Shandong Home Invasion Baby Abduction Case Goes to Court, One Suspect is Neighbor of the Victim

On April 2nd, the “Shandong Baby Abduction Case” was publicly tried at the Taian Intermediate People’s Court in Shandong Province, with the kidnapped child, Jiang Jiaru, appearing in court to testify. According to reports from mainland Chinese media such as Red Star News and CCTV News, the trial of the “Shandong Baby Abduction Case” began at 9:30 am on April 2nd at the Taian Intermediate People’s Court, where the defendants Zeng, Lv, Wang, and Yuan were charged with child trafficking. Jiang Jiaru, who was kidnapped 18 years ago, appeared in court to testify, with the victim of the Yu Huaying case, Yang Nüehua, also present to support him.

Before the trial began, Jiang Jiaru, the victim preparing to enter the courtroom, stated, “I want to question them in court, are there any other victims?”

It was reported that on December 4, 2006, at 1 a.m., three men cut off the village’s power supply, climbed over the walls, broke locks, and stormed into Jiang Jiaru’s home, where only his grandparents and their grandson were present. The assailants violently subdued Jiang Jiaru’s grandparents and then abducted the 8-month-old Jiang Jiaru.

Subsequently, the family embarked on a long search for their abducted child, visiting over 30 cities in a year. Jiang Jiaru’s grandparents were consumed by guilt and anguish, with his grandfather succumbing to depression after a few years and his grandmother crying her eyes out. It wasn’t until January 2024 that the four suspects of the crime were captured, with the authorities using facial recognition technology to locate Jiang Jiaru in Jining, Shandong.

On March 31st, Jiang Jiaru’s grandmother told Da Wan News that she felt extreme guilt over losing the child on her watch over the years, crying and holding onto a photo of Jiang Jiaru.

She stated that after the abduction, her husband became despondent, smoking five to six packs of cigarettes a day, only to later be diagnosed with lung cancer and pass away tragically. She has been living alone for the past 12 years.

Consumed by self-blame, she couldn’t hold her head up in front of her son and daughter-in-law, the latter reluctant to return home as seeing the house reminds her of their missing child, causing her distress as well.

Jiang Jiaru’s mother, Qiao Shoufen, recounted in a media interview the harrowing experience of nearly driving off a cliff while searching for her child, becoming emotional, trembling, and breaking into tears.

She expressed that the pain and suffering inflicted on the parents and the family from their child being kidnapped are incomprehensible to outsiders, hoping for strict punishment to deter criminals.

Shockingly, one of the four suspects in the abduction case turned out to be their neighbor Yuan, living just a few hundred meters away. A month before the crime, Yuan had even led the other three in conducting reconnaissance.

The indictment revealed that all four had criminal records prior to their arrests in this case. The three suspects who entered Jiang Jiaru’s home had previously been sentenced for theft, with two of them also having convictions for rape and escape, with the longest sentence of 23 years being handed to Wang.