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More rapes feared after cellar rescue
By Wang Xiang |
May 20, 2010, Thursday
|
Online Edition
Online Edition
POLICE are searching for more rape victims after two teenage girls were rescued after being shackled naked in a basement for more than a year in central China's Wuhan City.
Suspect Zeng Xiangbao who allegedly kept the teens captive was arrested in an unrelated rape case a week before the two girls were rescued from the secret chamber. Police in Hubei Province believed there were more victims who did not report their case, Beijing News reported today.
The suspect allegedly confessed to police that he raped and robbed many women since 2007. But only one victim reported rape to police. They nabbed Zeng as he carelessly left his employee's card at the crime scene.
A week after he was arrested, an SOS note smuggled out in a broken television being sent to a repair shop led police to rescue two girls, aged 19 and 16, chained in a cellar 2.5 meters under Zeng's house.
They were found naked and filthy in the windowless cellar. The elder girl was a neighbor of Zeng's. Her home was only 200 meters away.
The girl's father surnamed Zhou said he reported the girl's disappearance last July but officers failed to find any clue. The case was not even filed and no serious investigation was launched, the report said.
An officer with Wuhan police surnamed Mao said the case was not registered because missing person cases were "too complex." He said the alleged victims could either have run away from home or migrant workers.
He said the rescued girls were under protection and refused to give any details on the case. Even the girls' parents were not allowed to meet their daughters.
Zeng was a strangely silent man who divorced his wife last year, according to a community worker. A neighbor surnamed Xu said he heard him digging the basement more than a year ago and never thought he would transform the basement into a dungeon.
The girls did not cry or scream for help when police rescued them. Xu said there was a TV and DVD players in the cellar. Zhou, the father, also said his daughter appeared healthy, though her face was a little pale.
Suspect Zeng Xiangbao who allegedly kept the teens captive was arrested in an unrelated rape case a week before the two girls were rescued from the secret chamber. Police in Hubei Province believed there were more victims who did not report their case, Beijing News reported today.
The suspect allegedly confessed to police that he raped and robbed many women since 2007. But only one victim reported rape to police. They nabbed Zeng as he carelessly left his employee's card at the crime scene.
A week after he was arrested, an SOS note smuggled out in a broken television being sent to a repair shop led police to rescue two girls, aged 19 and 16, chained in a cellar 2.5 meters under Zeng's house.
They were found naked and filthy in the windowless cellar. The elder girl was a neighbor of Zeng's. Her home was only 200 meters away.
The girl's father surnamed Zhou said he reported the girl's disappearance last July but officers failed to find any clue. The case was not even filed and no serious investigation was launched, the report said.
An officer with Wuhan police surnamed Mao said the case was not registered because missing person cases were "too complex." He said the alleged victims could either have run away from home or migrant workers.
He said the rescued girls were under protection and refused to give any details on the case. Even the girls' parents were not allowed to meet their daughters.
Zeng was a strangely silent man who divorced his wife last year, according to a community worker. A neighbor surnamed Xu said he heard him digging the basement more than a year ago and never thought he would transform the basement into a dungeon.
The girls did not cry or scream for help when police rescued them. Xu said there was a TV and DVD players in the cellar. Zhou, the father, also said his daughter appeared healthy, though her face was a little pale.
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