Wu Chunhong (吴春红) was born on April 8, 1970. He was thirty-four years old when incarcerated and fifty years old when he was acquitted.

On November 14, 2004, Wang Zhansheng (王战胜, “Wang”), a villager in Zhougang Village of Minquan County, Henan Province, used flour in a scoop on the kitchen counter to make breakfast for his two children, who were three and five years old. Both children became ill after breakfast and were sent to hospital. The older child survived while the younger one died.
A forensic test found that tetremethylene disulfotetramine (TETS), a commonly used rat poison, was found in the victim’s stomach. The same substance was found in the flour in Wang’s kitchen.
The police launched a sweeping investigation of the victim’s family and nearby villagers. When asked who had conflicts with the Wang family, Wang’s wife listed six or seven people. Wu Chunhong (“Wu”) was not among them.
Three days later, a villager named Wang Erxuan told police that the day before the incident, Wu went with him to Wang’s house to pay their respective electricity bills. According to Wang Erxuan, after the two men left the house but while they were still in the yard, Wu briefly disappeared from view and then reappeared about a minute later. However, when police asked him about it, Wu denied that he had been absent momentarily at Wang’s house. Police regarded Wu’s denial as suspicious.

On November 19, 2004, police took Wu to the police station for interrogation.
On November 20, 2004, police criminally detained Wu on suspicion of intentional homicide.
On December 2, 2004, the procuratorate formally arrested Wu.
On June 23, 2005, the Shangqiu Intermediate People's Court (“Intermediate Court”) convicted Wu of intentional homicide and sentenced him to death with a two-year reprieve.
Upon Wu’s appeal, in December 2005, the Henan High People's Court (“Henan High Court”) revoked the conviction and remanded the case to the Intermediate Court for retrial.
On June 22, 2006, the Intermediate Court again convicted Wu of intentional homicide and sentenced him to death with a two-year reprieve.
Upon Wu's second appeal, in December 2006, the Henan High Court again revoked the conviction and remanded the case for retrial.
On July 13, 2007, the Intermediate Court convicted Wu a third time of intentional homicide and sentenced him to death with a two-year reprieve.
Upon Wu's third appeal, the Henan High Court revoked the conviction and remanded the case for retrial.
On October 15, 2008, the Intermediate Court convicted Wu a fourth time of intentional homicide and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Upon Wu’s fourth appeal, on July 6, 2009, the Henan High Court sustained the conviction and sentence.
In August 2009, Wu was sent to prison.

June 23, 2005

April 1, 2020

5,612 days

Wu and his family kept petitioning about his innocence over the years. They mailed more than six hundred petition letters to various authorities asking for help to reopen the case. While in prison, Wu consistently refused to admit the crime or show any remorse, a precondition for receiving a commuted sentence.
Wu and his family received help from volunteer lawyers Li Changqing and Jin Hongwei, who reviewed the case file and committed themselves to rectify injustice in the case.
After the Henan High Court rejected his petition for another retrial in December 2012, Wu petitioned to the Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”).
On September 29, 2018, the SPC decided to reopen the case and ordered the Henan High Court to conduct a retrial.

False Confession

Wu did not confess until he was severely tortured. Police beat and kicked him and threatened to detain his wife if he did not confess. He was interrogated and tortured outside of the detention center, where he should have been interrogated. When he was returned to the detention center, authorities there did not fill out a physical examination form to reflect Wu’s physical condition. As a result of torture, Wu provided false confessions and information that did not match many details found at the crime scene. He recanted his false confessions as soon as the first trial started.

Problematic Forensic Evidence

The police gave Wu a polygraph test after the case was sent back for retrial for the third time, but they failed to follow proper procedures and did not ask Wu any control questions. (In addition, scientists have shown that polygraph tests are not scientifically valid or reliable.)

The autopsy report did not say anything about flour dough mixed with TETS being found in the victim’s stomach. However, the forensic report said that a sample of the victim’s stomach contents was found to contain TETS. The police had no record showing the chain of custody of the sample of stomach contents.

Investigator’s Errors

Wang’s wife told the police several names of persons whom she believed to have conflicts with her family. She did not mention Wu. Investigators did not look at persons who were on her list. Instead, the police pressed Wang to think of conflicts with Wu.

Wu told the police that he saw another person coming out of Wang’s house around the same time he was there. Police did not pursue this lead.
During the early investigation, multiple witnesses testified that Wang had once accused his wife of placing their own rat poison next to the flour in the kitchen. The investigators stopped looking into this after Wu confessed.

In 2004, the Ministry of Public Security launched a nation-wide three-year campaign to clear up pending homicide cases. The number of cleared homicide cases rose from 2,176 in 2003 to 5,910 in 2004. In this case, local police declared that the case was cleared one week after the crime occurred.
After his acquittal, on June 2, 2020, Wu filed a claim with the Henan High Court for state compensation of RMB18.72 million. He eventually was awarded RMB2.62 million. Wu appealed to the SPC for review of the compensation in August 2020. On April 23, 2021, the SPC revised the Henan High Court’s state compensation decision and awarded him RMB 3.14 million.

Wu Chunhong Murder Case (吴春红故意杀人案)