Absurd Wife Killing Case: Self-interested

Imagine if a child said to you, " Daddy took mommy's head off."

Do you believe it or not?

How would the police react if they heard this?

In 1988, a five-year-old boy's unintentional " children's words" set off a huge wave, and a major " murder" case that attracted much attention surfaced.

Overnight, words such as " killing wives and dismembering corpses" and " horror children's words" flooded every corner of Taipei City.

( 1) Where is Mom?

On October 5, 1988, a middle-aged woman came to the police station in Taipei City, and she looked around anxiously.

" Officer, my poor daughter has been killed!"

The woman who reported the case was named Chen Guimei, and the daughter she said was killed was named Wu Ruiyun.

Chen Guimei cried bitterly in the police station, saying that she knew who the murderer was and that she still had recording evidence in her hand, and begged the police to arrest him quickly.

When the Taipei police heard that it was a major homicide case, they immediately paid attention to it. The recording brought by Chen Guimei immediately echoed in every corner of the police station.

" Dad took Mom's head off that night and never saw Mom again."

" My mother's feet were also taken off by my father, and the contents of my stomach were packed into many small black bags."

" Daddy wants us to say that Mommy left with other boys."

In the recording was the immature voice of a child, but what he said horrified the policemen present.

They realized that this was probably a major case of killing his wife and dismembering his body!

In the 1980s, Taiwan's police force was experiencing a dark period in the history of law and order. There were many shootings and robberies, but very few murderers were arrested and brought to justice, and their credibility was not as good as before.

Therefore, in the face of such a major case, the police cheered up and immediately began to ask Chen Guimei the ins and outs of the whole incident, hoping to solve the case as soon as possible so as to regain the dignity and prestige of the police.

According to Chen Guimei's intermittent description and the Tong Yan in the recording, an astonishing truth emerges before her eyes.

( 2) Returning from overseas

On July 12, 1988, Wu Ruiyun 's husband, Yao Zhengyuan, who had been working overseas for six months , returned home.

24-year-old Yao Zhengyuan is a sailor. He and Wu Ruiyun have a five-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter. In order to make more money to support his family, he chose a " seaman" who often leaves home and cannot accompany his wife and children, but has a small income. secure occupation.

In order to celebrate Yao Zhengyuan's safe return home, Chen Guimei, who always looked down on this son-in-law, specially called and invited their family of four to come home tomorrow to celebrate.

Yao Zhengyuan agreed with all his heart, thinking that his mother-in-law will take care of his wife and children during his absence, so he must come to thank him.

However, on the second day ( July 13), only Yao Zhengyuan knocked on the door of Chen Guimei's house, but her daughter Wu Ruiyun and her child did not show up.

When Yao Zhengyuan was asked why, he only said that Wu Ruiyun was at home with the children, so he would not come over.

a sullen face to ask what was going on .

When Wu Ruiyun answered the phone, he said the same thing as Yao Zhengyuan, saying that he wanted to prepare dinner for the two children, so he would not go there.

Chen Guimei, who is a mother, naturally feels sorry for her daughter, so the meal was not satisfied and angry, and it ended hastily .

In the next few days, Chen Guimei's heart became uneasy because of the two phone calls.

On July 15, Wu Ruiyun borrowed 2,000 yuan from Chen Guimei, and he never called again. After that, Chen Guimei learned about Wu Ruiyun's whereabouts from her son-in-law Yao Zhengyuan.

On July 16, Yao Zhengyuan suddenly told Chen Guimei that they were going to move out of the Guoguang Guozhai complex on Kenan Street. The new home had not yet installed a fixed telephone, so they could not make calls for the time being. They would resume contact as soon as everything was sorted out. At the end of the day, he added, " Mother-in-law doesn't have to worry."

But instead of reassuring Chen Guimei, her son-in-law's words made her even more anxious.

" Is something wrong with my daughter?" With an uneasy heart, Chen Guimei waited at home for another two months, but the result was the same as before , and Wu Ruiyun still did not contact Chen Guimei.

After waiting for many days, Chen Guimei called her son-in-law Yao Zhengyuan again to inquire about the situation.

This time, Yao Zhengyuan simply told her, " Wu Ruiyun ran away from home after arguing with me, and I have already reported to the police."

heard the words " run away from home", she panicked instantly. This explanation is too far-fetched.

She thought about her son-in-law's performance in recent months, and she suddenly became suspicious.

On October 4th, Chen Guimei set up another table of good food. In the name of caring for the children, she asked Yao Zhengyuan to bring her children to the house for dinner. At the dinner table, Yao Zhengyuan's phone calls never stopped since he entered the door, one after another.

Seeing this scene, Chen Guimei immediately seized the opportunity, and while Yao Zhengyuan was away, she hurriedly brought her five-year-old brother over to ask where her mother had gone.

" Daddy took mommy's head off." The elder brother uttered these creepy words in a childish voice.

Chen Guimei was shocked when she heard this, and her two-month guess was confirmed at this time. It turned out that something happened to her daughter!

In order to confirm that her grandson did not make up random stories, Chen Guimei came to the new home mentioned by Yao Zhengyuan alone on October 5th.

Suppressing her fear, she asked the two children quietly again, and their answers became more specific and terrifying, which were the few scary children's words mentioned at the beginning.

Early the next morning, Chen Guimei stumbled towards the police station with the recordings of the two children.

( 3) Murderer

On October 6, Yao Zhengyuan was arrested by the police in a raid.

Waiting for his two children to leave school at the gate of the kindergarten, he struggled for a while before getting into the police car, which attracted many onlookers.

Faced with repeated interrogations by the police, the man whose skin was reddened by the sea breeze had a frightened face and his eyes widened.

" It's not me, I didn't kill anyone! Wu Ruiyun is definitely not dead. If she wants to divorce, she will leave. I won't kill anyone."

Seeing that Yao Zhengyuan did not admit his crime, the police released the recordings of the two children.

After listening, Yao Zhengyuan yelled " wronged" like crazy, saying that he hadn't seen Wu Ruiyun since July 15th, and he had been doing odd jobs in water and electricity for the next few days, and at the same time he would go for rent, until he was arrested by the police. Suddenly caught.

And outside the police station, such explosive words as " wife killing" , " dividing corpses" and " terrorist child's words" spread to every corner of Taipei City in an instant, and the local media rushed to report on this " evil man killing his wife incident " ".

Overnight, the saying that Yao Zhengyuan is equal to a " devil" spread loudly, and all kinds of abuse and suspicion came like a tide.

Mother Chen Guimei even burst into tears, crying to the media about Yao Zhengyuan's cruelty and daughter Wu Ruiyun 's pity.

Even the tenants who lived in the former site of Yao Zhengyuan and his wife told the public about their horrifying experience— " I dreamed of a woman with a severed head, wearing a red dress, and blood was all over the floor. She didn't speak, but just looked at me silently. But I think she must have been killed. Who else could that person be besides her husband?"

The tenant also said that when he checked in, he found a bag of rotten meat wrapped in hard plastic paper in the refrigerator, which was already full of maggots and smelled bad, but the bag of rotten meat had been discarded long ago and was nowhere to be found.

People speculated that the carrion in the refrigerator must be Wu Ruiyun's mutilated corpse.

The tragic death of Wu Ruiyun made people sigh, so someone set up a mourning hall for Wu Ruiyun on Kenan Street, where Yao's family used to live, for people to worship and comfort the soul.

However, the investigation and interrogation of Yao Zhengyuan has reached a stalemate.

Because no matter what form of interrogation Yao Zhengyuan adopted, he insisted that he did not kill Wu Ruiyun, and insisted that his mother-in-law Chen Guimei had disliked him since he married Wu Ruiyun, and she must have deliberately accused and framed him.

Of course, the police who have seen the storm will not believe his words, after all, Yao Zhengyuan is full of doubts.

For example, Yao Zhengyuan has always claimed that Wu Ruiyun works in an electronics factory, but after investigation by the police, it was discovered that Wu Ruiyun did not work in the electronics factory at all, but in a sauna shop ( that is, what we often call a bath and sauna shop).

As a husband, how can you not know where your wife works?

In addition, Yao Zhengyuan's sudden move also aroused suspicion from the police . Why did the Yao family, who had lived in the original community for many years, move away so quickly three days after Yao Zhengyuan returned from overseas?

Is it to hide or avoid something?

With such questions in mind, the police and forensic doctors quickly went to Yao Zhengyuan's new and old residences. Unfortunately, there was no blood reaction at the scene, and no tools were found.

This also shows that the first scene where Wu Ruiyun was killed or dismembered was not at home.

If Wu Ruiyun's body and substantial physical evidence were not found, Yao Zhengyuan could not be convicted, so the police changed the direction of the investigation, and they began to investigate the place where Yao Zhengyuan's body might be buried.

Unexpectedly, this new change allowed the police to get an explosive new clue from the little brother and sister of the Yao family .

When the police tentatively inquired about the whereabouts of the fathers of the two children, they found that they could describe in detail the location and process of Yao Zhengyuan's burial.

" In the morning, my father drove the two of us in a taxi near the racetrack of Youth Park. Afterwards, we were locked in the car. Through the window, we saw that my father dug a big hole and buried my mother in it."

Although this method of allowing children to recall the horror images for the second time has been criticized by many experts and the public, the result still excited the police.

The truth seems to be right in front of your eyes.

However, after several hours of digging, the much-anticipated result did not appear in time. The " corpse" that the child spoke of did not exist at all, and not even a single human hair was found.

Because this time the police dispatched to " mobilize the masses" directly pushed the police to the cusp of the storm, causing the already little credibility to fall instead of rising, which aroused public outrage.

People can't help but ask, can the testimony of the two young children be accepted?

( 4) Reverse attack

After returning from Youth Park, the Taipei police fell into great doubts.

On the one hand, Yao Zhengyuan insisted that he was wronged, and on the other hand, there was a horrible child's talk that was difficult to distinguish between true and false, and the case came to a dead end.

Just as the police were struggling to find someone, the appearance of several witnesses broke the deadlock.

At first, a friend of Wu Ruiyun came forward and said that he had seen Wu Ruiyun in August, how could he be dismembered in July?

Immediately after, more and more witnesses appeared, and finally it was discovered that five people had seen Wu Ruiyun in August and September respectively!

At the same time, a person who claimed to be Wu Ruiyun's real self also made a phone call suddenly, saying that he was not dead, but it was inconvenient to show up, and told the police not to look for him any more.

However, when the police invited her to come forward to clarify, the woman refused decisively and quickly hung up the phone.

Police determined it was a hoax.

The uproar among the public and the increasing pressure on the police have increasingly doubted the veracity of the childish speech in the recording.

Therefore, the prosecutor at the time, Guan Gaoyue, took Chen Guimei away on the grounds of cooperating with the investigation in the investigative court, and asked the high-profile little brother and sister softly again.

" Did Dad kill Mom?"

" I don't know..."

Hearing this answer, the prosecutor held his breath, and then asked, " Did someone teach you to say that?"

After waiting quietly for a few seconds, the 4-year-old sister of the Yao family finally nodded to the prosecutor.

The person who " taught" children to lie is Chen Guimei.

In this regard, the Taipei police invited child psychologists to analyze the behavior of the Yao family's " retraction" . It will also develop associations after being deliberately guided."

Because the Yao family retracted their confessions, all previous testimonies were no longer credible. In addition, no actual evidence such as the scene of the crime, dead bodies, and tools for committing the crime were found. Yao Zhengyuan, who was detained for eight days, was acquitted.

When leaving the police station, Yao Zhengyuan told the police that the two children must have been instigated by their mother-in-law Chen Guimei to lie, because it was not the first time Chen Guimei sued him for killing his wife. Two or three years ago, because Wu Ruiyun ran away from home for a month, Chen Guimei once accused Yao Zhengyuan of killing her daughter with great fanfare.

At this point, the " evil man murdering his wife and dismembering his body" turned into an " ordinary disappearance case".

Faced with the accusation of instigating the children to lie and disrupting the police's handling of the case, Chen Guimei complained that she was also deceived by the two children.

Because there were too few clues, the case was shelved. Wu Ruiyun never saw anyone alive or dead.

It wasn't until three years later that this ironic case came back to the public eye, and the turmoil arose again...

( 5) Theory of ghosts and gods

goes , " spread rumors with one mouth, and refute rumors with less legs."

The abuse that wronged Yao Zhengyuan received during his detention did not stop after he was acquitted. Many people still firmly believe that he killed his wife and that Yao Zhengyuan died socially.

To make matters worse, the youngest daughter was hospitalized due to a car accident.

have been following up on this " wife killing case" in recent years immediately became excited when they saw Yao's youngest daughter hospitalized.

Just imagine, if a mother sees her daughter being hospitalized in a car accident, she will definitely come to her child non-stop.

The reporters saw this " mother's love nature", and squatted outside the hospital day and night, waiting for Wu Ruiyun to show up in person, and immediately arranged the front page headlines.

However, until the youngest daughter recovered and was discharged from the hospital, the " mother" that everyone was looking forward to did not show up.

Whether it is the police, the media, or the local people, they all believe that Wu Ruiyun, who has not appeared at this juncture, is probably no longer alive.

As for Chen Guimei, although she was suspected of instructing the Yao family 's younger brothers and sisters to give false testimony, her love for her daughter was stronger than gold.

During the three years when the case was shelved, Chen Guimei was still persistently looking for her daughter, walking through countless towns and corners.

Gradually, Chen Guimei began to give up the usual methods of tracing people, and unexpectedly borrowed "the way of heaven", often claiming that her daughter had died of injustice, and she once saw ashtrays, coins and other things flying around in her daughter's bedroom.

The most sensational time was when the " famous" sorceress Chen Guimei paid a lot of money to help her find the bones of her daughter Wu Ruiyun !

Overjoyed, she immediately asked the police to cooperate in finding her daughter.

Normally, the police rely on evidence and science to solve the case, but this time the Taipei police participated in the inexplicable ghost story.

The police chief at the time, Zhuang Hengdai, wanted to solve the case quickly to save face, so he personally led the team to the place where the corpse was hidden by the witch.

There were crowds of people under the bridge, and people were so curious that they shuttled back and forth. Everyone wanted to know whether God would pity the mother who missed her daughter.

The young policemen waved their hoes, as if they were digging three feet in the Youth Park a few years ago.

After the mud under the bridge was dug two or three times, the police really dug up a white skeleton.

Chen Guimei was shocked, and immediately collapsed on the ground and cried bitterly, shouting , " Daughter is so miserable!".

Chief of Police Zhuang Hengdai frowned, and immediately sent a forensic doctor to take the bones back for examination, and dispersed the onlookers.

However, when people thought that this five-year " murder case" had finally come to fruition, the reversal happened again.

After forensic identification, the bones did not belong to humans, but pig bones.

The Taipei police, who were criticized three years ago for believing children's words, were completely disgraced three years later.

The case of Wu Ruiyun's disappearance was shelved again.

( 6) Unexpected appearance

Time came to February 1993, a young woman came to the Hualien police station, saying that she was registering for her child.

She flinched, as if she was afraid of something.

Immediately afterwards, the words " Wu Ruiyun" suddenly appeared on the register in front of the police, and everyone present was stunned .

After investigation, it was found that this woman was the protagonist of the " Wife Killing and Dividing the Corpse Case", Wu Ruiyun, who could not be found even after digging three feet!

Where has she been all these years?

Why did Wu Ruiyun, the mother, never show up even when the child was in a car accident?

After interrogation, Wu Ruiyun confessed in shame that he didn't run away from home at all, but eloped with someone.

Because of the disharmony between husband and wife, Yao Zhengyuan went to work in a fit of anger. Wu Ruiyun, who was alone at home , couldn't bear the loneliness and went to work in a sauna club called Qiji Sannuan. During the call with Yao Zhengyuan, she lied that she had found a job at a power plant.

In the San Warm Club, Wu Ruiyun met a man surnamed Yang. The lonely woman seemed to find love again, and they fell in love not long after.

After Yao Zhengyuan returned from overseas, Wu Ruiyun suddenly felt that his two children had something to rely on, so he borrowed some money from his mother, Chen Guimei, and eloped with a man surnamed Yang.

After the oolong incident broke out, Wu Ruiyun didn't think about clarifying it. The call saying that Wu Ruiyun was not dead was the one she called the police herself. I don't know anything about the past!

It turned out that since the first day she met a man surnamed Yang, Wu Ruiyun had been thinking about it, and she had always lied about her name as Liu Ruilian. Her current " husband" had no idea that she had a family, and even her name was fake.

The reason why she showed up this time was really a last resort, because she had a child with a man surnamed Yang , and this child will go to school when he is old enough, and to go to school requires a legal household registration.

If it weren't for this, the selfish Wu Ruiyun might never show up, and the " wife killing and quartering case" would have become an unsolved case.

( 7) A little thought

Throughout the development of the whole case, my first impression is: absurd.

Wu Ruiyun was selfish, abandoned her husband and son, ran away from home, and never showed up no matter how the situation developed. This is one of the absurdities.

The second absurdity is that the mother, Chen Guimei, is eager to think about her daughter and instigates her grandson to identify her son-in-law and kill his wife.

case. It is the third absurdity to rely on the testimony of children and theories of ghosts and gods to quickly solve the case.

It is precisely because of the outrageousness of the above three aspects that led to a five-year oolong incident.

The most critical of these was the " scary children's talk" of the two children of the Yao family, which aroused considerable discussion in society at the time.

1. A deadly fairy tale

" Children don't lie."

It was based on this simple understanding that the police arrested Yao Zhengyuan, and the public began to suspect and attack him infinitely.

It is hard for us to imagine that if Wu Ruiyun had not appeared from the beginning to the end, and if the testimony of the two children had not been overturned, would the innocent Yao Zhengyuan have always been accused of " killing his wife" and living in abuse for the rest of his life?

The same situation also happened in Huaibei, Anhui in 2018. A fifth grade boy lied to his parents that he was beaten by his teacher.

The next day, the boy's parents contacted eight relatives and rushed to the school together. The moment they saw the teacher, the boy's mother and aunt pushed the teacher to a corner, tore his hair and beat other parts.

In the end, the lying boy admitted that he was lying, and his parents were punished and detained for 15 days, while the hard-working teacher was lying on a hospital bed, suffering a great physical and mental blow.

It all reminds me of a Danish movie, The Hunt.

The protagonist Lucas is a kind and gentle middle-aged man. After the divorce, he found a job in a kindergarten. Because of his gentle temperament, patience and responsibility, the children in the kindergarten like him very much, and some precocious five-year-old girl Kara is no exception. .

When Kara fell in love with Lucas, she not only made a small heart-shaped gift and stuffed it into Lucas's bag, but also rushed to kiss him on the lips.

Faced with Kara's overtures, Lucas of course refused, and asked her to give small heart-shaped gifts to other children. This hit Kara hard, and she decided to take revenge on the teacher.

That night, Carla went to the dean to confide that Lucas had " sexually assaulted" her.

After that, Lucas's work was suspended indefinitely, his son called to question him, his ex-wife came to ridicule him, his good friend drew a line with him, his dog was even poisoned to death, and everyone began to blame Lucas ...

What's even more absurd is that when the police and the park asked other children, their answers were surprisingly consistent with Kara's.

But in the face of the rumors all over the sky, Lucas's explanation was too pale and weak. There was no evidence, and there was no room for excuses. The sentence " children don't lie" made him " socially dead" in just a few days.

Doesn't this look like the wronged Yao Zhengyuan?

At the end of the film, Carla admits that she lied, and the shackles on Lucas are finally removed, but is it all over?

No, the shackles are still there, even heavier.

When Lucas was standing in the Nordic forest in October, enjoying the happiness of seeing the sun again, there was a sudden gunshot from a distance, and a bullet passed him by!

2. Collective lying behavior

Combining the case of Wu Ruiyun with the movie "The Hunt", we can't help but ask: Why do children collectively lie?

For example, Yao Zhengyuan's two children have very consistent accusations that their father killed someone.

Another example is the children in the kindergarten where Lucas is located. They can describe in detail the location of the basement, the color of the walls, and the sofa in Lucas's home, and express that they have also been sexually assaulted.

But in fact, the killing of his wife and body did not happen at all, and Lucas did not have a basement at home.

Psychologist Solomon Asch once conducted an experiment on " herd behavior". The participants in the experiment were 123 college students.

Each group of 7 people participated in the test at the same time, only 1 of them was a real subject, and the remaining 6 were " actors".

The subject was assigned to answer the question second to last so that he could hear most of the incorrect responses.

Axi prepared 18 sets of test questions for the experiment, two for each set, one with a standard line segment and the other with a comparison line segment. The subjects were required to choose the option shorter than the left picture from the abc options in the right picture.

During the experiment, the cards appeared 18 times in total, but from the 7th time, the " actors" began to deliberately choose wrong answers, in order to observe the herd mentality and individual independence of the subjects.

The experimental results show that about 75% of the subjects had at least one herd behavior; 25% to 33% of the subjects were not influenced by others and maintained independent judgment; the average herd behavior of all subjects 34%.

In the inquiry after the experiment, the subjects generally reported that they felt severe psychological pressure and inner conflict during the experiment.

Therefore, we can imagine that adult college students under group pressure will have herd behavior, not to mention children who always want to " play with everyone"?

In a flood of lies, the one who tells the truth is often the one who is marginalized.

It's always assumed that children tell the truth. And unfortunately, very often they do.

We always assume that kids don't lie, but alas, they often do. —— " Hunting"