Breakthrough in 28-year-old Chinese murder case as DNA test leads police to suspect
- Female medical student’s body was found in a Nanjing sewer in 1992
- Officers had investigated in vain until a tip-off from police in another city last week
“For 28 years, a special task force had persistently investigated the case, and it made major developments on February 23. The police caught the killer, surnamed Ma, the same morning,” the police said in a statement published on Weibo on Sunday night.
At a press conference on Monday afternoon, Nanjing police said they had used DNA testing to confirm the suspect’s identity and had detained him. The prosecutor had yet to make a formal arrest.
Last Wednesday, the force received a lead from police in Xuzhou, about 280km (175 miles) north, who said that there was suspicion over a local family, one of whom they said had a possible motive for the crime. Nanjing police sent a team to Xuzhou to investigate.
On Sunday, they found that the DNA of Ma, who lives in Nanjing, matched preserved DNA evidence that was collected following the death.