Huangpu police make arrests in killing of cabbie 21 years ago
Two men were arrested recently on suspicion of killing a taxi driver 21 years ago, Shanghai police announced on Thursday.
On February 1, 2002, police in Huangpu District received a report that a taxi driver had been found dead in a white cab.
After investigation, the police found that two men had an argument with the victim, with one sitting in the passenger seat and the other standing outside the cab during the incident.
The white taxi in which the incident happened in 2002.
Although the two were identified as suspects, the police were unable to find them after visiting more than 150 surrounding units and dozens of residential areas, due to technical limitations at the time. The case was then put on file for over two decades.
However, Huangpu police never gave up searching for the suspects. On May 24 this year, they found that a 50-year-old man, surnamed Yu, in Pingjiang, central Hunan Province, had the same name as one of the suspects.
They immediately contacted Hunan police to compare the biological evidence of Yu with the evidence extracted from the scene, which confirmed that he was the suspect.
On June 13, police nabbed Yu in Jiangmen City, southern Guangdong Province, where he lived then.
After interrogation, Yu confessed to the crime, saying that he and the other suspect, surnamed Ling, killed the cabbie and robbed him on February 1, 2002, when Yu was working in Shanghai.
On June 20, Ling was caught by police in Changsha, the Hunan capital.
The two have been put under criminal detention and further investigation is ongoing.
Huangpu police officers caught one of the suspects in June.
Shanghai police have stepped up efforts to solve homicide and pending cases since the beginning of the year while also strictly cracking down on all kinds of crimes.
This year, they have so far solved 11 homicide cases dating back over 20 years as well as other backlog cases and a 30-year-plus old case.
