Text/Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Dong Liu
Liu Chao: Focus on DNA solving cases and fills the gaps with multiple achievements
Liu Chao is the main founder of forensic genetics in my country. In the early 1990s, forensic DNA technology was blank in many aspects. He conducted repeated experiments on more than 6,000 foul-smelling corrupt body examination materials. After 10 years, he established DNA identification technology for corrupt examination materials, guided the establishment of 18 provincial and municipal DNA laboratories to fill these regional gaps; built my country’s “ministerial-provincial-city” DNA database to realize data sharing and large-scale application, and Guangdong Province alone directly compared more than 300,000 cases.
The identification of the cause of death of corrupt corpses in the water has been a major problem recognized by international forensic medicine for a hundred years. After 10 years, he led his team to make major breakthroughs in key technologies such as diatom enrichment extraction, qualitative quantification, and DNA testing. The results have reached the international leading level, and have been identified in more than 3,100 cases. In response to the issue of the reliance on imports of key reagents for DNA testing, he took the lead in the development of 12 series of reagents such as high-throughput Y-STR, which forced the price reduction of similar products from abroad by more than 50%. This result has been promoted nationwide. Guangdong alone has solved many 300 murder cases in recent years.
He formulated 6 national industry standards and was authorized 10 invention patents; 12 research results reached the international advanced level, and won 4 second prizes of national scientific and technological progress (three of which ranked first); he won 2 first-class individual merits, and won the National Advanced Worker, National May 1st Labor Medal, National Outstanding Science and Technology Worker, National Outstanding People’s Police and other honors.
Liu Chao
As the second-level police technical director of the Criminal Police Detachment of Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, Liu Chaogang, 58, was awarded the title of “Outstanding Communist Party Member of Guangdong Province”. In addition, he has many identity cards: professors and doctoral supervisors, deputy head of the Forensic Genetics Group of China Criminal Technology Standardization, deputy director of the Physical Evidence Professional Committee of the Chinese Forensic Society, deputy head of the expert group, and director of the Academic Committee of the Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Public Security of Forensic Pathology.
After retiring from leadership position last year, Liu Chao focused on solving difficult murder cases. In the past year, he has solved seven difficult and unsolved cases that have not been solved for many years, and DNA is still his powerful weapon for “attack”.
Liu Chao at work
After resigning from his leadership position, he devoted his main energy to solving murder cases
Yangcheng Evening News: I retired from his leadership position last year. Can you breathe a sigh of relief?
Liu Chao: Although he no longer served as the captain of the Criminal Police Detachment of the Security Bureau last year, Guangzhou has “accumulated” in the past 20 or 30 years. Some murder cases under Komiks were not solved, and they were always a stone that weighed on my heart.
My previous detachment captains always told me before retirement: Which case has not been solved? I hope you solved it before retirement, and I hope you pass on these unsolved murder cases to the next generation.
The criminal investigator has a special feeling – solving cases, solving cases CinemaThe most important thing is to solve murder cases. The most difficult thing in murder cases is to solve the accumulated cases, which is the most test of the feelings and abilities of the criminal investigator. Therefore, I retired from the leadership position last year. After coming to Cinema, he spent more than a year spending his main energy on solving murder cases.
Yangcheng Evening News: What are the characteristics of these murder cases?
Liu Chao: Some cases were some cases that I encountered when I was 20 or 30 when I first joined the public security work. The scenes of those cases – blood flowing like a river on the ground, the corpse was highly corrupt, and there were no technical conditions to solve the case. Although so many years have passed, the scenes of these cases are still vivid in my mind.
Yangcheng Evening News: Why are these cases difficult to solve? Is there little physical evidence?
Liu Chao: The difficult criminal cases we talk about are not only reflected in the lack of evidence on the scene. The causal relationship of the case is unknown, the motive for the crime is unknown, and the nature of the case is unknown – such cases are difficult to solve.
For example, a very good and honest person suddenly went to another place to kill someone he didn’t know one day, and the evidence on the scene is very little, so this kind of case is difficult to solve.
For example, the case “2004·7·13″ case occurred in Huangpu, Guangzhou, the suspect sold apples with his father in Huangpu, Guangzhou when he was a child. Before committing the crime, he wanted to do business, but he didn’t have enough money. He came to Guangzhou, and went around and moved to a hair salon shop. The hair salon shop asked him at that time. href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>CinemaDon’t stay—twenty or thirty yuan. His motive at the beginning did not want to kill people, but during the prostitution process, he used materials to commit murder on the spot due to problems such as prostitution. He killed someone first, but this process alarmedAnother person… He killed someone the night he came to Guangzhou and left Guangzhou the next day after the murder. After the suspect returned, he hid in the coal mine Cinema for more than six months. Later, he felt that the wind was calm and returned to the village. He never left the village again. He endured it when others bully him. When others owe him money, he dare not ask for it or chase it. The villagers all said that he was an honest and good person, and he lived like this for more than ten years after the crime.
Yangcheng Evening News: How did you break through?
Liu Chao: Rely on DNA. There was a small episode before we arrested people. Komiks‘s household registration information shows that he is only 1.5 meters tall, but based on the crime scene, we analyzed that the suspect should be 1.7 meters. In this case, do you dare to arrest people? I made the decision and it is absolutely fine to catch it, because we have strong technical support such as DNA. Later I found out that the height “gap” of about 20 cm was reported in the early household registration materials of Komiks‘s height data was self-reported and inaccurate. Thanks to the innovation and progress of science and technology, such accumulated cases can be solved.
Yangcheng Evening News: What did he react when you arrested him?
Liu Chao: When we found him, he cried, and the first thing he said was “Finally freed.”
So back to what I said just now, this case is difficult to solve. The difficulty lies in the fact that he came to Guangzhou by chance, left after committing the case, and never committed the crime again after returning. He has been an honest man for more than ten years, got married, and has a son and a daughter. But even so, he could not escape the judgment of his conscience, and he said he often had nightmares at night. After being arrested, he told us that he wanted to see his wife and said, “Wife, sometimes I lose my temper because my heart is not calm (pure), I hope you forgive me.”
Later, I accompanied him back to Guangzhou by train. He cooperated very well along the way, telling us the whole case and the thoughts of over the years.
KomiksA kinship recognition ceremony held after successful DNA recognition (Liu Chao from the third on the left)
“The greatest sense of accomplishment was found when the difficult murder case was solved”
Yangcheng Evening News: After retreating, how many such murder cases were solved?
Liu Chao: Our criminal police and IThe team that solved the murder case in the team solved a total of 92 murder cases last year. I used to be a criminal policeman, but the “top leader” of the Babaylan detachment did not solve so many cases. Why? It’s because I’m now calming down and focusing on solving these accumulated cases. There are 7 cases in which I led the team to find clues and arrest people. These seven cases were all unsolved by previous task forces over the years. In addition to correct ideas and scientific methods, these cases also require hard work. For example, the case I just mentioned about going to Shaanxi for a business trip to arrest people. We found clues through reanalysis of the case materials for more than half a year. After a week on a business trip, I took the lead in forming DNA experts from Shaanxi, Shanxi and Guangdong provinces to analyze them together. Every night, after two o’clock, I had to get up before five o’clock in the morning to start a new day of work.
Although it is hard, others cannot understand the excitement after solving the case. Why do I keep talking about these cases? Because I am very excited.
Yangcheng Evening News: What is the key to solving these old murders?
Liu Chao: DNA! I’m a DNA person. For example, in March this year, I led a team to Tiantang Town, Yunfu City to arrest a suspect in the Babaylan case. This case was a double murder case in which a couple was killed in Panyu, Guangzhou in March 2007. I remember when I was at the scene of the crime, the entire ground was covered with blood, and my feet could not stop trampling on blood. This case has not been solved for many years.
Last year we sent police forces to investigate and judged that it was an acquaintance who committed the crime, but the suspect was not found. I led the team to stay in Yunfu Heaven Town for more than a week, and finally locked up the suspect. These two suspects have been good since childhood. After coming to Guangzhou, they heard that the victim’s family was rich, so they knocked on the door and robbed and killed people, and each person killed one. After the killing, they formed an offensive and defensive alliance – no matter who said it, the other person could not escape. At that time, among the many blood stains at the crime scene, we only found trace blood marks of the suspect. But we have not given up for so many years, and finally we have to find the perpetrator by searching the DNA genealogy.
At nine o’clock the night before the arrest, I drove to Yangchun. It was already eleven 10:30 in the evening. The on-site meeting was immediately held. At about 2:30 in the morning the next day, one of the suspects was arrested and the preliminary trial was conducted overnight. At around six o’clock the next morning, we went to the construction site to arrest the second suspect, but we didn’t close our eyes all night.
Yangcheng Evening News: Do you work like this often? Do you ever want to do it because you feel tired?
Liu Chao: When we criminal investigators discover clues to major cases, they are more excited than anything else and absolutely have no feeling of being tired, so I often say that we will never say we are tired. When we solve the difficult murder case, we feel the greatest sense of accomplishment. This is to give the deceased an explanation, and it can also create a shock to the crime: as long as the case is done, justice will come sooner or later.
The most difficult case: There are only one case containing the suspect’s DNA in the Panyu family annihilation case. Yangcheng Evening News: Which case is the most difficult case for you in your career?
Liu Chao: 2014Babaylan‘s family extermination case in Panyu, Guangzhou – three generations of people with six lives. I remember very clearly that it was April 29, and I arrived at the scene and stayed there for six days. This case was the most difficult case I experienced. When I mentioned this case, the scene at that time was echoed like a movie – How was this case discovered? At that time, the neighbor downstairs found that water was always dripping on the roof, so he went up and knocked on the door, but he didn’t respond after knocking for a long time. After the community security guard came, he found that the family had not reported for decoration and the owner’s phone number could not be reached. Finally, he called the owner’s relative to open the door. As soon as the door opened, the body was found, so the case was reported.
When I arrived at the scene, there was still water in the house. The criminal stayed in the house for more than 20 hours. The criminal first checked the site in the community, then bought ropes, searched online for how to avoid surveillance videos and why they were not paid attention to it, and bought a new set of clothes before committing the crime. Then he went up to the roof, tied the rope to the roof, and slipped through the window to the residents downstairs, and carried out the robbery. After the first person in the house discovered him, he killed the other party. This process alarmed the others in the house. He was so angry… The criminal was very cruel. A female victim had already run out of the door, but was finally dragged into the house and killed by him. After the murder, the criminal cleaned the scene in the house and wiped the evidence, mopped it with a mop, rinsed it with water, and burned it with fire. He also washed away all the blood from the body and left. He does not want to leave any evidence.
After we checked the scene, the question arose: six people were killed at the same time, was it one person who committed the crime or how many people committed the crime? Difficulty in identification! Is the family extermination due to revenge, robbery or other reasons? Qualitative difficulty! I conducted continuous inspections from April 29 to May 5During the event, the Ministry of Public Security has done a 5-year-old job to send an expert team to Guangzhou to guide the case solving. We reported that we were confident of solving this case, so the Ministry of Public Security decided to give us two more days. The task force is under great pressure day and night.
On May 6, among thousands of samples, the DNA of the suspect was finally found in one of them! After obtaining this major breakthrough, our deputy director in charge of criminal investigation personally led the team to arrest people, and after more than ten minutes, the suspect was arrested.
How cunning is this suspect? He grabbed U-shield and bank card, but did not withdraw money for the time being after getting the password, but planned to wait for the police to put down the case and relax their vigilance before withdrawing the money. He took off his computer host, hid the card in the computer, and installed the host case.
Yangcheng Evening News: Did the suspect who committed the crime think that you can find him?
Liu Chao: He didn’t expect it, he never dreamed it, let alone so quickly. He felt that his plan was a “hundred secret” – new clothes and new ropes, and even shoes were newly bought. His hair changed and his posture changed to avoid surveillance. In order to avoid investigation, he carefully designed all of this.
Seeing corpses now is like seeing a “soul messenger”
Yangcheng Evening News: The profession of forensics is quite special. It often deals with corpses or even highly corrupt corpses. Many people dare not even look at such evidence photos in court. Do you feel this discomfort or fear in your work in this profession?
Liu Chao: At the beginning, I was dealing with various corrupt corpses. I couldn’t eat. I felt uncomfortable and had nightmares. Later, when we got used to it, when we saw the corpses, we felt that it was the “soul messenger” who was talking to us. The souls of the deceased were giving you this task of finding the truth. I ate a box lunch on the spot and continued to do it after the meal.
Many people feel uncomfortable when they see the corpse. Our forensic doctor objectified the corpse. When we see the corpse, it is like a car lover seeing the best car. Over time, we will no longer feel uncomfortable when we look at the corpse and we will no longer feel uncomfortable. On the contrary, finding the truth is our job. You have this kind of responsibility. The more difficult the case is, the more you test your ability, technology and resilience.
Sometimes, when you go to a scene, you step on it and step on the maggots, and after you come back, you still have a sole of your shoes.There are maggots, and the clothes smell like corpses in two or three days. Therefore, if we have been to such a scene, we usually don’t go home first, and go back to the unit to wash and change the clothes, and go back to the unit to sleep for two days before going back.
Yangcheng Evening News: How long does it usually take for a person who works for forensics to go from discomfort to adapting?
Liu Chao: A forensic doctor who loves this professional Komiks can overcome the various discomforts caused by seeing the corpse within about three years, but some people can’t continue to study forensics in the end, and some even faint and can’t do this job.
Yangcheng Evening News: I have been doing this job for 30 years. Your understanding of justice and life should be different from that of ordinary people, right? Liu Chao: Let me tell you that sometimes Cinema, we went to search for the bodies. When the bodies were dug out and saw the light of day again, it suddenly started to rain heavily on the scene. I have encountered such a situation four or five times, and from this, I feel that the law of heaven is better and the law is still better. This also seems to be a reminder of the world: everyone must have a sense of awe for life.