The child-seeking family behind the second instance of the "Aunt Mei case"
some family members of the abducted child expressed incomprehension and demanded that the trafficker be severely punished; the Ministry of Public Security launched a "reunion" operation to find missing and abducted children
On March 24, Shen Junliang came to Guangzhou again.
Last year, he wore his most decent set of equipment-purple shirt, dark blue jeans and black sneakers to pick up his 15-year-old son Shen Cong.
This time, five people, Zhang Weiping, a trafficker who abducted Shen Cong, were tried in court, and Shen Junliang was still in this suit.
The first instance was held three years ago.
During this period, some people recovered the child with the help of the police, but the child was unable to accept the change in his life experience and was unwilling to return to his biological family; some were lucky, the child was found, and the family was reunited, but they encountered the difficulty of integrating into each other; Some people are still on the way to find children.
At the first instance, Shen Junliang suggested in court that as long as the traffickers are willing to provide information and help them find their children, he is willing to issue a letter of understanding.
At this court session, Shen Junliang's attitude was very firm. He demanded that the traffickers be severely punished, and he must also seek justice for the lost 15 years.
In the court, Zhang Weiping mentioned the mysterious "Aunt Mei" again.
He said that Aunt Mei really exists, but the two current portraits are not like her.
Since this case is an immediate execution case, the court will submit it to the Criminal Trial Professional Committee of the Guangdong Higher Court for discussion.
The case will be sentenced at an elective date.
appeal
Due to the control of the epidemic, the five defendants-Zhang Weiping, Zhou Rongping, Yang Chaoping, Liu Zhenghong and Chen Shoubi were tried remotely via video at the Zengcheng Detention Center.
In the video, they are sitting on a red plastic square stool with the words "Guangzhou Court" written on a blue background.
Shen Junliang and two attorneys are in the Eleventh Trial Chamber of the Zengcheng District People's Court.
Out of prevention and control and protection of the privacy of minors, the court only allowed the defendant and relatives of the victim to attend the courtroom.
Zhong Dingyou and Li Shuquan, the parents of the kidnapped child in the same case, sat in another room.
They came specifically for Zhang Weiping, the first defendant.
In 2003 and 2005, Zhang Weiping abducted the children of two families in Huizhou. After more than ten years, the two families tried their best to find the children, but there was no news.
In addition to these two children, Zhang Weiping confessed after being arrested that he also abducted another six children during those three or four years.
After Shen Cong, Shen Junliang's child, was snatched by Zhou Rongping and Yang Chaoping, he also sold the stolen goods through Zhang Weiping.
At the end of 2018, the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court publicly sentenced the defendants Zhang Weiping, Zhou Rongping, Yang Chaoping, Liu Zhenghong, and Chen Shoubi on the child trafficking case. Zhang Weiping and Zhou Rongping were sentenced to death, Yang Chaoping and Liu Zhenghong were sentenced to life imprisonment, and Chen Shoubi was sentenced to ten years in prison.
The five defendants refused to accept the judgment and appealed to the Guangdong Higher People's Court.
On March 26 this year, the case was heard by the Guangdong High Court in the People's Court of Zengcheng District.
At 10:10 in the morning, the presiding judge announced the opening of the trial.
However, due to multiple interruptions of the signal, the trial had to be suspended.
It didn't start again until 11:5.
According to the procedure, the court first checked the identity of the defendant.
Since this case is a case of immediate execution of the death penalty, the presiding judge said that after the court, it will be submitted to the Criminal Trial Professional Committee of the High Court for discussion in accordance with the law.
Subsequently, the court read out the judgment of the first instance and verified the appeals of the five defendants.
The first defendant Zhang Weiping suddenly repented.
"I didn't appeal." Zhang Weiping said, and also filed in court to withdraw the appeal.
The presiding judge explained that because Zhang Weiping was a defendant whose death sentence was executed immediately, according to relevant laws, the appeal was not allowed to be withdrawn.
"So in the court trial, the trial was conducted in accordance with Zhang Weiping's appeal." Shen Junliang recalled after the court.
Sentenced three times for abduction
This is the third time that Zhang Weiping has been sentenced for kidnapping and selling children.
Zhang Weiping was born in October 1971 in Suiyang County, Zunyi City, Guizhou Province.
The Zhang family's economic conditions were not good, and Zhang Weiping dropped out of school when he was in the second year of junior high school and worked at home.
Within a few years, he went out to work to earn money.
In the 1990s, Zhang Weiping went to work in the neighboring province of Guangdong from Guizhou.
He once confessed to the police that at first he made shoes in a factory in Houjie Town, Dongguan City. After 1996, he moved to Zengcheng and found a job in a chemical fiber factory in Licheng District (now Licheng Town, Zengcheng District).
During this period, he heard about the kidnapping and trafficking of children by fellow villagers, and learned that Hu and Cao, who are also from Zunyi, did just that.
Zhang Weiping also knows a Wu, who knows a thing or two about the doorway here.
It didn't take long for Zhang Weiping to start his career.
The first child sold by him was brought by his cohabiting girlfriend. They received about 9,000 yuan in support from the buyer, and Zhang Wei shared 5,000 yuan evenly.
More than half a month later, Zhang Weiping was arrested by the police.
In July 1999, he was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment by the Dongguan City People’s Court for the crime of child trafficking.
After commuting his sentence, he was released in February 2003 after serving his sentence.
But Zhang Weiping did not stop because of this.
Half a year after leaving the prison, he abducted a child from Huizhou, Guangdong and sold it for about 10,000 yuan.
From September 2003 to December 2005, he abducted a total of eight children, including the children of Zhong Dingyou and Li Shuquan.
Shen Cong was also sold by him during this period.
He flew around in Guangdong Province to commit crimes and was not caught by the police.
In March 2007, Zhang Weiping was sentenced to ten months in prison for theft.
Nearly three years after serving his sentence, he was sentenced to seven years in prison by the First People’s Court of Dongguan City, Guangdong Province for the second time in May 2010 for the crime of child trafficking.
He was released from prison on August 1, 2015.
In 2016, Zhang Weiping was exposed to the abduction and trafficking of eight children between 2003 and 2005, and was arrested again by the police.
When the first trial opened in 2017, he confessed to the charges and expressed in court that he hoped that the court would sentence him to death and execute it immediately.
In the court this time, Zhang Weiping's defense lawyer asked him why he committed crimes one after another.
Zhang Weiping replied that he knows nothing except kidnapping and selling children, and he expressed his willingness to compensate the victim's family in court.
Seeing Zhang Weiping again, Zhong Dingyou was in a mixed mood.
He resents Zhang Weiping, but he also has expectations of him, hoping to find a child through him.
Before the trial, Zhong Dingyou and Li Shuquan signed a petition in the court, demanding that Zhang Weiping be executed with a suspended sentence.
They also asked the court to have a direct dialogue with Zhang Weiping.
"I want to tell him, I was so good to you back then, can you tell me where the child is. I hope to awaken his conscience." said Li Shuquan, the father of the child who has not yet recovered.
"Can't understand"
But in Shen Junliang's view, Zhang Weiping must be severely punished.
At the first instance, Shen Junliang stated that if Zhang Weiping could explain the whereabouts of the child according to the truth, he would write him a letter of understanding.
But now his attitude has changed.
"It's not that if Zhang Weiping is alive, the child may return." Shen Junliang believes that the five children recovered now are not Zhang Weiping's credit. "I can't forgive him."
He also cannot forgive the other four defendants who entered the room and snatched away his son Shen Cong.
In his opinion, the attitude of the defendants Zhou Rongping and Yang Chaoping to plead guilty was not sincere.
The four defendants are also Guizhou natives, and Zhou Rongping is Zhang's cousin.
The four of them were accused of conspiring to enter the house and snatch Shen Junliang's son Shen Cong, and then sold the stolen goods through Zhang Weiping.
The public prosecutor believes that the four of them used violence to kidnap children for the purpose of betrayal, and they should also be held criminally responsible for the crime of child abduction.
In the first-instance judgment, Zhou Rongping was sentenced to death, Yang Chaoping and Liu Zhenghong were sentenced to life imprisonment, and Chen Shoubi was sentenced to ten years in prison.
In court, the four defendants apologized to Shen Junliang.
"I made a mistake and will never be at ease for life." Zhou Rongping said.
After the trial, Liu Chang, the attorney representing Shen Junliang in the second trial, revealed that before the trial, Zhou's family voluntarily remitted 200,000 yuan to the court.
But Shen Junliang has not received the money, nor has he issued a letter of understanding.
"We cannot just forgive the kidnapping of children because of the money issue. For the victim family, this kind of pain has not yet ended, and the time has not come to be forgiven."
The most important thing is that there are still four children who have not been recovered, and an important part of the case-the middleman "Aunt Mei" who helped Zhang Weiping sell the stolen goods has not been arrested.
This is also the most concerned issue for the parents of abducted children.
Zhang Weiping said in the court that he mentioned Aunt Mei when he first recorded a statement at the public security organ.
He was very sure that Aunt Mei was real.
However, even he didn't understand Aunt Mei.
From some of the information he confided, it can only be analyzed that Aunt Mei is about 65 years old this year, is about 1.5 meters tall and speaks Cantonese and Hakka. From 2003 to 2005, she lived in Chengfeng Village near Zengcheng Passenger Transport Station in Guangzhou for a long time. On Jigongshan Street, I make a living as a matchmaker.
Later, he had activities in Zengcheng, Huizhou, Zijin, Shaoguan, Xinfeng and other places.
According to Zhang Weiping’s description, the police once painted two portraits of Aunt Mei, but the two paintings hardly resemble a person: the first picture shows Aunt Mei’s face is thin and old; in the second picture, Aunt Mei has a big round face. He has single eyelids and a large mouth with exposed nostrils.
Zhang Weiping said that what he provided was a real image, but neither of the two portraits resembled Aunt Mei.
On March 26, the police handling the case of the Zengcheng District Public Security Bureau told reporters that they had been investigating Aunt Mei’s whereabouts, but there were no new clues yet.
"The'Aunt Mei' who participated in the abduction and sale of 9 children has not been caught yet, so I ask the judicial organs to pay attention to it, ask the prosecutors to strengthen supervision, and ask the public security department to strengthen investigations and catch'Aunt Mei' as soon as possible." Shen Junliang was in court. Say.
Fission life
The homes of some abducted children have been scattered.
After Yang Jiaxin was taken away by Zhang Weiping, his father went to the surrounding villages and towns to look for children. In the third year of looking for a child, he suffered from mental problems and began to have hallucinations. Everyone looked like a trafficker.
On the way back to his hometown to recuperate, the father fell into despair, jumped off the train, and fell on the railroad tracks thinking of his son.
On the way to find children, Shen Junliang had seen too many similar families.
"The scars of lost children affect the lives of so many people, and the harm caused by child trafficking to a family is no less than deliberate homicide." Shen Junliang cannot forgive traffickers.
During the years of searching for Shen Cong, Shen Junliang's life has undergone fission.
He used to be the youngest manager of an electronic toy factory. He had a virtuous wife and a lovely son. He lived a wealthy life. After his son was robbed, he quit his job, took out all his savings, and carried the flyers in the streets and alleys of Guangdong. Turn, rely on borrowing money to survive.
"During the years when I was looking for my son, my home was not like home, and people were not like people. I was robbed and cheated, sleepless, helpless, suffering, and helpless. Every time I walked to a crossroad, I didn’t know what to do. Which way to go, you can only turn on the ground while shouting Shen Cong’s name while holding your mobile phone. Go in which direction the mobile phone points." Shen Junliang said.
Every time he saw disabled begging children on the side of the road, Shen Junliang's heart would twitch, he was afraid that he would recognize his own child.
He even thought about ending his life when he couldn't hold on.
In March last year, after a DNA comparison, Shen Cong, who had been lost for 15 years, was recovered by the police and returned to the Shen Junliang and his wife.
Although Shen Junliang and his wife circled around him all day, researching his likes and dislikes, and the family accustomed to Shen Cong in eating and drinking, a year after returning home, the 17-year-old Guangdong boy had not been able to adapt to life in the north and the Shen family.
"He is trying to be a good brother and a good son." Shen Junliang said.
In this trial, he once again filed civil compensation to the court, demanding compensation for lost work expenses, car expenses and mental comfort compensation during the child search period, totaling more than 4.8 million yuan.
Shen Junliang’s lawyer Liu Chang said that because the child was robbed, Shen’s wife, Yu Xiaoli, suffered tremendous physical and mental trauma. He was diagnosed as "schizophrenia" by the hospital and needed long-term medication.
The related expenses incurred shall be compensated by civil law.
Parents Zhong Dingyou and Li Shuquan, who have not yet found their children, have a much simpler appeal: find the children.
In the past 15 years, like Shen Junliang, they have been looking for children across the country, sharing police information with each other, and meeting together to go to Guangzhou and Heyuan to find relatives.
Li Shuquan's journey to find a child has exceeded 30,000 kilometers.
He rehearsed the scenes of family gatherings in his heart time and time again. He would bring his son's favorite yogurt, and embrace his son and cry.
"I dare not ask for anything. I only hope that he is healthy and safe. It is up to him to decide whether he wants to come back and live with us."
Zhong Dingyou also only hopes to see the child.
In July last year, he went to Guangzhou alone again, but to no avail.
Now, he can only continue to wait.
Perhaps they will also be "reunited" soon.
On March 26, the Ministry of Public Security held a press conference. Tong Bishan, deputy director of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, said that starting from January this year, the Ministry of Public Security has deployed public security agencies across the country to carry out activities focused on detecting and finding missing and abducted children. The "Reunion" operation has made every effort to detect a number of accumulated cases of child trafficking, arrest a group of suspects of child trafficking, and comprehensively search for a group of missing and abducted children since the reform and opening up.
The Ministry of Public Security calls on the public to promptly report clues to suspected child abduction crimes to the public security organs, and actively assist in finding missing and abducted children.
At the same time, parents of missing abducted children and suspected abductees are also invited to take the initiative to go to the criminal investigation department of the nearby public security organ to accept free DNA information collection and related information supplementation and improvement.
Beijing News reporter Wang Chongpengcheng