Entrepreneur Offers 100 Million Won Reward to Find Real Culprit After 8 Years of Wrongful Imprisonment for Murder

Falsely Accused of Murder and Imprisoned for Eight Years
Becomes a Successful Entrepreneur After Release... Now Seeks the Real Culprit

A Chinese man who was wrongfully imprisoned for eight years and later acquitted has offered a reward of about 100 million won in an effort to find the real perpetrator.

A Chinese man who was wrongfully imprisoned for eight years has offered a reward of about 100 million won to find the real culprit. Chinese SNS

According to local Chinese media outlets such as Anhuiwang and Zhonghuawang, earlier this month, Li Jianming (pseudonym), an expert in psychological analysis (lie detection), submitted a request for case resolution to the Penglai Public Security Bureau in Yantai, Shandong Province, and announced that he would personally investigate the unsolved murder case that occurred in Shandong Province in 1998.

Li Jianming also stated that he would conduct the investigation at his own expense, saying, "I want to seek justice on behalf of the wronged soul." He is recognized as a first-generation expert by the Public Security Bureau of Northeast China and has participated in investigations of more than 300 major cases.

The case occurred in December 1998 in a village in Penglai (now Penglai District, Yantai), Shandong Province, where a 56-year-old woman named Xu Meizhi was found dead at her home. At the time, a 22-year-old villager, Chen Shizhang, was identified as the culprit and sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. After serving nearly eight years in prison, he was acquitted by the Shandong High Court in 2006. The case drew renewed attention in China at the end of May 2025 following multiple media reports.

Recently, it was Chen Shizhang's posting of a reward notice on social networking services (SNS) and his search for the real perpetrator that prompted Li Jianming to join the investigation. Currently, Chen Shizhang is offering a reward of 500,000 yuan (about 94.85 million won) and is asking the public to provide information about the real culprit.

In a video Chen Shizhang posted on SNS in January, he revealed that he is now an entrepreneur with assets worth tens of millions of yuan. In the late 1990s, Chen Shizhang was considered one of the leading young businessmen in his village. At age 18, he owned a walkie-talkie (large mobile phone) and a vehicle, and in 1998, he established a food and beverage factory that employed about 70 people. However, when he was named a suspect in the murder case in December of that year, his circumstances changed dramatically.

Prosecutors argued that Chen Shizhang, who was struggling financially, killed the victim, who was the wife of the village accountant, and then fled. In March 2001, the court of first instance sentenced him to death with a two-year reprieve. After appeals and retrials, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2003, but Chen Shizhang continued to assert his innocence.

During the 2006 retrial, the court found that the time of the victim's death was unclear, there was no blood found on Chen Shizhang's clothes or shoes, and the murder weapon had not been identified. As a result, Chen Shizhang was acquitted. He received about 197,000 yuan (about 3.745 million won) in compensation from the state, and the Shandong High Court promised to restore his honor, stating that his wrongful imprisonment had "violated his personal freedom as a citizen."

However, even after his release, suspicion continued to follow him. Even childhood friends turned away from him, and his family also suffered. His younger sister had to drop out of middle school and give up her studies, while his parents sold their house and went into debt in an effort to prove their son's innocence.

Despite these circumstances, Chen Shizhang did not give up. Within half a year of his release, he got married and had a child, and after working in various jobs such as delivery, sales, and construction, he started a business again. In 2015, he developed a waterless vacuum toilet suitable for rural areas, and since 2019, his products have won various design awards. He currently runs a smart sanitation equipment company with a capital of 20 million yuan (about 2.8 billion won).

However, the real perpetrator has still not been caught. Since January of this year, Chen Shizhang has been actively offering a reward, and as the media has renewed its focus on the case, the investigation has entered a new phase.

Meanwhile, Li Jianming's request for investigation was received by the Penglai Public Security Bureau on the 16th of this month and forwarded to the relevant department. However, it is reported that there has not yet been any official contact.