The Chinese and American police spent ten years jointly solving the case. What happened across the ocean?

At 9: 00 am on May 4, the Intermediate People's Court of Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, with the order of the presiding judge to "take the defendant Li Bo to court", Li Bo, the defendant who killed his wife and fled back to China in the United States years ago, was tried by the court under the escort of two bailiffs. On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the judicial department of Los Angeles paid close attention to this case, and specially sent the chief prosecutor of this case, Lisa S.Coen, special assistant of the Attorney General's Office of Los Angeles County, and Sean D.Coen, judge of the High Court of Los Angeles County, to attend the trial in China. Brian, a policeman who failed to personally arrest Li Bo and delayed his retirement because of this case, learned the news and could not hide his excitement. He said excitedly, "this is the best gift I received before I retired!" " This murder investigation, which lasted 1 1 year, ended, so it was praised as "a model of criminal judicial cooperation between China and the United States" by people in the industry.

Criminal suspect Li

1 1 years ago, the American wife-killing case opened up Sino-US criminal judicial cooperation.

On June 9, 2007, the caretaker of Whittier Park in Los Angeles found a body in a floating trash can in the park lake. The Los Angeles police rushed to the scene for salvage, investigation and evidence collection. Due to the low geographical latitude of Los Angeles, the average temperature in winter is still around 10 degrees, and the body has rotted after being poured into the barrel in the lake. 10/9, 65438+65438, the fingerprint of the remains was successfully extracted, and it was confirmed that the deceased was Gao, a citizen of China (female, 26 years old, from Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province).

American investigators found the trash can at the scene.

Modern Express reporter learned that Gao and her husband Li Bo came to the United States through professional immigration more than ten years ago, and Li Bo worked as a chef in a restaurant. In the face of his wife's body, Li Bo was heartbroken. He told the police that one afternoon in June 5438+February 65438+March 2006, his wife sent her friend to the airport and never came back. This is completely consistent with the activities of the last day of Gao identified by the US police. This day, later proved to be a high death day.

Since then, according to the available information, the Los Angeles police have launched a large number of investigations. Around the activities of the deceased before his death, he visited his former colleagues and relatives and friends of both husband and wife many times, and the suspects were excluded one by one. Although the police have doubts about Li Bo, they have never obtained more direct evidence. Three years have passed in a blink of an eye, and this murder case is like a stone on Brian's mind. He is about to retire, and he doesn't want to leave any regrets in his police career. It's 20 10, and the case has some clues.

In June 5438+10, Li Bo was arrested for theft in Northern California, USA. His biological materials were consistent with the physical evidence on the spot, and he was suspected of murder. Brian was very surprised at this discovery. In order to improve the evidence, he thought of the deceased's hometown for further evidence collection. 20 13 12, a request for assistance from LAPD was sent to the desk of the head of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security through the Chinese Embassy in the United States. "Do your best to cooperate with the US police to collect evidence and return the deceased to justice as soon as possible!" The person in charge asked.

The victim took a photo before he died.

On the morning of 20 13, 12, 10, the American policemen Brian and Amy, who were in charge of the case, came to the hometown of the deceased and asked Gao's parents in detail with the cooperation of the public security organs in Jiangsu Province, Yangzhou City and Jiangdu District. Brian found that Li Bo lied to the American police on many key issues. After further work, the US police accused the suspect Li Bo of committing two felonies of murder and rape in Los Angeles from June 5438 to February 65438, 2006. On July 2014 16, the California High Court issued an arrest warrant against the suspect Li Bo.

American investigators went to the hometown of victims and suspects to learn about the situation.

Brian is not satisfied with the progress of the case. Because the investigation found that Li Bo had returned to China in May 20 10. As we all know, according to China's extradition law, since Li Bo is a citizen of China, it is impossible for China to extradite Li Bo to the United States. The American police could not go directly to China to catch the murderer, and the progress of solving the case was blocked again. Brian regained his confidence when he thought of the full cooperation given by the China police when he obtained evidence in China last time.

After half a year, the Ministry of Public Security once again received a letter from the US police requesting the transfer of the case.

Going to the United States to take a case is an unprecedented challenge.

The murder scene is in the United States, and the suspect is in China. How to carry out further investigation and bring the suspects to justice has become a difficult problem for Chinese and American police.

After consultation between China and the United States, on 20 14, the American police handed over the case to the Chinese side for handling, and the Jiangdu District Public Security Bureau of Yangzhou City was responsible for the specific investigation after being appointed by the Ministry of Public Security and the provincial and municipal public security organs. "The US police handed over the case to China, which is of great significance to judicial cooperation." The Ministry of Public Security gave instructions.

Cars loaded with trash cans are being investigated by investigators.

On 201410 June 19, the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security led a group of eight people from the third-level public security organs in Jiangsu on a case-taking trip to the United States. At this time, it has been nearly 8 years since the murder case occurred. The pressure faced by the China task force is obvious. It takes less than seven days for the United States to go back and forth, not to mention the long time span of the murder case, and the first scene of the murder case is still uncertain. As far as judicial cooperation is concerned, the evidence rules and trial systems of China and the United States are quite different, and there is no precedent for criminal judicial cooperation.

The reporter of Modern Express learned that on the night they arrived in Los Angeles, they didn't have time to rest and didn't take into account the discomfort caused by adjusting the time difference. As soon as we got off the plane, the Chinese working group came to our consulate in Los Angeles, reported the work plan to be carried out in the United States, and requested to coordinate with the American police to ensure the smooth progress of evidence collection.

Time must be saved by time. In order to improve efficiency, the members of the working group are divided. A group went to Whittier Park, which is a 20-minute drive away from the corpse dumping site, and the rented place of the deceased, and made a detailed investigation of the location relationship of the geographical environment, and repeatedly traveled back and forth between the two places to verify the path and feasibility of the suspect. With the help of American police, a batch of important criminal evidence was transported back to China.

A group translated American evidence materials overnight and conducted research and evaluation on key evidence in time. In order to ensure that the relevant evidence meets the requirements of China's rules of evidence, the working group also put forward supplementary requirements for key evidence to the US police, which laid a good foundation for subsequent criminal proceedings.

After summarizing the collection work of each group, the working group divided into three groups to review the acquisition of legal documents and trace material evidence such as witness testimony transcripts and expert conclusions, and listened to the opinions and suggestions of the working group prosecutors on the acquisition of case evidence, so as to further consolidate the investigation and evidence collection work.

The first trip to the United States, China's harvest can be described as "heavyweight". There are not only nearly 300 pages of written materials, more than 20 CDs and 10 pieces of physical evidence.

In Whittier Park, Los Angeles, the victim's body was hidden in a trash can by the water.

It is difficult to find out the truth.

1October 26, 20 14, 10, the day after China's working group returned to China, elite police forces such as criminal investigation and legal system gathered in Jiangdu to set up a special investigation team.

According to the provisions of China's criminal law, the witness testimony, expert conclusion and investigation record provided by the United States can only point to Li Bo's suspicion of major murder, but the basis for identification is not sufficient, and the investigation of the case is still very difficult. Therefore, it is the most time-consuming and crucial step for the working group to transform the evidence collected by the US into legal evidence that meets the legal requirements of China.

To this end, the case-handling organ organized the backbone of the case, carefully reviewed the case file materials, and after being familiar with the work of the US side and the evidence of the whole case, put forward some unavoidable specific problems in the work of evidence transformation and acceptance, focused on solving the legality of evidence sources and evidence transformation, and put forward guiding opinions, which provided a "road map" for the next investigation work of the task force.

According to the deployment, once the evidence chain of peripheral investigation is formed, the arrest can be carried out. Since then, the task force has closely investigated and controlled Li Bo's actions and followed them for several days. 2065438+On September 9, 2005, in front of a residential area in Hanjiang District, Yangzhou City, Li Bo gave in easily.

The reporter of Modern Express learned that Li Bo had been interrogated by American police many times before, but he never confessed the facts of the crime. After the American police returned Gao's body, Li Bo thought for a moment. The body was gone, and the evidence was gone, so he could rest easy. During this period, he got married again and gave birth to a child. He never imagined that after killing his wife in the United States for more than 9 years, he was finally planted in the hands of China police.

Although he had a strong ability to resist trial, in the face of strong policy intentions and a series of evidence from pre-trial experts of Yangzhou Public Security Bureau, Li Bo finally lost after 37 days of tenacious resistance. Li Bo confessed that in 2002, the couple came to Los Angeles as professional immigrants, and they worked hard for their dreams. Later, I studied English in high school, got a driver's license, and wanted to stay in the United States to start a business. He doesn't care more and more about Li Bo who is used to the status quo and doesn't want to make progress. Since then, the two sides have been arguing constantly, and Gao has repeatedly threatened to divorce, which has led to an escalation of contradictions. On the afternoon of June 5438+February 65438+March 2006, there was a quarrel between them. In a rage, Li Bo killed Gao and then dumped his body.

The irrefutable evidence, together with the confession of the suspect Li Bo, further strengthened all the evidence of China and the United States. 20 15 10 15 approved by the people's procuratorate of Jiangdu district, Yangzhou city, Jiangdu police arrested Li Bo according to law.

The US police handed over the trash can as important evidence to the China police.

Perfecting evidence and achieving iron case

At this point, the case is not over yet. According to the law of China, although the suspect has been on the case, both the crime scene and the insider are in the United States, and they need to go to the United States for investigation and evidence collection. On 20 16 65438+ 10/7, the China police liaison officer in the United States negotiated with the American police and prosecutors to open a green channel for the China task force to handle the case.

At the lakeside of Whittier Park, the working group, accompanied by American police, re-surveyed the first scene of the murder, the location and route of dumping the body; After several days of searching, the police found other important evidence. After that, the working group conducted three investigation experiments to find out that Li Bo objectively had the time to kill and dump the body and the tools to transport the body, and comprehensively demonstrated some details of the crime explained in Li Bo's confession, which played a role in finding out the case, reinforcing the evidence and eliminating reasonable doubts.

In Temple City Police Department, Los Angeles County, under the auspices of American police, many key witnesses came to the scene, made notes one by one, verified relevant evidence materials, and improved the evidence chain of the whole case. In order to adapt to the relevant provisions of China law, the US organized police officers such as Brian and Amy to sign and confirm all the evidence handed over one by one, and provided more than 30 qualification certificates of forensic medicine, toxicology and DNA identification institutions and personnel, which fulfilled China's requirements for evidence conversion and acceptance and laid a solid foundation for future litigation.

The 9-day trip to the United States for obtaining evidence soon ended, and the working group in China not only gained a wealth of evidence materials. The head of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security said that although it is different from the US police in terms of organizational leadership, service command and legal system, both sides have achieved good results in cracking down on cross-border crimes, especially in investigating serious violent cases such as homicide, which is of important demonstration significance for further deepening cross-border police cooperation between China and the United States.

On May 4th, Li Bo was tried in Yangzhou, Jiangsu. The trial ended at 1 1: 30, and the court did not pronounce a sentence in court. ?