It was the word of drunken officials against the word of a hotel waitress. The official news release: she had stabbed a fun-seeking cadre to death and immediately confessed. Initially, the incident in an out-of-the-way part of Hubei province seemed straightforward.
But nobody, least of all the blundering officials of Badong county, knew what was coming next. Within a week, the 21-year-old waitress, Deng Yujiao , had become the poster girl for millions of mainlanders tired of corrupt and immoral local governments and the lack of justice for ordinary people.
As information about the case filtered out - including the official's taunting behaviour before he died, allegations of sexual assault and a cover-up - internet forums groaned under the weight of outrage. Women's groups took to the streets and lawyer-activists rushed to the town at the epicentre of the scandal to fight in Deng's corner.
With events threatening to spiral out of control in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, the central authorities were forced to cleanse message boards and gag the media as they moved to regain control of the news.
On the night of May 10 in Yesanguan town's Xiongfeng Hotel, three officials approached Deng in the hotel and demanded 'special services', a euphemism for sex. Deng refused, saying she worked in the hotel's karaoke club and was not a call girl. According to Xia Lin , a volunteer who briefly served as Deng's defence lawyer, one subordinate official named Huang Dezhi tried to rip off her clothes - something denied by the authorities.
The head of the town's trade promotion office, Deng Guida, humiliated her by slapping her in the face with bank notes and twice pushed her onto a sofa. She then stabbed the 44-year-old several times. Deng Yujiao was detained the following day on a murder charge and was seen on TV tied to a bed in a local mental hospital, crying out for help from her deceased father.