People's Court for retrial.

　　The Fuyang Intermediate People's Court retrial enriched the eight items listed above, still sentenced Zuo Degang to death, sentenced Chen Yongxuan to death, suspended for 2 years, and sentenced Yang Shiqing to 10 years in prison.

　　Zuo Degang and others refused to accept it and filed an appeal.

Based on 29 pieces of evidence presented, cross-examined and confirmed in the first and second trials, the Anhui Higher People's Court confirmed the fact that Zuo Degang and others killed Zhou Yang and sentenced Zuo Degang to death, Chen Yongxuan's death with a suspended death sentence, and Yang Shiqing's 10 years in prison.

　　However, the Supreme Law refused to approve Zuo Degang's death sentence on the grounds of unclear facts and insufficient evidence, revoked the judgment of the Anhui Provincial High Court, and sent it back to the Anhui Provincial High Court for a new trial.

　　In May 2015, the Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court sent the case back to Fuyang Intermediate People's Court for retrial.

　　Since then, the Fuyang Intermediate Court sentenced Zuo Degang to death for the third time, and the Anhui Provincial High Court upheld the death penalty. The Supreme Court again considered the case to be unclear and insufficient evidence. Zuo Degang’s death sentence was rejected and the case was sent back to the Anhui Provincial High Court for retrial. .

　　In 2020, the Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court made a completely different judgment from before.

The court held that the original judgment believed that the fact that Zuo Degang and others deliberately killed people mainly relied on verbal evidence and lacked objective evidence sufficient to lock Zuo Degang and others in committing the crime. It also stated key facts, witness testimony and Zuo Degang's confession. There are contradictions with each other, their confessions are inconsistent, there are many doubts, the facts are unclear, and the evidence is insufficient.

　　The judgment issued by the Anhui Higher People’s Court in May 2020 elaborated on the reasons: 1. The investigation of the case was unnatural. The investigation was based on Liu Daosheng’s report, but the contents of the report were inconsistent; 2. "Associate Witness" Shi Jianxiu and others The testimony of the case is not enough to accept; 3. The time of the crime cannot be accurately determined; 4. The contradiction between the guilty confessions of Zuo Degang and others has not been reasonably eliminated, and some of the plots cannot be mutually confirmed, nor are they consistent with other evidence; 5. The case The relevant circumstances of the cause could not be found out; 6. This case did not point to Zuo Degang and the others committing intentional homicide with objective evidence.

　　Regarding the question of whether the investigative agency is tortured to extract confessions and illegally obtain evidence, the verdict shows that the Anhui Provincial Higher People’s Court initiated an investigation into the legality of Zuo Degang and others’ confessions during the investigation stage during the second trial. There was no evidence to prove Zuo Degang’s suffering. The torture to extract a confession did not exclude the confession of Zuo Degang and others as illegal evidence.

During the trial, Zuo Degang did not provide any new evidence or clues to extract a confession by torture, nor did he apply for the exclusion of illegal evidence.

　　However, the Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court still "criticized" the investigation agency: the case took more than 3 years from the discovery of the body to the investigation of the case. The investigation was not timely, and the public security agency did not extract the case from the scene to point to Zuo Degang and other three people committing the crime. Objective evidence. According to the defendant’s confession, no hidden objective evidence related to the case was found.

On May 25, the Anhui High Court revoked Zuo Degang's death sentence.

Photo courtesy of respondents

　　The High Court of Anhui Province ruled that the Fuyang Intermediate Court’s death sentence against Zuo Degang was revoked. Zuo Degang was guilty of theft and sentenced to a fixed-term imprisonment of one and a half years for the original offender for the crime of intentional injury, and decided to execute a fixed-term imprisonment of 9 years.

　　On June 23, Zuo Degang was released in court after the judgment of the Anhui Provincial High Court.

　　The defendant was arrested again 43 days after his acquittal, and the deceased’s mother expects a fair sentence

　　On July 28, Zuo Degang said in an interview with The Paper: "If we kill or not, only the three of us (Note: the other two are Yang Shiqing and Chen Yongxuan) know best."

　　Zuo Degang said that he seldom went downstairs after returning home. Over the years, he had been out of touch with society and was in poor health. He sweated a little after doing a little work.

For his acquittal, Zuo Degang thought it was deserved, and he was also prepared to propose state compensation.

　　But such a result is undoubtedly unacceptable for Yang Zhongfen, who has long identified Zuo Degang and the others as murderers.

After learning that Zuo Degang was acquitted and released, she quickly filed a criminal complaint to the Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court, requesting that the previous death sentence be maintained, and at the same time applied to the prosecutors to lodge a protest.

　　The "Case Filing Review Notice" issued by the Anhui Higher People's Court shows that: on July 6, 2020, the court filed and reviewed Zuo Degang's crimes of intentional homicide, theft, and intentional injury.

On August 5, Zuo Degang was arrested again.

On this day, only 43 days have passed since his acquittal.

　　The Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court had scheduled a public hearing in the Fuyang Intermediate Court on October 15 to hear Zuo Degang's intentional murder and retrial, and then postponed the court date to November 25.

　　Xu Xin, Zuo Degang’s defender, believes that the original judgment found that the evidence for the intentional killing of Zuo Degang and others mainly relied on verbal evidence, but the three guilty statements were contradictory in the key plots, and the key witnesses’ testimonies were inconsistent and there were no doubts. It was reasonably excluded. Therefore, the Supreme Court did not approve the death penalty twice, and the Anhui High Court ruled Zuo Degang not guilty.

　　Xu Xin said that in this retrial, no new evidence emerged. He hoped that the Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court would once again acquit Zuo Degang.

　　Xu Xin also stated that he fully understands the feelings of the victim's mother and firmly supports the police to investigate the real culprit.

　　On November 24, Yang Zhongfen told The Paper that since she learned that her son was killed, she only wanted to know who killed Zhou Yang and why Zhou Yang was killed. “No matter who killed it, he must kill for his life.”

　　Yang Zhongfen said that she worked in Shenzhen all the year round. It was not until the public security organs locked Zuo Degang and others that she knew there were such a few people in Jiangdianzi Town.

"I have no grievances or grudges against them, nor did I report them, but the police, the procuratorate, and the court finally convicted them."

　　Regarding the upcoming retrial, Yang Zhongfen said that she hopes and believes that the Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court will find out the facts that have not been ascertained before, and return her son to justice.

　　Lian Bo, an attorney for Yang Zhongfen and a lawyer from Beijing Deheng Law Firm, said that he did not agree with the previous determination by the Anhui Provincial High Court that Zuo Degang and the others did not constitute intentional homicide.

　　Lian Bo said that after thorough review of the papers, he believes that the fact that Zuo Degang and others killed Zhou Yang is certain. The time and place of the crime, the tools of the murder, the behavior and the cause of death are all locked in objective evidence.

　　Lian Bo said that the case took many years and went through several lawsuits. He hoped that the Anhui Provincial Higher People’s Court would fully respect the facts, consider the feelings of the victims’ family members, and finally make a fair judgment that can stand the test of law and time. .

　　The Paper Journalist Wang Xin and intern Liu Chunyan