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Yongsheng Jane Doe was a woman whose naked and scalded body was found floating in the Jinsha River in Yongsheng Village located in China's Sichuan province. The body was wrongly believed to belong to missing woman Li Peixian with her husband Luo Kaiyou being harassed, stigmatized and tortured by local police for her murder. The body was exhumed in 1993 and ruled to not belong to Li but Li's family, the villagers and local police continued to believe otherwise. Luo's innocence and the misidentification were definitively confirmed on December 17, 2010, when Li was found alive.
Case[]
On January 24, 1989, a resident of Yongsheng Village located in Sichuan province, China noticed the bloated dead body of a woman floating in the Jinsha River. Numerous villagers gathered around the river as the police arrived and retrieved the corpse from the river. Only one woman went missing in the area recently and that was 24-year-old Li Peixian who went missing on January 9. The police asked Li's mother to identify the body and she tearfully identified it as her daughter based on two thimbles and bracelets found on her fingers and wrists.
With the exception of an apron on her lower body, she was completely naked and her face was disfigured beyond recognition. The hair on the top of her head was also missing, leaving only a "clump" of hair on the back of her head. The rest of the hair had been scalded off as the police and coroner discovered that the decedent had her head forcibly submerged in boiling or scalding water post-mortem, which contributed to her facial disfigurement. She was also of a similar weight and height to Li. The police declared the case a homicide and that the woman was beaten to death and then disposed of in the river.
Li's husband Luo Kaiyou, his family and his neighbour were all arrested for Li's murder. The police alleged that Luo beat Li before hanging her from a beam and forcing her head in a pot of scalding water post-mortem in order to hinder identification and then paid his family and neighbours 100 yuan each to dispose of the body. The police tortured Luo and his family by beating him and tying him to a tree in the middle of winter and dousing him in cold water. Two of Luo's relatives confessed, but both pointed to completely different locations when told to point out where they disposed of Li's body. Luo, however, refused to confess and when shown a picture of the decedent, pointed to her forehead and said that Li had a mole on her forehead and that the decedent possessed no such feature. An angry mob led by Li's family ransacked, attacked and stole from Luo's family home and attacked his relatives causing them to flee the province and buried the decedent on Luo's property and erected a tombstone as a way to shame Luo. Luo was released in October 1990
After numerous appeals and requests Leibo County Public Security Bureau re-examined the case on July 30, 1993, and sent officers and a coroner from outside the village to exhume the decedent and conduct a second autopsy. The second autopsy revealed that there was no blunt force trauma or fracture marks observed on the decedent. They estimated her age to be 40-50, with 48 as the most likely age based on her teeth and bones, while Li was only 24 years old when she went missing. The decedent was also found to have given birth approximately 5 times before her death. Despite finding no signs of blunt force trauma, the police still deemed the decedent's death as suspicious. With these facts in mind, the Public Security Bureau declared that the corpse did not belong to Li and that Luo was innocent.
Local residents, Li's family and local authorities refused to accept these findings and Luo continued to live with the stigma of being a known murderer. Wanting to clear his name, Luo spent the next 17 years of his life personally trying to track Li and others who heard of his case and offered their services in helping. Li was discovered alive on December 17, 2010, and her identity was confirmed via a DNA test, definitively proving that the decedent was not Li.
Despite a reinvestigation, the decedent has not been identified.
Characteristics[]
- Had given birth at least five times.
Clothing and accessories[]
- An apron.
- Two thimbles on her fingers.
- Two wrist bracelets.