In jurisprudence, it has been controversial for years that the penalty for abuse is much less severe than that for intentional injury. In the past, Yang Yang has missed opportunity after opportunity to be saved, and is now waiting for a more just verdict.
Du Mengchun received three phone calls from Fang Yangyang. All in mid-January 2019, no more than two or three days apart. The first time, she asked him to send a message to her uncle, Fang Tianbao, to send her a cell phone. The second time, she seemed to be in the hospital, sounded like she was calling from her husband Zhang C’s cell phone, and hung up without saying a word, as if she had been discovered.
The third time, it was already one o’clock in the night, and the bell suddenly rang. Du Mengchun woke up from his sleep and took a confused look at the number he had saved the first time, and it was Yang Yang calling again. He said, “Who answered the phone in the middle of the night, she’s retarded, I don’t know what’s wrong. The next day, he forgot about it. The next day, he forgot about it, as usual, driving a three-wheeled cart, in the town of Qian Cao, in the plain county of Shandong Province, going from village to village, delivering filled liquefied gas cylinders. He had been doing this work for almost seven years.
More than ten days later, Fang’s corpse, covered with a white cloth, was carried out of Zhang’s house. Before marrying into the Zhang family, she was a strong woman over 1.7 meters tall and weighed about 160 pounds, but now, covered by the white cloth, her body was flat and invisible. For the past year, the Zhang family has repeatedly asked for money on the grounds of her infertility, and then simply forbade the Fang family from seeing her.
In the past few years, I’ve been trying to find out how much money I’ve gotten from my family, and I’ve been trying to find out how much money I’ve gotten from my family, and I’ve been trying to find out how much money I’ve gotten from my family. “. The coroner’s autopsy evaluation eventually confirmed this hunch: on January 31, 2019, Yang Yang was malnourished and subjected to multiple blunt force actions, resulting in death from extensive soft tissue contusions throughout the body.
Late that night, when the Fang family’s friends and relatives arrived, they were blocked by the villagers of Zhangzhuang. The Zhang family hid in a back room, unable to see anyone. Fang Tianbao, Yang Yang’s uncle, excitedly picked up a wooden stick and smashed the glass of the front door. Back in his car, he despairingly told the villagers the message he had received from Du Mengchun half a month earlier.
Before September 2018, Yang Yang’s father, uncle, and several cousins came to the Zhang family three times to “ask for help,” and his mother-in-law, Liu Lanying, said, “I don’t want to see you. The excuse that “she went out to work” was never used. In the middle, the police also mediated once, and sent a photo of Yang Yang at the Zhang family home to give an explanation. There was also a letter to the Criminal Police Brigade of the City Public Security Bureau, which was lost at sea.
The first thing you need to do is to take a look at the photos of Yang Yang in the Zhang family. In the car, a neighbor Lin Jianguo, who rushed to help, immediately scolded him, “How could you be so confused and not tell me earlier? Is it really necessary for Yang Yang to end up like this? “
And in his opinion, time and again, Yang Yang missed too many chances to be saved.
The Confined Courtyard
“She leaned against the TV cabinet in that house, and I told her to get out. ” WeChat, Zhang C and his mother Liu Lanying said.
“Just now I locked the door,” shortly, Liu Lanying replied. “Stay two hours and open the door for her, don’t freeze her to death. “
The day was January 21, 2019, before and after Fang Yang Yang’s last phone call to Du Meng Chun for help. Few people remember that nine days earlier, it would have been her 22nd birthday. Hungry, cold, beaten, and confined for six months to a year, her body and will were on the verge of exhaustion.
In October and December, her husband, Zhang C, and her father-in-law, Zhang Jilin, returned home from working abroad, making it all worse.
When it was cold, she was often ordered to stand in the yard, sometimes in single shoes, sometimes in half-cotton shoes, and every now and then she was punished, and the stop was more than half an hour. If she didn’t do what she was told, she was slapped or beaten with a stick. At first, she would resist, but then she got scared and often intentionally dodged, “Don’t hit me, I’m obedient. “
“She used to stand in this courtyard. “The Zhang family’s back door is a high-rise building, the neighbor’s uncle walked up to the second-floor balcony, pointed to the side room where Yang Yang lived before she died, and mumbled in a low voice. But when asked further, his eyes flickered and he kept his mouth shut.
The uncle’s daughter said bluntly that she had never heard Fang Yang Yang’s cry for help, “The windows facing the back door of his house were recently opened and were originally a wall that was sealed. The two families enter and exit through the front door, and we rarely see each other. “
After 2000, Zhangzhuang Village began to be demolished and rebuilt. Zhang Jilin, now 54 years old, has two daughters, and his youngest son, Zhang C, was born in 1990. After separating from his older brother, Zhang Jilin took the compensation for the demolition and built a front house on one of the main commercial streets in Zhangzhuang Township. The three rooms, the narrow foyer, and the mottled letters “children’s clothing” remain on the wall. According to the old village clerk, Zhang C’s sister used to do some wholesale clothing, and the rest was sold at home, which didn’t make much money.
Zhang Jilin said in his statement that his two daughters knew about the three of them beating and scolding Fang Yang Yang, and had advised them to stop, but the rest of them did not. However, when testifying to the police, the eldest daughter said, “I don’t know and I’ve never seen it,” and the youngest daughter said, “I don’t know and I’ve never seen it. “Not sure. The receiver denied that it was her, and hung up the phone.
Now through the glass to look at the Zhang family living room, I saw four low glass counters and shelves against the wall, dust accumulation. There was a toy carousel on the floor, and a white electric four-wheeler on the side, probably the one that Fang Yang Yang married. It was also spent 10,000 yuan, after the death of Yang Yang, the family has always wanted to get back, but has still been Zhang C withholding. The “inheritance of an electric four-wheeler” is also included in the list of requests of the plaintiff in the incidental civil lawsuit (Yang Lan, the mother of Fang Yangyang).
In the current narrative of the neighbors of the village of Zhangzhuang, the Zhang family has little contact with outsiders, blurred face, only know Zhang Jilin loves to drink. The first thing you need to know is that you can’t be sure that you’re going to be able to do anything about it.
It is also a good idea to have a good understanding of the various aspects of the business. There was also a 40 cm x 16 cm bloodstain on the west wall of the south house.
“It’s hard for a pure official to decide family matters. We don’t hear about it. After the accident, no one in the family talked about it. I’ve seen her a few times before, and she’s thinner and more beautiful than when she first got married. A cousin of Zhang C spoke lightly, “rural men, who do not drink, right? “At the end of the day, they said they believed in the justice of the law.
When the Fang family finally saw Yang Yang at the funeral home, they unzipped the side of the body bag to reveal large bruises on her head, shoulders, legs and buttocks, and frostbitten toes with blackened fingernails. Relatives were shocked to see that she was as thin as a bone, only 80 or 90 pounds at most.
The Shadow of Death
On January 31, the day was cloudy and sunny, with the high temperature dropping to 2 degrees Celsius. From the morning, Yang Yang acted as if she was ready to surrender to her fate.
At 8:30 a.m., Liu Lanying asked her to brush a pot, but she didn’t, so she took a wooden stick and beat her. At the sound of the voice, Zhang Jilin grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to the ground, picking up the stick and beating her on the legs and buttocks. She stood in the courtyard for half an hour before returning to the house.
At 10:30, Zhang Jilin asked her to slaughter the fish, but she did not comply and was beaten again with four sticks.
11:30 PM, the meal arrived, no one asked her to come over to eat, after which only two steamed buns were sent, I do not know whether she ate them or not.
15:30: Zhang Jilin repaired the socket in his house and asked her to take something, but she didn’t, so he casually cut her hair with the scissors in his hand.
At 16:30, Liu Lanying yelled at her to do the laundry, but she sat still and received three more blows.
These details, all from Zhang Jilin’s confession, are recorded in the first trial verdict of the Shandong Yucheng City People’s Court. The day after the incident, the three members of the family were detained on suspicion of abuse.
The family was arrested on suspicion of abuse the next day. Liu Lanying’s recollection differs: Zhang Jilin was the one who ordered her to brush the pots in the morning, but she only heard the noise and didn’t see how she was beaten.
In the afternoon, Liu Lanying said, Fang Yang Yang had been sleeping in the house until 16:00 when she shouted that she was cold. She gave her some “kizi” (a snack made of flour), and Fang Yang Yang ate the first bowl herself, and then she fed her the second.
At about 18:00 in the evening, Liu Lanying noticed that Fang Yangyang’s nose was not ventilated and his breathing sound was abnormal, so she asked her son Zhang C to go over and check on him, and asked him to call 120. 40 minutes later When the emergency services arrived, Fang Yangyang was out of breath.
According to Liu C.’s testimony, after he returned home and had dinner, his mother came in and said she was “cold,” and she poured hot water for her. By that time, Fang Yangyang’s eyes were glazed over and she was breathing heavily. He asked, “What’s going on?” before his mother said, “Zhang Jilin! “This afternoon, I’ll beat her with a stick. He quickly hit “120”.
In Zhang Jilin’s confession, Fang Yang Yang breathed his last, he was at his father’s house, about 18:30, Liu Lanying called him to call him back quickly, to the time the people have gone. After that, Zhang C called “120”.
“Promptly call 120, the other side of the Yang Yang rescue”, later became a lawyer for Zhang C. One of the bases for the “mitigating and extenuating circumstances” defense, and more importantly, the “although There is occasional verbal abuse, but it is minor and not yet serious enough to warrant criminal liability. “
On January 22, 2020, the Yucheng City People’s Court rendered its first trial verdict, finding Zhang Jilin, Liu Lanying, and Zhang C guilty of cruelty and sentencing them to three years, two years, two months, and two years of imprisonment respectively, with Zhang C receiving three years of probation.
The Yucheng Court held that since each defendant could truthfully confess the facts of the crime, constituted a confession and showed remorse, it decided to impose a lighter penalty; the relatives of each defendant voluntarily paid compensation of RMB 50,000 in advance, so it decided to impose a lighter penalty. The defendants compensated the plaintiff with 37,562 RMB for the funeral expenses, 3,000 RMB for lost wages, and 2,000 RMB for transportation expenses, totaling 42,562 RMB.
The Marriage of Fangzhuang
Neighbor Lin Jianguo still remembers the way Yang Yang and Zhang C made out when they were engaged. On the road in the village, Yang Yang grabbed Zhang C by the shoulders, laughing and talking. Zhang C was dark, skinny, wore glasses, and was plain in appearance. But Yang Yang was tall and white, and even bigger than him.
In November 2016, the two got married. A video of the wedding scene provided by cousin Xie Shulei shows Yang Yang in a red wedding dress, sitting on a bed with her legs crossed. Friends and family laughed as they waited for Zhang C to find the hidden bridal shoes. Yang Yang is also smiling from ear to ear, and from time to time she wiggles her eyebrows at Zhang Bing.
The matchmaker was a man who had been collecting grain in the countryside for years. The village of Fangzhuang is located in the southeastern part of Shandong Plain County, adjacent to the city of Yucheng, 10 kilometers away from the village of Zhangzhuang. The town of Zhangzhuang is a provincial-level center town in Shandong with well-developed roads and railroads. In terms of conditions, Zhangzhuang is more affluent.
If she were not mentally retarded and mentally abnormal, Yang Yang would look quite beautiful. She was fun as a child and didn’t like to study, so she dropped out of school after a few years. But she never got angry with anyone, and played with children all year round, pushing and shoving them around, but she never fought back. People in the village say, “If she hadn’t been born into this family and gotten a better upbringing, Yang Yang would have been a great kid. “
Yang Yang’s mind is somewhat inherited from her mother, Yang Lan, who is mildly mentally retarded. When she was lost at the train station, she was brought home by Fang Tian Bao, who married her older brother. Fang Tian Bao has been celibate ever since, living with them in the same courtyard, and now takes care of his sister-in-law’s three meals a day. When you talk to her face to face about Yang Yang, she doesn’t say a word and only smiles at you.
Married in his late forties, Fang Tianmu’s father loved Yang Yang very much. The family is not well off, with only three acres of land, and he is not particular about food and clothing, but he always tries to make sure she has enough to eat, such as buying cheap apples that are going bad and packing them in a big bag.
The company’s products have been sold in the U.S. and Europe for more than 20 years, and the company has been in the process of developing new products for the past two years. It’s not just a matter of time, but also a matter of time before you have a chance to get to know each other.
In 2017, on the 26th day of the 26th lunar month, Zhang C brought Yang Yang to visit her family. Xie Shulay remembers that he only brought two bags of beer with him. He was so drunk that he slapped Yang Yang twice in front of many villagers on the path in front of the door, cursing and grumbling, “There’s not a single good thing in your village. “Some villagers wanted to beat him up on the spot, but Fang Tianbao stopped them.
“Her father is just too honest, say out words without any momentum. “Lin Chen, a neighbor who was there, saw that Zhang C walked away in anger, turned back after a while, and dragged Yang Yang into the car. From then on, no one in the village ever saw Yang Yang again. If only there had been a spirited mother, Yang Yang wouldn’t have ended up like this,” said Lin Chen. “Lin Chen felt sorry for her.
The Failed Search for Family
According to the Zhang family’s statement to the judicial authorities, the conflict between the two families centered on the issue of childbirth. In the winter of 2017, they took her to the hospital for a checkup and discovered that she had “miscarried”. She was infertile as a result. In addition, the family learned from inquiring people in Fangzhuang Village that “she was having an affair with a man from Fangzhuang Village before”, so the family became increasingly unhappy with her.
When the family contacted their relatives and defense attorneys, they all refused to respond to the “miscarriage” claim, and no one could provide a medical diagnosis. Fang’s relatives, neighbors, and the current village clerk dismissed this as “rumor” and questioned whether Zhang C had undergone a medical examination himself.
A former village clerk in Zhangzhuang Village, who had been invited by Zhang C to the engagement site, confirmed the story to Quan, and said that Zhang’s anger was justified. He said that the Zhang family was not seeking money from the Fang family for the bride price, but rather for the expensive treatment of Fang’s infertility.
In the past few days, on the fourth day of the Chinese New Year, Xie Shuling, Yang Yang’s cousin, went to the Zhang family and asked for money for the treatment, but the news he got was that he would not see Yang Yang until he got the money. The first time I saw him was when he was in the hospital, he was in the middle of the night. After the death of Fang Tianmu, the details of the negotiation could not be restored.
The two cousins said that since then, Fang Tianmu was so frustrated that he could only drown his sorrows in alcohol, and after more than two months, he suddenly fell ill. He spent more than 20 days in the intensive care unit of the county hospital, then gave up treatment and went home to lie down for more than a month before he died.
Zhang C claimed that when his father-in-law was in the hospital, he went to visit him, was beaten, and came home angry and slapped Fang Yang Yang. This incident was a direct trigger for the Zhang family to begin abusing Yang Yang, who was given only one or two meals a day, and beaten and scolded more and more frequently.
However, several of Yang Yang’s cousins said that only his uncle Fang Tian Bao was present at the time, and he recalled that when he asked Zhang C why he didn’t bring Yang Yang to visit, he said, “Let her come and see, no way! “They quarreled, but did not beat him. In the statement, Zhang C also claimed that he was beaten the time he went back to Fang Yang Yang’s mother’s house before the Spring Festival.
Before Yangyang’s father died, Fang Tianbao and the others went to Zhang’s house again. They also reported to the police once before, the local police station police went to the Zhang family to coordinate, took a photo of Yang Yang and had it passed on to Xie Shuling. But Xie Shuling said he had changed his cell phone number and didn’t save the chat logs or photos, and he didn’t even remember who sent them. The only thing I remember is that Yang Yang was sitting in a chair, with the walls of the house in the background, and that he had lost a lot of weight and had a sad expression on his face. “The police said it was between a legal couple and there was nothing they could do about it. “
From August 11 to 13, Zhang C’s mother mentioned in a WeChat conversation with him that she asked Fang Yang Yang’s family for money, and if they didn’t pay, she was not allowed to see them because she was working outside the home. Zhang C confessed that if he and his parents went out, they would lock the door and leave Fangyang Yang Yang at home, preventing her from going out.
The last person to visit the Zhang family was a neighbor, Lin Jianguo, who was asked to invite his son-in-law to the funeral on September 6, the day after Fang Tianmu’s death. Only Liu Lanying, Zhang’s mother, greeted him and spoke to him in a polite manner, receiving his lab coat and just talking about it. Lin Jianguo knew about the Fang family’s search for Yang Yang, and knew it was hopeless, so he didn’t mention it this time, “Their family doesn’t care, what can we outsiders do? “In the same vein, Xie’s three cousins also sighed from time to time.
One story came from Zhangzhuang and lingered in Lin Jianguo’s mind: “Yang Yang had escaped. She crossed the 101 provincial highway in the direction of the Jinan section of the Beijing-Shanghai railroad, and ran for ten minutes. Lin Jianguo wondered if Yangyang would run away, like she used to do when she was playing around. It was said that this happened near the time of the autumn harvest, when the corn in the field had grown taller. If only she had been smarter, she could have hidden in the corn, right?
The first thing I heard from my neighbor was that a few days before she died, her next door neighbor heard her crying. It’s not just a matter of time, it’s also a matter of time before you have a chance to get to know each other. No, there are a lot of things that go together. We don’t know if it’s true or not. “
The regret and righteous indignation of the people of Fangzhuang may be written in these rumors. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a problem with it, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a problem with it. “Lin Jianguo said.
the aftermath
About five days after the court’s decision, the Fang family received the verdict in the mail. As the epidemic had not yet broken out, they could not accept the closed court session, so they hired another lawyer and appealed to the Dezhou Intermediate People’s Court, claiming, “We must get justice for Yang Yang! “.
In April this year, the Texas Intermediate Court that this case does not involve state secrets or personal privacy, the original trial is not open to the public, in violation of the law of the proceedings, ruled that the original sentence is reversed and sent back to Yucheng Court for retrial, will be reopened on November 27.
The defendant in this case should be charged with intentional injury in addition to the crime of abuse, said Fang’s attorney Zhang Jinwu. The case has been postponed for more than a week, mainly to coordinate the forensic time, when the forensic pathologists hired by the Fang family and the Yu City Public Security Bureau will both appear in court to provide professional opinions for the court to determine whether the death was caused by intentional injury.
In jurisprudence, it has been controversial for many years that the sentence for the crime of cruelty is much lighter than that for intentional injury. The Criminal Law stipulates that if you abuse a family member, causing serious injury or death to the victim, you will be sentenced to more than two years and less than seven years in prison; if you intentionally injure someone to death, you will be sentenced to more than ten years in prison, life imprisonment or the death penalty.
As the case came to light, reporters flocked to Zhangzhuang, and the name “Fang Yang Yang” became active again. She was seen walking with her mother-in-law, dancing on the street, and sometimes taking out the trash. All of these images faded dramatically after the fall of 2018. It was as if she had never been here.
The publicity department of Yucheng City confirmed to Southern Weekend that the village committee, town government, and local police station staff had never received news that Fang Yangyang had been abused before her death. The Yucheng Women’s Federation also told the media that it had not received any requests for help, so it was unable to help beforehand.
After learning of Yang Yang’s death, Du Mengchun sobbed and deleted the temporary number that Fang Yang Yang called him. “The person is dead, I still save it, why ah. ” he laughed bitterly. It’s only occasionally, listening to the people in Fangzhuang village, that he remembers the girl who “never grew up,” always clutching an apple in her hand and smiling all the way to the back of his car. Run.
“Uncle, I’m taller than you. “She cheerfully compared herself to him. As she grew into a big girl, to avoid suspicion, Du Mengchun didn’t really pay much attention to her, but she didn’t seem to mind. As soon as she heard his trombone blaring, she flew in from all directions of the village road, carefree.
Lin Chen also remembered that one year when the corn fell, the yield dropped so much that he couldn’t palletize it automatically with a mechanical hand. He took all the corn back to his home, and Yang Yang came over to help him pick the corn, and she was very diligent. In the evening, Lin Chen gave her the apples and pomegranates he had planted at home, and watched her happily return home.
On March 31, 2019, Fang Yang Yang was cremated at the funeral home. She hadn’t been able to return to her mother’s home since the first lunar month the year before. Before the cremation, the Fang family arranged for her to be married in advance.
Xie Shulei said relatives of the matchmaker took the urn directly from the funeral home so she could be buried with her dead son. It’s a long way from Fangzhuang, and the Fang family never went to see it,” he said. Now, it is fundamental to seek justice for her. “
It is still popular in Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Shandong provinces. A number of village officials and villagers in Fang Village have heard of this and they recognize the tradition.
“The man died a boy, never married, this party is a girl, and has no support, so even if it is a negative marriage,” said Xie Shulei, young people do not understand, mainly The uncle organized this, probably received a few thousand dollars, equivalent to the bride price money, “in order to Yang Yang died in the underground not alone, have a companion, this is also a comfort to the deceased. “
(Lin Jianguo and Lin Chen are pseudonyms)
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