latelenovela Chapter 1372 Who is the murderer?
Chapter 1372 Who is the murderer?
At 2 PM, a surprise interrogation began in the Criminal Investigation Detachment's interrogation room. Faced with evidence presented by Xiao Wang, including the registration information of the "Lu Ning Sand Mining 037" vessel and transaction records with Li Laosi, Tian Guoyi initially attempted to deny the allegations, claiming that his relationship with Zhang Jianguo was merely ordinary business and that he knew nothing about Zhang's murder. However, when Xiao Wang presented him with records of Zhang Jianguo repairing the sand dredger's engine, IOUs for unpaid maintenance fees from Tian Guoyi, and Li Laosi's statement that "Zhang Jianguo knew about the illegal sand mining and was preparing to report it," Tian Guoyi's defenses completely crumbled, and he dejectedly confessed to all his crimes.
“I met Zhang Jianguo last March. My sand dredging boat engine broke down, and I asked him to fix it through Li Laosi’s introduction.” Tian Guoyi wiped the cold sweat from his face and said in a hoarse voice, “The repair cost was 8000 yuan. I was short of money at the time, so I told him to pay me back when I made money from sand dredging. I didn’t expect that the sand dredging market would be bad that year. Not only did I not pay him back, but I also asked him to repair parts twice more. In total, I owed him 12000 yuan.”
"When did Zhang Jianguo start threatening to report you?" Xiao Wang pressed.
“About a month ago,” Tian Guoyi sighed, “his son needed money urgently for college, and he kept urging me to pay him back. I really couldn’t come up with the money, so he said that if I kept delaying, he would report my illegal sand dredging vessel to the Maritime Safety Administration and the Public Security Bureau, saying that my vessel did not have legal permits and was illegally mining national resources. I was terrified at the time. This vessel was my entire fortune. If it was seized, I would be completely finished. So I kept stalling him, asking him to give me another half month to raise the money.”
Xiao Wang produced Zhang Jianguo's whereabouts record for July 10th: "On the evening of July 10th, after Zhang Jianguo left Liu Changgen's house, did he go to the abandoned dock to collect a debt from you? What happened after you met?"
Tian Guoyi's body trembled slightly, and he answered with evasive eyes: "I invited him. On the afternoon of July 10, he called me again to urge me to pay the debt. He was very firm and said that I had to see the money that night, or he would report me first thing the next morning. I had no choice but to tell him that I had hidden some cash at the abandoned dock and asked him to come and get it at 9:7 p.m. Actually, I wanted to discuss with him for a few more days."
"You two didn't reach an agreement after you met?"
"Hmm." Tian Guoyi nodded, a look of regret on his face. "When he got to the dock, he asked me where the money was. I said I couldn't raise it all at the moment and asked him to wait another week. I would pawn the equipment on the ship to him for some money. He got angry as soon as he heard that, saying I was playing him. He immediately took out his phone and said he was going to call the police. I panicked and rushed at him to grab his phone. We started fighting. He was stronger than me and pushed me down into the mud. He even grabbed my arm and bit me. In a moment of madness, I picked up a rock from the ground and smashed it on the back of his head."
At this point, Tian Guoyi's voice choked up: "I was stunned after I smashed him. I was terrified to see him lying motionless on the ground. Just then, I heard the sound of a motorcycle not far away. Afraid of being discovered, I quickly dragged him deeper into the reeds and threw him into the water. I thought that would destroy the evidence, but I didn't expect you to find out."
"What about the rock you threw at him? And his phone?" Xiao Wang pressed.
“I threw the stone into the lake, right next to the abandoned dock. After I turned off my phone, I broke it into pieces and threw the parts in different places. Some were thrown into the lake, and some were thrown into the trash cans by the roadside,” Tian Guoyi confessed. “After I returned to the sand dredging boat, I moved the sand dredging equipment on board to a friend’s warehouse overnight, intending to sell the boat and run away after things calmed down. I didn’t expect to be caught by you before I could even do anything.”
To verify Tian Guoyi's confession, Xiao Wang immediately arranged for two teams to work: one team went to the waters around the abandoned dock to retrieve the stones used in the crime, and the other team searched the trash cans around Qingling Lake for remnants of Zhang Jianguo's mobile phone. Meanwhile, the technical department also tested Tian Guoyi's clothing, fingernails, and personal belongings, finding that the mud on his clothing matched the mud at the crime scene perfectly, and that fragments of Zhang Jianguo's skin tissue remained under his fingernails, a perfect match for DNA testing.
In the evening, the salvage team reported that they had retrieved a bloodstained pebble from the waters near the abandoned dock. Testing confirmed the blood belonged to Zhang Jianguo, and the impact marks on the pebble closely matched the injuries sustained on the back of Zhang Jianguo's head. Simultaneously, team members searching through trash cans found Zhang Jianguo's SIM card and some fragments of the phone in a trash can along the Qingling Lake ring road, further corroborating Tian Guoyi's confession.
Thus, the complete truth behind the unidentified corpse case in the reed marshes finally came to light: Tian Guoyi owed Zhang Jianguo repair fees, and Zhang Jianguo threatened to report illegal sand mining. Tian Guoyi then lured Zhang Jianguo to an abandoned dock under the pretense of negotiation. After an argument, Tian Guoyi knocked Zhang Jianguo unconscious with pebbles, then dragged him deep into the reed marshes and threw him into the water, causing Zhang Jianguo to drown. Li Laosi happened to be passing by on his motorcycle at that moment and had a brief altercation with the unconscious Zhang Jianguo. Mistaking Zhang Jianguo for his own murder, Li Laosi hurriedly fled the scene, adding another twist to the investigation.
On the morning of July 15th, a thin mist shrouded Qingling Lake after the rain. Water droplets on the reeds rolled down their stems, creating small craters in the muddy mudflats. Xiao Wang, leading four team members, escorted Tian Guoyi to the crime scene. Xiao Yang and Xiao Sun from the technical department were already waiting with forensic equipment, and several cameras were set up on the shore to record the entire identification process. Tian Guoyi, dressed in prison clothes and handcuffed, walked with heavy, hesitant steps in his non-slip boots, his face showing a numbness bordering on collapse, unlike the panic he displayed when arrested.
“This is it, the place I asked Zhang Jianguo to come.” Reaching the concrete slab of the abandoned dock, Tian Guoyi stopped, his gaze darting furtively over the reeds before him, his voice trembling almost imperceptibly. He pointed to a moss-covered spot on the edge of the concrete slab. “That night I stood here waiting for him, clutching a pre-prepared excuse—saying the money was hidden in the reeds, and that I wanted him to come with me to get it.” Xiao Sun immediately stepped forward and measured the straight-line distance from this location to where the body was found, which perfectly matched the 82 meters recorded in the previous investigation. The faint distribution of mud spots on the concrete slab also matched the detail in Tian Guoyi’s confession that “water dripped from the soles of his shoes when he dragged the body.”