Chapter 1

When this case happened, I was still in college. A classmate from Shanxi told me about it. I remembered it today, so I looked up more information and filled in a few details.

Shanxi is rich in coal and has many mining districts. Some of the larger mines built a full range of facilities for their workers: cafeterias, schools, hospitals, grocery stores, and more.

The case took place on July 12, 2008, at the miners’ hospital.

Nurse Li Fang hadn’t come to work all morning. Around ten, the head nurse went to check her dormitory. She pushed open the door and found Li Fang still asleep in bed. Irritated, she marched over and began scolding her loudly.

Li Fang didn’t respond at all.

The head nurse suddenly pulled back the blanket—and froze. Li Fang was still wearing her pajamas on top, but her lower body was bare. She was dead.

The staff dormitory stood behind the hospital’s outpatient building. Li Fang lived alone in Room 312, on the third floor, roughly in the middle of the corridor.

The hospital had recently been repainted, and the smell of paint was still strong. Many employees had moved out and rented rooms elsewhere, so the dormitory building was sparsely occupied.

The head nurse immediately called the police.

After examining the scene, the police determined that Li Fang had been strangled. There were signs that she had been sexually assaulted. Her money and the phone she had carried with her were missing.

Marks inside the room and around the dormitory suggested that the killer had climbed from the first to the third floor using a drainage pipe, crossed three windowsills, and entered Li Fang’s Room 312.

Along the route, he had left clear footprints and fingerprints. Either he had no sense of how investigations worked, or he was extraordinarily brazen.

During the investigation, police uncovered an important lead.

Three years earlier, a similar case had taken place in the mining district’s residential compound. A sixteen-year-old girl, home alone, had been sexually assaulted and murdered. The family’s belongings had also been stolen.

The police compared DNA samples collected from the two victims and confirmed that the same person was responsible.

Both crimes had happened in the same mining district, and the killer knew the area extremely well. Police suspected that he lived there, perhaps even working at the mine.

While investigators were searching the area, another incident took place at the miners’ hospital.

On October 3, during the National Day holiday, the mine was operating at reduced capacity and had fewer staff on site. A thief took advantage of the darkness, intending to break in.

But after the attack on Li Fang, the plant had increased security patrols.

A guard on duty spotted a dark figure climbing a drainage pipe and shouted. The figure slid back down in an instant, took off at a run, and vanished within seconds. The guard didn’t pursue him.

After Li Fang’s case, the mine had greatly expanded its security system. At the hospital alone, the number of surveillance cameras had risen from seven to twenty-five, covering nearly the entire grounds.

When the hospital reported the attempted break-in, police came to review the footage and found the thief. After comparing him with all the mine’s employees, they focused on a cook who worked in the cafeteria.

His name was Lu Tianhao. He looked rough and disreputable. According to his coworkers, he was extremely lecherous and liked to spy on attractive female employees. When serving them food, he was especially eager to strike up a conversation and get to know them.

Meanwhile, police searching for Li Fang’s missing phone received another lead.

The phone had been sold to a secondhand shop. The owner said the seller’s surname was Lu.

When police showed him Lu Tianhao’s photo, he immediately confirmed that it was the same man.

Lu Tianhao had been born into a mining family in Datong, Shanxi.

There were three brothers, and Lu Tianhao was the youngest.

A late-born child and the baby of the family, he had been spoiled and poorly disciplined. His grades were terrible, but his temper was explosive. He caused trouble and got into fights as naturally as breathing.

By middle school, he had grown even more extreme. Whenever he lost his temper, he would pull a knife. Students and parents reported him repeatedly.

At the start of ninth grade, after he broke another student’s bones in a fight, the school finally expelled him.

His parents realized there was no hope for him in school and arranged for him to learn cooking in the mine’s cafeteria.

He was a poor student, but he had a natural talent for cooking and quickly learned the trade.

Even after becoming a skilled cook, Lu Tianhao wanted more. His father arranged for him to work at a restaurant in Beijing to improve his skills.

When he returned to the mining district, he became the head chef in the cafeteria. Another mine owner even tried to recruit him with a higher salary.

On October 5, Lu Tianhao was arrested.

In the interrogation room, he confessed to all his crimes.

What shocked everyone was that, besides the failed break-in during the National Day holiday, the assault and murder of nurse Li Fang, and the murder of the sixteen-year-old girl, he had committed another crime that had never been made public.

Despite his poor education, Lu Tianhao lived comfortably thanks to his cooking skills.

He was notorious in the cafeteria for his lechery, but no one had imagined he would do something so utterly self-destructive.

When police asked why, he said contemptuously:

“To me, committing a crime isn’t a big deal. Neither is killing someone.”