Four cities, six families, seven lives, more than two decades of escape, these words are all related to Lao Rongzhi's life.
On the morning of September 9, 2021, the Intermediate Court of Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province issued a first-instance public sentence on the defendant Lao Rongzhi's intentional homicide, robbery, and kidnapping according to law.
The defendant, Lao Rongzhi, was guilty of intentional homicide, robbery, kidnapping, and several crimes, and decided to execute the death penalty, deprived of political rights for life, and confiscated all personal property.
"The law will never forget any victim, nor will it spare any criminal!" On the winter solstice of 2020, the Lao Rongzhi case will be heard in Nanchang Intermediate Court. The wife of the victim Lu in the plaintiff's box in civil litigation kept wiping her tears.
More than 9 months later, she waited for the court decision.
What is the truth? The reporter interviewed the prosecutor handling the case and learned more details of the case.
Intervene in advance to guide the investigation and find the only surviving victim to obtain key evidence
At the end of the last century, Lao Rongzhi and her boyfriend Faziying committed consecutive violent crimes in Nanchang, Jiangxi, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, Changzhou, Jiangsu, and Hefei, Anhui. They shocked the whole country because of their cruel methods.
In December 1999, Faziying was executed for the crimes of intentional homicide, kidnapping, and robbery, while Lao Rongzhi has been hiding under his name and absconded.
On November 28, 2019, Lao Rongzhi, who was wanted by the public security agency for 23 years, was arrested, once again arousing widespread public concern.
More than 20 years have passed since the case occurred to Lao Rongzhi was sentenced.
For the prosecutor handling the case, the biggest problem is the long time. The investigative philosophy, investigative methods, and evidence requirements of the year are different from those of the present. In addition, the facts of the case and the types of evidence are very complicated, and fact finding is difficult.
The case involved four criminal facts, namely, the crimes of intentional homicide, kidnapping, and robbery jointly committed by Lao Rongzhi and Fa Ziying in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, and Hefei City, Anhui Province.
Among them, the facts of the crime in Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province are the facts of the crime that the original investigating agency discovered during the stage of intervention in the investigation and guidance and evidence gathering.
As a victim who personally experienced the case, Liu was a key witness.
On December 12, 2019, the Nanchang City Procuratorate intervened in the case in advance.
According to the prosecutor handling the case, the reason why the facts in the Changzhou case had not been determined before was because the victim was not found and the evidence was insufficient, and the case was not transferred for prosecution.
"The victims in the other three cases have all died. Is it possible that the victim in this Changzhou case did not die?" During the investigation, the prosecutor proposed a new direction for the investigation.
According to this line of thinking, the public security organs found Liu, the victim of the Changzhou case.
"There is a tacit understanding between them, and they didn’t communicate much when they tied me." According to Liu’s statement, Lao Rongzhi firmly tied his limbs to the back chair. After more than 20 years, Liu’s shoulders still remained. There are scars left by the wire binding.
"I heard Miss Zuotai (Lao Rongzhi) say to the man with the knife:'I'll go to his wife to get the money. If I don't come back in an hour, you will kill him and run by yourself', the man with the knife He said: "Okay." The process of communicating these things is a process of mutual consultation." This is already the third crime committed by Lao Rongzhi and Fa Ziying.
It is the statement of the only survivor Liu that confirms that their crimes have a fixed pattern, that is, Lao Rongzhi "sit on the stage" with a false identity to find a wealthy target, and the two jointly commit robbery or kidnapping, each time they commit a crime. The two people jointly selected the location and target of the crime, and this was the case for the four crimes.
Carry out self-supplementary investigations to restore the truth of the case
In the last criminal fact in the Hefei case, in order to force the victim Yin to submit, Faziying brutally killed an innocent third person, Lu, and the two men forced Yin to write a note for the cooperation of his family.
During the review and prosecution, when the prosecutor read the court case file materials of the Faziying case, he found that the handwritten note of Yin may have someone else's handwriting, and it was suspected that it was Lao Rongzhi.
After the public security organs proposed supplementary investigations to appraise the handwriting, the technical investigators of the public security organs concluded that the handwriting was written by a single person and may be slightly different due to the influence of mentality.
In order to solve the doubts in the fun, the case-handling team carried out supplementary investigations on its own, and handed over the evidence to the technical department of the Jiangxi Provincial Procuratorate for handwriting identification.
The Jiangxi Provincial Procuratorate’s document inspection appraiser told reporters that they organized the province’s procuratorial agency’s appraisal force to conduct a review of the handwriting, and consulted with experts from the Document Inspection Department of China Criminal Police Academy. Through feature comparison, they agreed that the handwriting should be sent for inspection. The handwriting in Lao Rongzhi's notebook detained by the public security organ and the sample handwriting written after Lao Rongzhi's case were written by the same person.
During the subsequent interrogation and trial, Lao Rongzhi admitted that he had added threatening words such as "His accomplices will definitely let me die faster than the person just now."
"This proves that Lao Rongzhi is subjective and vicious." The prosecutor said.
In the process of handling the case, the prosecutor came to the Hefei crime scene. After investigation, it was found that the room at the crime scene was very small. The distance between Lao Rongzhi’s bedroom and the kitchen where Lu was killed was only 3.1 meters, and Lao Rongzhi argued that he was right. The situation was unknown at the time.
"Within this distance, Lao Rongzhi should be very clear about every move in the room." The personal review has increased the prosecutor's inner conviction.
Regarding whether it is suspected of intentional homicide? Confession in court
During the trial, Lao Rongzhi admitted to some criminal facts of robbery and kidnapping, but withdrew his confession in court regarding some of the criminal facts of deliberate homicide, arguing that he did not know about it.
Among the four crimes, Lao Rongzhi bears the unshirkable responsibility for the death of the victim.
The focus of the trial was more on the last Hefei fact. Because Faziying was arrested here, who killed the victim Yin in this fact?
This is also an issue of concern to the general public.
According to the prosecutor handling the case, the reporter sorted out a timeline:
Faziying confessed that when he left the rental house on the morning of July 23, he handed Yin to Lao Rongzhi's care, and confessed that if he did not return before 12 o'clock, Lao Rongzhi would kill Yin.
This confession is consistent with the date and time recorded in Yin's note, and coincides with the testimony of relevant witnesses.
At 11:30 on July 23, Faziying was captured.
On July 28, the bodies of Yin and Lu were found by the public security organs in the rented house of Faziying and Lao Rongzhi.
The appraisal opinion showed that Yin's death time was around July 24.
Lao Rongzhi argued that he left the rental house on the evening of the 22nd.
This contradicts the evidence in the case.
In addition, in the transcript of the meeting between Faziying and the lawyer, he asked the lawyer how many people died in Hefei?
The lawyer told Fa Ziying that two people had died, and asked Fa Ziying: "Did you kill Yin?" Fa Ziying avoided this question, saying that he didn't want to say it.
Analysis by the prosecutor handling the case showed that Faziying did not know exactly whether Yin was dead at the time.
During the interrogation stage, in response to the prosecutor's question of who killed Yin, Lao Rongzhi confessed to the court in court: "It's either Faziying or me. Only the two of us are cooperating, and there is no third person committing the crime."
In this fact, Lao Rongzhi directly threatened the kidnapped by murder.
In the note that Faziying brought to the wife of the victim Yin, Lao Rongzhi personally added content that contained death threats such as "His accomplice will surely let me die faster than the person just now."
The evidence in the case shows that Lao Rongzhi has the motive, time and space conditions to kill Yin.
The procuratorate believes that Lao Rongzhi has a laissez-faire subjective attitude towards the deaths of the seven victims.
Judging from the behaviors of Lao Rongzhi and Faziying in the four crimes, the two had a total conspiracy in the series of cases they carried out; from the means of controlling and threatening the victim, the two cooperated together, and the threat to the victim was binding. He holds a knife and directly threatens his life; from Lao Rongzhi's defense, in fact, in the fact that the victim's death is involved, his defense is contradictory and unreasonable with other evidence, especially objective evidence.
At the same time, the two jointly possessed and jointly controlled the proceeds of crime, ran around together for three years, lived together, and squandered the proceeds of crime for a living.
Lao Rongzhi and Faziying jointly committed a series of crimes, and both were the principal offenders.
Coerced by others? Lao Rongzhi admits that he has a chance to escape
"I have not dared to face the dark life of 20 years, I am very afraid. I took my graduation certificate to find a job, but he refused to let me sit on the stage. I really did not intend to kill, I am also a victim, long-term To endure physical and psychological torture.” Lao Rongzhi tried his best to argue that he was coerced by Faziying to participate in the crime, saying that he was “also a victim”.
However, combining Lao Rongzhi's multiple confessions in the investigative agency and her confession in court, she is full of contradictions in her defense of her coercion.
These were all pointed out by the prosecutor in court:
On the one hand, Lao Rongzhi claimed that Fa Ziying was inhumane and tortured, and on the other hand, he said that Ziying took her to and from get off work, and that he did all the laundry and cooking work at home and did not know how to cook.
On the one hand, he said that Ziying was violent to people close to him, and on the other hand, he said that Ziying was forcing him to sit on stage;
On the one hand, he said that he did not know about killing during the crime, and even called faziying to protect himself and let him go first after committing the crime. On the other hand, he said that he and his family were threatened with death by faziying;
On the one hand, he claimed that he was a victim and hoped that Faziying would be arrested soon. On the other hand, during the three years of living together with Faziying and committing a joint crime, he did not take any measures to prevent the crime. Be incognito, absconding everywhere.
"I have lied a lot. I want to be frank and be a good person. I want to atone for my sins. I disdain to do these things. I look down on the groups who make money through improper means." Lao Rongzhi mentioned many times during the trial. When I have a lot of job opportunities and have the ability to make money, I say that I disdain to use the money from the robbery.
The fact is that she went first every time she robbed her of money and worked with Faziying to make a living from the proceeds of the crime. After the factual case in Hefei, she went to Chongqing to find Faziying.
According to Lao Rongzhi's confession, Chongqing was regarded as a "base camp" by them and would not commit crimes in Chongqing.
In terms of objective evidence, the testimony of multiple witnesses and the statement of the victim Liu X proved that Lao Rongzhi and Fa Ziying were in a romantic relationship.
Liu stated that the two had a clear division of labor, a tacit cooperation, and mutual consultation in the crime, and did not feel that Lao Rongzhi was being coerced.
In daily life, Lao Rongzhi works in entertainment venues and moves freely. Each time the two robbed the property, Lao Rongzhi took away the property first, and it was actually difficult for Faziying to personally control him.
In particular, Lao Rongzhi takes the initiative to provide information and actively interact with the victim to obtain the trust of the victim. It is absolutely not possible to rely on the coercion of others.
"Do you have a chance to escape?" In the court, both the prosecutor and the civil litigation lawyer asked Lao Rongzhi. Her answer was yes: "Yes."
During the three years of jointly committing crimes with Faziying, Lao Rongzhi had countless opportunities to escape, but she continued to cooperate with Faziying to commit the crime again and again.
Therefore, the prosecutor handling the case believes that as an adult with normal mind, freedom of movement, and financial independence, Lao Rongzhi's defense of the so-called coerced crime cannot be established regardless of facts and evidence or common sense.
Lao Rongzhi does not constitute a coerced accomplice but an accomplice, and has the same status as the principal offender.
Fleeing for 23 years, Lao Rongzhi's double life
The public prosecution opinion used four "extreme" to describe the case: the criminal methods are extremely cruel, the criminal consequences are extremely serious, the social harm is extremely high, and the subjective malignancy is extremely deep.
The prosecutor pointed out that every case was found to be heinous, and the extremely cruel means of committing crimes completely broke through the bottom line of human nature.
The deaths of the seven victims not only destroyed several families, but also caused tremendous mental harm to the victims’ relatives: the victim’s mother, Xiong, died of illness that could not bear the tragic death of his son’s family of three in the year when the crime was committed; the victim Zhang’s sister supported him alone. , Taking care of the paralyzed parents in bed for more than ten years; the wife of the victim Lu was a rural woman who had no financial source, and lost the only "backbone" of the family, and raised three young children alone...
Today, more than twenty years later, because of the criminal behavior of Lao Rongzhi and others, the huge shadow that hung over the families of multiple victims still cannot be eliminated.
Lao Rongzhi, who caused such serious consequences, was born in an ordinary family in the petrochemical system of Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province. She is the youngest child in the family, loved by her parents and brothers and sisters, and also received a good education.
After graduating from technical secondary school, she was assigned to teach in a local elementary school. If she worked on the ground, she might be able to have a stable and happy life.
"Wherever I go, people think I am an intellectual woman." "I love life very much, and people who love life are positive." "I have never quarreled with anyone in my life. It's good for everyone." This is labor. Rong Zhi's description of himself.
However, the serious distortion of outlook on life and values, the loss of the law and the bottom line of human nature, put her on the road of no return to crime, and brought her a life of destruction.
The case is undoubtedly a huge tragedy for the victim and his family, and it is also a huge tragedy for Lao Rongzhi's life and family.
After being wanted, Lao Rongzhi stayed incognito, evaded investigation, wandered around many places with multiple false identities, and finally settled in Xiamen, Fujian.
In Xiamen, Lao Rongzhi became a "Shirley", a girl on a bar poster, and she seemed to be living a "normal" life in the midst of feasting and coveting.
Lao Rongzhi said he was willing to actively compensate for the civil compensation of more than 1.3 million yuan proposed by the family of the victim Lu, but he only had a deposit of more than 30,000 yuan.
The procuratorate believes that although Lao Rongzhi expressed his willingness to plead guilty and pleaded guilty, he actually did not truthfully and comprehensively confessed his criminal facts, refused to admit that he had the intention of committing murder, and that the system of plea guilty and punished leniency could not be applied in accordance with the law.
The court found that the defendant, Lao Rongzhi, in collaboration with others, deliberately and illegally deprived the victim of his life, and his behavior has constituted the crime of intentional homicide; for the purpose of illegal possession, the use of violence and threats to rob the victim’s property has constituted a crime of robbery; The kidnapping of the victim for the purpose of property constitutes the crime of kidnapping.
Lao Rongzhi played a major role in the joint crime and was the principal offender. He should be punished in accordance with all the crimes in which he participated.
After returning to the case, Lao Rongzhi truthfully confessed the facts of his kidnapping in Changzhou.
Lao Rongzhi intentionally killed five people; the robbery caused one death, the amount of robbery was huge, and there was a plot of house robbery; the kidnapping caused one death, and the ransom was more than 70,000 yuan. The crime plot was particularly bad, the methods were particularly cruel, and the subjective viciousness Deep, personal danger and social harm are extremely serious, and the consequences and crimes are extremely serious and should be punished in accordance with the law.
Although there is a confession, it is not enough to give a lighter punishment.
Lao Rongzhi committed several crimes and should be punished in accordance with the law.
There is no legitimate reason for all acts that harm lives.
Lao Rongzhi returned to trial and the first-instance verdict was settled. Lao Rongzhi appealed the verdict in court.
The litigation process of this case is also a silhouette in the process of building the rule of law in our country. We believe that the truth of the crime may be temporarily concealed, but it will not disappear forever, and everything will be judged fairly by the law.
(Yan Jingjing, All Media Reporter of the Procuratorate Daily)