User:Muqing112233/Handan Junior High School Student Kills a Student

邯郸初中生杀人案

Date	March 10, 2024
Time	Between 15:00 and 17:00 pm
Location	People's Republic of ChinaHeBeiHanDan肥乡区
Deaths	1人
Arrests	3人（涉嫌故意杀人罪） 张某某（化名；推定主犯） 马某某（化名；推定从犯） 李某（化名；推定从犯）

"The Handan Junior High School Student Murder Case" (also known as "Junior High School Student Bullying and Murder Incident" or "Junior High School Student Murder and Burial Case")The intentional homicide case occurred on March 10, 2024. Three underage individuals residing in Feixiang District, Handan City, Hebei Province, jointly committed the crime, killing a 13-year-old victim named Xiaoguang (alias).The three assailants were similar in age to the victim Xiaoguang and were classmates in junior high school, and one of them was the victim's deskmate. According to information provided by the victim's aunt, the three men had been bullying the victim at school for a long time.At about 1 pm on March 10, 2024, the victim said that he went out to play with his classmates and then lost contact. On the evening of March 10, the family members chose to call the police. On March 11, the victim's body was found in a local vegetable greenhouse.Handan police arrested three people on suspicion of intentional homicide on March 13. According to the latest investigation by Handan police, the case was initially determined to be a premeditated murder. According to the scene inspection of the burial pit, the suspects dug the burial pit on March 9, before the crime.

The incident sparked heated discussions on major social media platforms in mainland China, triggering public debates on topics such as campus bullying, juvenile delinquency, the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Minors, as well as the age of criminal responsibility stipulated in the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China.

The Story of the Incident

March 10

According to the information provided by the victim's aunt, Ms. Wang, at 1 p.m. on March 10, the victim Xiaoguang informed his family that he was out playing with his classmates. At about 4 p.m., the family found that the victim's mobile phone could not be called and had been shut down. Therefore, the victim's family began to look for the victim at 5 p.m. on that day. The victim's family first came to the suspect Zhang (alias) for inquiry. Zhang first said that he had not seen the victim, and then changed his words and said that he had been together and played in another person's home, and the victim went to another place with another "little man". On the evening of March 10, the family chose to report the case at 10 p.m. because they could not find the victim. The police found through the nearby monitoring that at 3 p.m. on March 10, Xiaoguang was with three suspects, and he was sitting on the back seat of Zhang's electric bicycle. From the evening of March 10 to the early morning of March 11, the police questioned the three suspects, but all three said they had not seen the victim anymore.

March 11

In the early moring of March 11, the victim's father Mr. Wang in the re-register the victim's WeChat account after the victim's mobile phone card, and found that the victim had conducted WeChat transfer. After informing the police of the information, the police again cross-examined the suspect. On the same day, Handan Red Cross Blue Sky Rescue Team issued a public missing person notice, which said that at 1 p.m. on March 10, Xiaoguang went to find his classmates to play, and was then taken away by a person of similar age but not a classmate. During the second cross-examination process of the police, under the evidence of surveillance video and transfer records, the suspect overturned his previous statement and confessed the incident, revealing the burial site. Subsequently, the victim's family received a notice of filing by the Feixiang District Public Security Bureau, the case was "intentional homicide". After learning the burial site, the police began to dig the body on the same day, and dug up the victim's body in the abandoned vegetable greenhouse south of Beiying village. The victim's uncle participated in the identification of the body.

March 13

Handan police formally detained three suspects for intentional homicide. It is believed that all three suspect are over 12 years old and under 14 years old. The Public Security Department of Hebei Province and the Public Security Bureau of Handan City have dispatched professionals from the legal department to Feixiang to guide the investigation of this case.

March 18

In the early morning, the body of the victims were subjected to autopsy. The father and lawyer of the victim witnessed the entire autopsy process. The Handan police stated that this case was premeditated.

Criminal process

According to the current police investigation and the information provided by the victim's family members: three suspects first used the victim's mobile phone to transfer the 191 yuan in their account balance to one of their accounts via WeChat, then two of them stayed to guard the victim, and one of them returned home to obtain a shovel; After that, the three suspects used shovel to beat the victim, causing multiple fatal injuries. Then they chose to "bury the corpse" and buried the victim in an abandoned vegetable shed in the south of Zhangzhuang Village, Beigao Town, Feixiang District (according to the estimation after excavation, the pit is about 1m deep, 1m long and 60m wide), which is only about 100m away from the home of one of the suspects. After the burial was completed, the three suspects threw the victim's phone into the nearby swamp to destroy the evidence.

Disputes and Focus

• The suspect deliberately misled the victim’s family: According to the information provided by the victim’s aunt, Ms. Wang, the victim’s family asked Zhang, who was identified as a suspect on the day of the crime, about the victim’s whereabouts. At first, the suspect denied ever meeting the victim. During the meeting with the victim's family, he lay on the bed playing games and acted as if nothing had happened. After the surveillance video was exposed, the suspect changed his story and claimed that the victim left with a man named "Little Man", deliberately misleading the victim's family and diverting the police's investigation direction. In addition, when the police interrogated three suspects on the day of the incident, the three suspects refused to reveal the truth and unanimously affirmed Zhang's false narrative. The next day, they continued school as usual.
• The suspect's family did not cooperate: According to information provided by the victim's aunt, Ms. Wang, on the night of the incident, when the police went to the suspect Zhang's home to inquire based on surveillance evidence, another family member said: "I don't want them to ask the child, for fear of It scares the children." He used this as an excuse to refuse to cooperate with the police investigation. It wasn't until the local village party secretary came to mediate that the police and the victim's family were able to interview. After the incident, Ms. Wang explained that the suspect’s family had not come forward to apologize. “Two of the families have moved away from their original places".
• Are there more suspects: After the incident, the victim's family and the legal team arrived at the vegetable greenhouse involved (i.e. the burial site) to conduct a hole-dug replication experiment to verify whether the three suspects alone were capable of burying the body. Based on on-site feedback, the legal team verified that the ground in the greenhouse had hardened. For a pit as deep as one meter deep like the burial pit involved in the case, it is impossible for three children to complete it in a short time, so there is doubt that more suspects are involved in the crime. In addition, a villager from a nearby village also conducted a local replication experiment. The villager is about 1.8 meters tall and has a strong body. After six hours of continuous digging, he barely dug a 1-meter-deep pit. He posted a video saying that it was almost impossible for the three juvenile suspects to complete the work of exhuming and burying the bodies within the two to three hours of presumed crime time.
  • According to the investigation of the police in Feixiang District, Handan, Hebei Province, after the inspection of the technical department, the burial pit involved in the case is actually only 0.56 meters deep, which is not 1 to 2 meters deep as previously speculated by the victim's lawyer team and various views, so it is ruled out that there are more suspect or suspect's family members committing joint crimes; The police initially determined that this case was a premeditated crime. In order to bury the body, the suspect actually dug in the shed twice, once on March 9 before the crime, and the second time after the crime.

Reference Law

The incident involves the setting of the age of criminal responsibility in the< Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China>. In the case, because the three suspects were over 12 years old but not yet 14 years old, it sparked public discussion on whether the three suspects should be subject to the death penalty that is generally applied to adults who commit intentional homicide.

The <Amendment to the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China (Eleven)>stipulates that a person who has reached the age of 12 but has not reached the age of 14 is guilty of intentional homicide, intentional injury, causing death or causing serious injury and severe disability by particularly cruel means. Those who are so egregious that prosecution is approved by the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall bear criminal responsibility. Su Mingyue, an associate professor at Beijing Normal University Law School, said that cases involving crimes committed by minors aged 12 or over but under 14 must be approved by the Supreme People's Procuratorate before they can enter the criminal judicial process, and be convicted and sentenced by the court. Since the death penalty is not applicable to minors, if the crime constitutes a felony and the circumstances are atrocious, the maximum penalty is life imprisonment.

Su Mingyue further added that if the Supreme People's Procuratorate does not approve prosecution, the case will need to be returned to the administrative system. According to the Law of the <People's Republic of China on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency>, the involved underage individuals will be sent to specialized facilities for correctional education.

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[[Category:March 2024 events]]