Man killed sleeping wife and flushed body parts down toilet, arrested after DNA evidence found in septic tank
A man from China has been arrested for allegedly murdering his wife while she was sleeping. Xu Guoli also allegedly dismembered her corpse and flushed the body parts down the loo. The 55-year-old accused was taken into custody after Lai Huili’s DNA evidence was found by police in the communal septic tank. The disturbing revelations came after local police ended an 18-day search operation for the 51-year-old woman whose husband filed a missing report for her on July 6. Police also released a statement claiming that Guoli cut his wife’s corpse and threw them away in "various locations" throughout the gated community. The accused, who is a delivery driver, reportedly admitted to the "premeditated killing" of Huili after facing interrogation by the investigators. According to the accused’s admission, he murdered the victim because of "multiple disputes" with her.
Reports have claimed that the case garnered a lot of attention from all over the country after Guoli gave a series of interviews to several local media outlets in order to strengthen his case. He also made his appearance on Zhejiang Television's 'Xiaoqiang Hotline' on July 15 and 17, where he claimed that Huili had "disappeared". In the interviews, the suspect said that his wife of 12 years was "missing when I woke up the next morning". “She has never gone missing before. She must have gone out by herself,” he added.
Meanwhile, in a statement, local police said they launched an "extensive search" lasting around three weeks to find the victim. After checking nearly 6,000 hours of security footage in the Sanbao Beiyuan gated community where Huili lived, they came to the conclusion that she did not leave the neighborhood since surveillance footage showed her and her daughter returning home and entering a lift on July 4.
As per Hangzhou police, they then launched a "blanket search" of the neighborhood in Jianggan District, including in all six residential tower blocks, refuse and storage rooms, underground car parks, lift shafts, water tanks, manholes, sewers, and air ducts. During the investigation process, the officers also questioned all 1,075 households in the residential district, as well as friends and family. Breakthrough in the case reportedly came on July 22 when investigators found "suspected human remains" in a septic tank in the block where Huili lived. The investigators suspected that the woman had been murdered and after spending 25 hours draining 38 lorries worth of human waste and conducting DNA tests, it was discovered that tissue belonged to the victim, police stated.
Guoli and Huili reportedly married each other in 2008 and brought one child each from their former relationships. They also had a third child together, a daughter aged 11. Hangzhou police said that the investigation into the case is still going on.
In another incident, a man from Florida allegedly murdered his wife and four children. Michael Jones also allegedly kept their corpses for weeks before dumping them across state lines. "As a parent, it breaks my heart. As a sheriff, it angers me. All we need to know is that's evil, and evil did something, and evil needs to pay for what he did,” Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said. The 38-year-old man had earlier told investigators that he and his family met with an accident, which killed his 32-year-old wife and his kids.