An ordinary theft case was covered up for 17 years because of DNA identification.
Originally, it was just an ordinary criminal case, but when the police routinely tested DNA, it led to another child abduction case that had been covered up for 17 years. Recently, the People’s Court of Futian District, Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province made a first-instance judgment on this child abduction case. The defendants Zhang, Zhong Moumou and Zhang Mouying constituted crime of trafficking in children and were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 2 years and 6 months to 5 years respectively.
At about 19: 00 on March 31st, 2001, Mr. and Mrs. Lin, who were doing small business in a market in Futian District, took their two daughters and their twin sons Xiao Da (a pseudonym) and Xiao Di (a pseudonym) to the supermarket. Soon after leaving home, everyone could not help laughing when they saw Xiao Da’s feet covered with her mother’s shoes. Because he was worried that he would not walk well, he asked Xiao Da to go home and find his grandmother to change shoes, so he didn’t have to follow him.
After that, Lin and others visited the supermarket for more than an hour. After returning home, they were told by their grandmother that Xiao Da went out to find them alone after changing his shoes, and has not returned yet. The distance from the supermarket to home is not far, but Lin launched relatives and friends to look back and forth several times, but did not find Xiao Da.
According to the security guard in the parking lot, he once saw a man in his 40 s holding Xiao Da, who was crying all the time. When the security guard saw it, he asked him. The man claimed that he and the child’s parents were fellow villagers, but he could also tell the situation of the child’s family, and the security guard did not stop him after listening.
Who is this man? Lin failed to check one by one from his acquaintances, thinking that Xiao Da must have been taken away by traffickers, so he quickly called the police and embarked on a long road of finding children.
In March 2018, in a detention center in a city in Guangdong Province, 22-year-old Jing Tsai (pseudonym) was detained according to law for theft. According to the results of police DNA test, Jingzai has no blood relationship with his parents registered in the household registration, but is in line with the blood sample of Lin and his wife, that is, Jingzai is Xiao Da, a lost child of Lin 17 years ago.
When Lin’s family cried with joy for this sudden good news, Shenzhen police quickly attacked and dug up clues from Jingzai’s adoptive parents. In September 2018, Zhang, his brother-in-law Zhong Moumou and his sister Zhang Mouying, who participated in the trafficking of Xiaoda, took the initiative to surrender to the public security organs.
According to Zhang’s confession, he lived near the crime scene that year. On the day of the crime, shortly after Xiao Da disappeared, a man named "A Jun" whom he knew brought him a little boy (Xiao Da), saying that he was an illegitimate child that others didn’t want, and gave it to Zhang Yangyang. Zhang did not ask again, and after accepting it, he was taken care of by his mother. More than 10 days later, because her mother was old and unwell, Zhang informed her brother-in-law, Zhong Moumou, to bring Xiao Da back to his hometown, a village in a town in Heyuan City.
After the child was brought back to the village, it quickly attracted the attention of other villagers, but Zhong Moumou and his wife claimed that the child was the illegitimate child of a friend from other places according to the reasons told by Zhang in advance. The child’s father died in a car accident, and the mother wants to remarry, so I want to entrust them to find a family to adopt.
After hearing the news, Zhu, who lives in the same village, quickly rushed to Zhong’s home. It turned out that just two years ago, Zhu’s 3-year-old grandson accidentally fell into the pond and drowned because of poor care by adults, and the whole family was heartbroken. Zhu and his wife, who have always felt guilty about their daughter, liked Xiao Da very much after seeing him healthy. After discussion, they decided to adopt Xiao Da on behalf of their daughter and son-in-law.
On April 29, 2001, the two sides signed a custody contract, stipulating that Zhong Moumou agreed to entrust the child to Zhu for custody, and Zhu paid Zhong Moumou 10,000 yuan as the original custody fee. The contract also stated that if there was abduction, Zhong Moumou would take full responsibility. After receiving the money, Zhong Moumou paid 3,000 yuan for milk powder according to Zhang’s request.
In this case, due to the long time interval between the incidents, coupled with the limited technical means of investigation in that year, and some important witnesses have died or left Shenzhen. Although the existing evidence can prove that the three defendants have committed the crime of abducting and selling children for profit, there are several chances hidden behind their "confession". In particular, Zhang’s confession either evaded the importance or said that he was too old to remember, resulting in some doubts about the details of the child’s transfer.
In order to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of victims, crack down on crimes accurately and effectively, and ensure the quality of case handling, Futian District People’s Procuratorate undertook the careful deployment of prosecutors, took a multi-pronged approach, actively communicated with public security organs, coordinated and guided evidence collection, and helped victims to correctly defend their rights and get out of the shadows as soon as possible to return to normal life.
At the trial stage of the court, all three defendants argued that Xiao Da was left for his own adoption, and was later given to others because of real economic difficulties. There was no "selling for the purpose" of abducting children, and Zhang even put forward two new witnesses to prove it.
The prosecutor in charge made a strong complaint in court, which broke their luck psychology while popularizing the law: Zhang and Zhong each had four children and both had boys at the time of the crime. At that time, Zhang’s family income was about 1,500 yuan, and Zhong’s family income fluctuated between 500 and 1000 yuan, so they were hard-pressed when raising their own children. Therefore, it was not reasonable to adopt Xiao Da from the economic conditions or traditional ideas.
Xiao Da stayed in the two families for only about 29 days before and after, but Zhong Moumou and others charged Zhu an amount nearly 10 times more than his monthly income. As a nominal "original support", it is obviously unreasonable. According to article 17 of the opinions of the two high schools on punishing the abduction and trafficking of women and children according to law in March 2010, it should be recognized that Zhong Moumou and others have the subjective purpose of illegally profiting.
After the trial, the procuratorate and the public security organs started a new round of investigation and evidence collection on the new evidence presented in Zhang’s court. Investigators also went to Chongqing and found two witnesses in Zhang’s mouth. It was verified that they were not at the scene when the crime was committed, and the testimony they said was actually the situation that Zhang suddenly called a year ago. And this time is just after Xiao Da’s true identity is exposed. That is to say, the testimony was actually a confession after the event and did not have the real effect of on-site witness, so the court did not adopt it.
In the second trial, Zhang and his defenders did not put forward any new defense opinions in the face of this investigation result.
Finally, the court ruled that the defendants Zhang, Zhong Moumou and Zhang Mouying were convicted of crime of trafficking in children. At the same time, it was determined that Zhong Moumou and Zhang Mouying could truthfully confess the facts of the crime and had the plot of surrender. Finally, the defendant Zhang was sentenced to 5 years in prison and fined 10,000 yuan; The defendants Zhong Moumou and Zhang Mouying were each sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison and fined 10,000 yuan. (Reporter Tang Rong correspondent Wang Qian)