24. A Chinese woman believed dead showed up after a man was executed for her murder
Wrongful executions are of course not limited to the western world. A dismembered female body was discovered in China and through the use of forensic science, the police identified it as being the remains of Shi Xiaorong, who had been reported missing for some time. Further use of forensics allowed police to believe that they had identified her killer, and led to the arrest of Teng Xingshan. Teng was charged with rape, murder, and robbery and tried by the Huaihua People’s Court. Convicted of all the crimes charged, Teng was executed on January 28, 1989.
Four years later the reliability of the police’s use of forensics was called into question when it was learned that the dead woman was not Shi Xiaorong, as had been believed. The real Shi returned, having been detained in Shandong against her will by kidnappers, according to the story she told authorities. Although Shi was obviously still alive, and thus had not been robbed, raped, and murdered by Teng, it took years before Chinese authorities admitted that the again unknown victim had not been killed by Teng either. In 2005 Teng was exonerated.