20 years old woman raped and murdered by Chinese ride-hailing service 'DiDi' driver

The police published the details of the horrific incident around midnight yesterday.

The late Ms Zhao was riding in a car provided by the carpooling service 'DiDi' in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province when she was raped and murdered by the driver. This appalling incident raised great concern among citizens. Some netizens even questioned the police's unwillingness in accepting the case. Local forces announced the complete details of the case on the morning of the 26th, clarifying that "This is not the case."

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According to the information released by the Wenzhou Public Security Bureau, the victim's friend, Ms Zhu, arrived at the Shangtang police station at 4:22 pm on August 24th to report that Ms Zhao had taken a DiDi ride-hailing service from Yueqing to Yongjia at 1 pm, but had lost connection with her en route. Concerned about her safety and whereabouts, Ms Zhu contacted DiDi's customer service to inquire about the situation, but was only met with the message, "[The customer services] will reply within 1 hour."

Image of the victim, Ms Zhou (Online image)

At 4:41 pm, the police contacted DiDi's customer service again on behalf of Ms Zhu, informing DiDi of the urgency of the incident, requesting the acquisition of the information concerning the identity and vehicle of the suspect. However, the customer service responded, "A security expert will intervene in this incident", and that they will have to wait.

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It was until 5:13 did DiDi finally provided information concerning the case, stating that Ms Zhou had cancelled her ride at 2:10 pm, and the customer service believed that the victim did not get on the vehicle. However, the police doubted that was the case, insisting that DiDi provide the driving license and identity of the accused driver. However, the customer service still vehemently refused to do so.

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At 5:32 pm, another friend of the late Ms Zhou states that she had received a message calling for help from the victim. The police immediately contacted Ms Zhou's family, and found out that the family had just reported to the Yueqing Police Station at about 5:30 pm. The police clarified that they had not received any information concerning on the matter before 4:22 pm that day, and that the rumour circulating around the Internet that "friends and family immediately contacted the police, but were declined from filing a case because the force did not have the licence plate number and the driver's phone number" is a false accusation.  

Image of the suspect, Mr Zhong (Online image)

The police contacted DiDi again at 5:36 pm, but the customer service indicated it would take 3 to four hours to process. It wasn't until the police expressed the urgency of the situation did DiDi agree to speed up the processing. At 5:49 pm, DiDi requested for identification documents for 2 police officers and a letter of confirmation from the police department before going through with the process. Authorities mailed the documents to DiDi at 6:04 pm, and finally, at 6:13 pm, the license plate and information of the vehicle's owner were handed over to the police.

The Yueqing City Police Burea immediately formed an ad hoc investigation team and launched an emergency protocol, requesting support from the Wenzhou Police Station. At about 4 am on Saturday the 25th, the police finally arrested a male suspect, named as Mr Zhong. At 9 in the morning, the police located the vehicle involved.

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Mr Zhong admitted to raping the late Ms Zhou on the hillside of Danxi Town, after which he slit her throat with a dagger and threw her off the cliff. The forensic pathologist's autopsy initially identified the victim's death to be due to acute haemorrhage caused by a fracture of the right neck artery. The case is still under further investigation.

The late Ms Zhou's body was found down in a ditch, with a large hole in her jeans. (Online image)

More information has been rumoured concerning DiDi, and screenshots of a chat group Mr Zhong is allegedly a member of, named "Wuhan DiDi Official Group", was leaked online. The screenshots show several supposed DiDi drivers posting and discussing pictures of their passengers, and making comments about their appearances.

Compilation of the disturbing texts (Screenshot)

Even more disturbingly, phrases such as "I really want to rape her" and "rape her on the spot" were spotted within the screenshots. Additionally, some other official DiDi groups in Dongguan and Chengdu also had similar comments.

The police advised the public to share the license plate number and the driver's name to friends and relatives when taking ride-sharing or ride-hailing services (e.g. Uber) for safety reasons.

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DiDi has suspended its "Hitch" service, one of its carpooling services, starting Monday, and had fired two executives. The company is slammed for failing to respond promptly to a possible warning sign about Mr Zhong, as just before the day of the incident, another female passenger had complained about the same driver, saying that Mr Zhong had repeatedly asked her to sit in front, drove them to a remote spot and followed her for a while even after she got out of the car.

DiDi Chuxing released a statement saying, "Our customer service promises to reply to customers within two hours but we failed and did not carry out an investigation into this complaint in a timely way. No matter what reasons we had, we shoulder inescapable responsibility."

SEATTLE (AP) — Jury selection began Monday in the trial of a suburban Seattle police officer charged with murder in the death of a 26-year-old man outside a convenience store in 2019 — the third person the officer had killed in the past eight years.

Auburn officer Jeff Nelson shot and killed Jesse Sarey while trying to arrest him for disorderly conduct in an interaction that lasted just 67 seconds, authorities said. Sarey had reportedly been throwing things at cars.

Citing surveillance video from nearby businesses, prosecutors said Nelson wrestled with Sarey, repeatedly punched him in the head and shot him twice. As Sarey was wounded and reclined on the ground from the first shot, which struck his upper abdomen, Nelson cleared a jammed round out of his gun, glanced at a nearby witness, turned back to Sarey and shot him again — this time in the forehead, prosecutors said.

The case is the second to go to trial since Washington voters in 2018 made it easier to charge police by removing a standard that required prosecutors to prove they acted with malice; now, prosecutors must show that the level of force was unreasonable or unnecessary. In December, jurors acquitted three Tacoma police officers in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis.

Nelson later said in a written statement that he believed Sarey had a knife and posed a threat before the first shot — and that Sarey was on his knees in a “squatting fashion … ready to spring forward” before the officer fired again. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder and first-degree assault.

An Iraq war veteran, Nelson joined the department in 2008.

The city of Auburn paid Sarey’s family $4 million to settle a civil rights claim and has paid nearly $2 million more to settle other litigation over Nelson’s actions as a police officer.

The trial, before King County Superior Court Judge Nicole Gaines Phelps at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, is expected to last several weeks. Gaines has ruled that jurors will not hear evidence about Nelson’s prior uses of deadly force or about Sarey’s history of drug use.

In one of those earlier cases, the city of Auburn agreed to pay $1.25 million to the family of a different man killed by Nelson, Isaiah Obet.

Obet had been reportedly breaking into houses and attempting to carry out a carjacking with a knife when Nelson confronted him in 2017. Nelson released his police dog, which bit Obet, and then shot the man in the torso. Obet, on the ground and still fighting off the police dog, started to try to get back up, and Nelson shot him again, in the head, police said.

Lawyers for Obet’s family said he posed no threat to anyone when he was shot. The Auburn Police Department disagreed.

“If Officer Nelson had not acted that day to protect the community, there could have been additional victims,” then-Police Chief Dan O’Neil said in a Facebook post after the family sued.

Nelson also shot and killed Brian Scaman, a Vietnam veteran with mental issues and a history of felonies, in 2011 after pulling Scaman over for a burned-out headlight. Scaman got out of his car with a knife and refused to drop it; Nelson shot him in the head. An inquest jury cleared Nelson of any wrongdoing.

In another case, Nelson used his patrol car in 2018 to strike Joseph Loren Allen, a man suspected of being a felon in possession of a firearm who was running away from police. At the time Nelson struck him, pinning him against a fence and breaking both his ankles, Allen was neither armed nor posing a threat to anyone, Allen's lawyer argued.

The lawyer, Mohammad Hamoudi, compiled a summary of Nelson's uses of force and filed it in federal court. It noted about three dozen times between 2012 and 2018 when Nelson sent his police dog after suspects and about a dozen times when he used neck restraint holds to render suspects unconscious.

The Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, which oversees the certification of police in the state, has moved to discipline and possibly revoke Nelson’s badge, saying he has shown a pattern of “an intentional or reckless disregard for the rights of others.”

FILE - Auburn police officer Jeff Nelson appears in King County Superior Court, Aug. 24, 2020, in Kent, Wash. Jury selection began Monday, April 22, 2024, in the trial of the suburban Seattle police officer charged with murder in the death of a 26-year-old man outside a convenience store in 2019. (Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times via AP, File)