The case of the 47-year-old man, surnamed Li, was reported by China's CCTV in late November.
On May 5, 2021, while taking a ferry from Dalian (Liaoning Province, China) to Yantai (Shandong Province, China), this man's wife, also surnamed Li, fell off the ferry railing into the sea.
Police discovered her body after 45 minutes of searching. When the man heard the news of his wife’s death, he was shocked and sat on the ground in shock.
The man claimed the accident was accidental. However, police remain suspicious of Li's wife's death, as the victim fell in a blind spot of the ferry's surveillance system, which includes more than 200 cameras.
Forensic experts also found bruises on her face. Furthermore, Li urged the police to obtain his wife's death certificate, insisting that according to local custom, a wife must be cremated within three days of her death.
The police invited Li to Dalian, promised to provide him with a death certificate, and secretly sent someone to Shanghai, where Li lived, to investigate.
In Shanghai, Li ran a restaurant but was often in debt to his staff and suppliers. His wife, a 46-year-old woman, had been divorced twice and had two children. They had married in October 2020, six months before she died in the ferry accident.
The wife had been working at Li’s restaurant since 2016. Police found that staff knew nothing about their marriage, and neighbors said the couple did not appear to be in a relationship. During the investigation, police also found Li’s 19-year-old girlfriend.
Not only that, Li also engaged in prostitution just half a month after his wife's death, at a hotel arranged by the police. This behavior was recorded by the hotel's camera system.
Police later discovered that Li had a debt of more than 1 million yuan (about 3.5 billion VND). This man had bought 4 life insurance policies for his wife after 2 months of marriage and designated himself as the sole beneficiary.
If Li's wife dies in a traffic accident, the total compensation from all four insurance contracts could be up to 12 million yuan (about 42 billion VND).
Lee was arrested, but maintains his innocence. Police have sought help examining footage from surveillance cameras located further away from the scene of the incident. Experts have determined that the manner in which the victim fell suggests she was pushed into the water, rather than accidentally falling.
They also identified the arm that pushed her into the sea as belonging to another person dressed in black. Li was also wearing black that day.
Li was sentenced to death for murder in his first trial in July 2022. A higher court upheld the verdict after Li appealed.
