Search for victims in basement case
By Wang Xiang |
May 21, 2010, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
POLICE are searching for more possible rape victims of a man who allegedly kept two teenage girls chained and naked in a windowless basement for almost a year in central China's Wuhan City.
Zeng Xiangbao, who is alleged to have kept the teens captive, was arrested in connection with a rape case a week before the two girls were rescued from the secret chamber.
Police in Hubei Province believed there are more victims who did not report their cases, according to yesterday's Beijing News.
Zeng is said to have confessed to police that he raped and robbed many women since 2007. But only one victim contacted the police. They nabbed Zeng after he left his employee's card at the crime scene.
A week after he was arrested, an SOS note concealed in a broken television set sent to a repair shop led police to rescue two girls, aged 19 and 16, who were found naked and filthy and chained in a cellar under Zeng's house.
The older girl was a neighbor of Zeng's. Her home was only 200 meters away.
The girl's father, surnamed Zhou, said he called police when she went missing last July. But officers failed to find any clues to her whereabouts.
The case was not filed and no serious investigation was launched, the newspaper said.
An officer with the Wuhan police said the case was not registered because "being missing was too complex." He said the girls could have run away from home or been working as migrant workers.
He said the girls were under protection and refused to give any details on the case saying it was to protect the girls' privacy. Even the girls' families have not been allowed to meet their daughters. Zhou, who saw his daughter, said she appeared to be healthy, though pale.
Zeng was a strangely silent man who divorced his wife last year, according to a community worker. A neighbor of his, surnamed Xu, said he heard him digging in the basement more than a year ago.
Villagers said Zeng had gone to work every day on time before he was seized by police. Nobody felt that he had been acting abnormally.
The girls had survived on a box of instant noodles after Zeng was arrested.
Zeng Xiangbao, who is alleged to have kept the teens captive, was arrested in connection with a rape case a week before the two girls were rescued from the secret chamber.
Police in Hubei Province believed there are more victims who did not report their cases, according to yesterday's Beijing News.
Zeng is said to have confessed to police that he raped and robbed many women since 2007. But only one victim contacted the police. They nabbed Zeng after he left his employee's card at the crime scene.
A week after he was arrested, an SOS note concealed in a broken television set sent to a repair shop led police to rescue two girls, aged 19 and 16, who were found naked and filthy and chained in a cellar under Zeng's house.
The older girl was a neighbor of Zeng's. Her home was only 200 meters away.
The girl's father, surnamed Zhou, said he called police when she went missing last July. But officers failed to find any clues to her whereabouts.
The case was not filed and no serious investigation was launched, the newspaper said.
An officer with the Wuhan police said the case was not registered because "being missing was too complex." He said the girls could have run away from home or been working as migrant workers.
He said the girls were under protection and refused to give any details on the case saying it was to protect the girls' privacy. Even the girls' families have not been allowed to meet their daughters. Zhou, who saw his daughter, said she appeared to be healthy, though pale.
Zeng was a strangely silent man who divorced his wife last year, according to a community worker. A neighbor of his, surnamed Xu, said he heard him digging in the basement more than a year ago.
Villagers said Zeng had gone to work every day on time before he was seized by police. Nobody felt that he had been acting abnormally.
The girls had survived on a box of instant noodles after Zeng was arrested.
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