eurekapd Chapter 1297 Liu Jianjun's Motive for Murder
Chapter 1297 Liu Jianjun's Motive for Murder
Liu Jianjun's body jolted violently, as if struck by an electric current, his face turning deathly pale instantly. He stared at the photo for a few seconds, then suddenly looked up agitatedly, struggling against the handcuffs with both hands: "Impossible! How could Zhang Jianxue die? It has nothing to do with me! Don't wrong me!" His voice rose a few decibels, his eyes filled with terror, yet he dared not linger on the photo for long, as if it were a hot potato.
Unaffected by his emotions, Xiao Zhou produced a second piece of evidence: a black baseball cap and a black watch found in Liu Jianjun's dormitory. "These were found in your dormitory. Do they look familiar?" Xiao Zhou placed the cap and watch on the table. "We reviewed the surveillance footage at the entrance of Heping Residential Area. The person who stole Zheng Bin's electric tricycle was wearing the same style of baseball cap and a black watch on his left wrist. His height and build are exactly the same as yours. How do you explain that?"
Liu Jianjun's breathing suddenly quickened. He stared at the baseball cap and watch, his lips trembling, unable to speak for a long time. After a while, he managed to squeeze out a sentence: "This...this baseball cap and watch are mine. Many people have the same model. You can't accuse me of stealing a car based on this!" His explanation was weak and feeble. Fine beads of sweat had already seeped from his forehead, running down his cheeks and dripping onto his work pants, spreading into a small dark stain.
"Not this? Then how about adding this?" Xiao Zhou produced the third piece of evidence: a DNA test report for a "Yellow Crane Tower" cigarette butt collected at the scene. "We found this cigarette butt near the burial pit, and the DNA on it matches your DNA perfectly. Didn't you say you had nothing to do with Zhang Jianxue's death? Why was your cigarette butt found at the burial site?"
These words struck Liu Jianjun like a hammer blow, slamming into his psychological defenses. His body began to tremble violently, his hands clenched into fists, his knuckles turning white from the force. "I...I just went to Beishan Park to smoke, I didn't know there was a body there!" His voice trembled with sobs, his eyes filled with despair. "I usually like to take walks in the park, I just happened to be passing by that day, had a smoke, and left. I really didn't know Zhang Jianxue was buried there!"
"Just passing by?" Xiao Zhou produced the fourth piece of evidence: the testimony of the owner of the snack shop near Zhang Jianxue's construction site. "The snack shop owner said that at 6 pm on the 18th, Zhang Jianxue ate noodles and vegetables at the shop, and after finishing, he said he was going to 'talk to someone.' As for you, you have no alibi for the night of the 18th, saying you were sleeping in your dormitory, but no one can testify to that. Was the person Zhang Jianxue was talking to you?"
Liu Jianjun's lips moved, as if he wanted to say something, but he swallowed it back. His eyes began to glaze over, staring at the corner of the interrogation room, as if he were recalling something, or perhaps fabricating a lie. Xiao Zhou noticed his hesitation and continued to press him: "We also investigated your bank statements. You've recently accumulated a mountain of debt, and you borrowed 2000 yuan from Zhang Jianxue. He's been urging you to pay it back several times, but you haven't done so. You even argued with him and almost got into a fight. Did you kill him because you couldn't pay back your debt and were afraid Zhang Jianxue would report you to the foreman?"
"No! I didn't!" Liu Jianjun suddenly shouted, completely losing control of his emotions. "I do owe him money, but I didn't mean to kill him! He's a nagging ghost, demanding money from me every day, and even saying he'd make it impossible for me to stay on the construction site! I was confused for a moment, that's why... that's why I argued with him!"
"You had an argument? And then?" Xiao Zhou seized on the flaw in his words and pressed on, "Where did you two argue? What happened during the argument? Why was he buried in Beishan Park?"
Liu Jianjun's emotions calmed down a little, but the panic in his eyes did not diminish at all. He lowered his head and remained silent for about ten minutes before slowly speaking, his voice as low as a mosquito's hum: "Around 6 p.m. on the 18th, Zhang Jianxue called me and asked me to go to Beishan Park to talk to him about repaying the money. I didn't want to go, but he said that if I didn't go, he would report me to the foreman and make me lose my job. I had no choice but to agree to him."
"And then you went to Beishan Park?" Xiao Zhou asked, leaning forward slightly to listen carefully to every word he said.
“Hmm…” Liu Jianjun nodded, tears streaming down his face. “When I got to the park, Zhang Jianxue was already waiting there. As soon as he saw me, he started cursing at me, saying that I was untrustworthy, and he even pushed me. I was very angry at the time, so I argued with him. The more he cursed, the worse it got, saying that he would make it impossible for me to stay in this city, and that he would go to my hometown to ask for money.”
He paused, wiped away his tears, and continued, "I panicked and started fighting with him. He was stronger than me, and I couldn't beat him. He pinned me to the ground. I was afraid he would really come looking for me to help him, so in a moment of confusion, I grabbed his neck with both hands... I just wanted him to stop cursing, but he struggled more and more, so I grabbed him even tighter... By the time I realized what was happening, he was already dead."
"What did you do after you strangled him?" Xiao Zhou asked, his tone still calm, but his eyes held a hint of seriousness.
Liu Jianjun's body began to tremble again, his voice filled with remorse: "I was so scared that I lost my mind and didn't know what to do. I wanted to run away, but I was afraid of being discovered. I remembered seeing an unlocked electric tricycle at the entrance of Heping Community, so I thought I would take the body away and find a place to bury it."
"So you stole Zheng Bin's electric tricycle?" Xiao Zhou confirmed.
“Yes…” Liu Jianjun nodded. “I ran to the entrance of Heping Community and saw that electric tricycle parked on the side of the road with no one watching it. I used the screwdriver I was carrying to pry open the lock, then drove back to Beishan Park and put Zhang Jianxue’s body in the car. I was afraid of being discovered, so I specially covered his face with his jacket.”
"Why did you choose to bury him in the shrubbery in Beishan Park?" Xiao Zhou asked.
“I often go for walks in Beishan Park and know that the bushes there are very secluded and rarely visited,” Liu Jianjun replied. “I drove the body to the vicinity of the bushes, then took a shovel from the car—it was already in the car, I don’t know whose it was—dug a hole, and buried Zhang Jianxue in it. While burying him, I even smoked a cigarette to calm down, but I didn’t expect the cigarette butt to fall on the ground and be found by you.”
"After burying the body, where did you put the electric tricycle?" Xiao Zhou continued to press, making sure every detail of the case was clear.
“I drove the car to an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city,” Liu Jianjun replied. “I was afraid of being discovered, so I hid the car in a corner of the factory and removed the license plate, throwing it into a nearby river. Then I walked back to the construction site, pretending nothing had happened.”