A 21-year-old Chinese woman who has only been identified by the last name “Li” was murdered after using Didi Chuxing’s Hitch Service, a service which allows car owners to pick up people going in the same direction.
The incident took place in the evening of May 5th, 2018, at 11:00 pm, when she summoned a vehicle using Hitch so that she could get home from Zhengzhou airport, Henan Province, where she worked as a flight attendant. While in the vehicle, she had reportedly texted her friend that the driver was making her uncomfortable, expressing her thoughts in texts such as: “[The driver] said I am really good looking and he wants to kiss me,”. This friend later called Li, who told her that everything was fine. This phone call was the last time Li was heard from.
On the morning of May 6th, her family found that Li had not returned from work. Her mother and father became worried, and that fear soon intensified when they called the airline that their daughter worked for, and they told them that their daughter was away from her hotel room on May 5th. They alerted police who soon began searching for the girl. On the morning of May 8th, police found the body of Li on a nearby small slope.
Police have stated that there were more than a dozen stab wounds on the victim’s back, and her two arteries were severed, along with fatal wounds in her heart, lungs, and other parts. It has also been stated that Li’s body was discovered partially undressed, and that the forensic examinations on the body have determined that she may have been sexually assaulted.
Police are searching for the driver of the vehicle, 29-year-old Liu Zhenhua, who is considered the prime suspect in the case. In surveillance video police have obtained, the man is seen abandoning his car and jumping into a nearby river. The driver was reportedly using his father’s Hitch account, even though this was a breach of Didi’s terms of service. The app also requires drivers to go through facial recognition before driving someone, but sadly the check failed on that night. It is also possible that the man had used the account before, since Didi had received a complaint prior to the murder that this Hitch driver had sexually harassed a customer verbally, but after this complaint, the service tried and failed to contact the driver.
Didi has offered a reward of up to 1 million yuan ($157,671 US) for anybody who has any information related to the murder of 21-year-old Li and the suspect, 29-year-old Liu Zhenhua.
SOURCES
https://www.shine.cn/news/nation/1805114486/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/11/didi-chuxing-suspends-its-carpooling-service/
https://qz.com/1275645/didi-is-under-fire-for-its-response-to-a-female-passengers-murder/
SCELUS: EVERYTHING TRUE CRIME 