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Fran Lu

A Chinese man who was wrongly jailed for murder has offered a generous 500,000-yuan (US$70,000) bounty for information leading to the arrest of the real killer.
Chen Shijiang, 49, from eastern China’s Shandong province, has taken to social media in search of clues.
In 1998, at the age of 22, Chen was wrongly convicted of killing a woman in his village.
The 56-year-old victim was the wife of a cash keeper for the village government. Chen was accused of killing her to steal money for a furniture factory he was planning to open.

Chen said he was tortured by the police to confess to the crime, but the court did not believe him.
He appealed two times. The first two verdicts sentenced him to death, and the third and last one gave him life in prison.
At the time of the crime, Chen was a successful businessman, and he refused to accept the verdict. He kept fighting for justice, along with his mother.
Eventually, a provincial court held a retrial in 2006 and recognised there were many questionable aspects about the case.
For instance, at the time the victim died, Chen had an alibi, his clothes had no blood on them and the murder weapon has never been found.

Chen was declared innocent and released. He received 197,000 yuan (US$27,000) in compensation.
Chen said he had a hard time re-establishing his reputation after he got out of jail, but he said he would survive, just like he survived prison life.
“I must get rid of my past,” he said.
Chen made a comeback in the business world in 2019, when a toilet he invented received many design awards. He is now the owner of a smart toilet company.
Speaking of his dedication to his business, Chen said: “I need to prove that I am a good person, a businessman that sees his career as his life.”
Chen now lives an affluent life but is determined to find the real killer.
In January, he publicly offered a bounty for information leading to the murderer’s capture.

Chen said that he was not only motivated by his own ordeal, but he wanted justice for the woman who was killed.
The police have told Chen and his mother that they are still investigating the case.
In June, a police psychologist, who has helped solve more than 300 serious criminal cases, applied to take part in the investigation.
The person who uses the pseudonym Li Jianming, said he did not want payment.


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