The Chinese Corpse Pit - Jia Wenge

would lead them to uncover something horrific. A dark pit hiding dark secrets beyond the imagination, and it was sitting beneath an ordinary house. This is a story of survival, manipulation, death and decay. And I want to warn you this is one of the most, if not the most graphic stories we have ever covered on this podcast. This is the story of Giowenge, the Man with the Corpse Pit.

Jenny Ubiyah. I think I got it right. I had a little phonetic breakdown given to me for that one, So thank you very much, Jenny, and I hope I got your name right. Hopefully I did it justice. We also have Haley Littlefair, Michelle Plank, and finally someone who signed up not with a name, but they signed up instead with a little bit of I don't know, do you want to say insight or advice to everyone out there? Maybe just a quote they said, grow from the dirt they left you in.

Life moved according to the seedents, planting, harvesting, and freight trucks moving crops through town. Most residents worked on farmland, They did food processing, or worked in small factories for potatoes, beets, and grain that were the backstone of the local economy. During peak season, the railway station became the busiest place in town, filled with strangers passing through, and many were carrying cash and planning to stay only briefly. Housing here

was modest and tightly packed. Many families lived in older brick homes and underground vegetable root sellers were used quite often, and to store some of this food through the winter. These cellars were common and nearly ever household had one, and no one saw them as anything more than a practical necessity, because that's exactly what they were. This is a farmland area where people grew and stored food and

kept it, and it was simple living. Now, social life for many was limited to and their evenings were usually spent at their home or with neighbors. News spread by word of mouth, and personal problems were rarely shared outside of the family. Reporting conflicts or abuse or disappearances to authority was pretty uncommon, especially in working class neighborhoods. Local police focused mostly on theft, small disputes in public order.

Serious violent crimes were pretty rare, and missing persons reports were often even treated as temporary absences, since many people left town for work without warning and returned weeks later. Now the town looked like countless other rural communities in northern China. It was quiet, hard working, and largely invisible to the rest of the country. Nothing about it suggested that within a few years it would become linked to one of the most disturbing criminal cases in the region's history.

And it all started on the afternoon of October twenty second, nineteen ninety one. Officers were conducting routine surveillance at Sushoe Railway station as part of their broader provincial operation, which was targeting theft, fraud, and extortion schemes. At the time, the train station was among the busiest and most crime

prone public space in northern China. A lot of travelers went through here every day, and many of them carrying a lot of cash too, not to mention, they're unfamiliar with the area and reluctant to report any minor crimes that occurred. So pickpocketing and small scale robberies were pretty common, and so were organized scams, particularly a scheme police referred to as the Badger game, which was a form of extortion that relied on a combination of both sexual entrapment

and intimidation. Officers assign to these patrols were trained to watch very closely for any subtle behavior patterns, things like mismatched companions, nervous body language and rehearsed sort of flirtation lines, and people positioning themselves near conversations but yet not engaging. On this afternoon, one police officer noticed a woman approaching a lone male traveler near the platform. She was well dressed, confident, and very direct with him. Within minutes, the two were

laughing and standing unusually close. Her manner was openly flirtatious, and to trained officers this looked a lot like some solicitation. Now what true The officer's attention further, though, was that a short distance away were two men that were watching the pair very closely. They didn't interact with them, but they maintained constant visual contact. When the woman and the traveler moved, the men adjusted their position, and when they stopped,

the men stopped. One of the men looked quite large and physically strong, dressed in thick work clothes, and he had a posture of someone who was used to manual labor. The other man, however, was noticeably different. He was clean cut, dressed nice, and well groomed. The officer watched for a moment and quietly alerted his partner that he likely found a badger game in progress. Now, these groups typically worked in threes. A woman to lure in a target into

a private space. One man would then appear and pretend to be angry, be the husband or the partner of this woman. The second man would act as a mediator, offering a resolution or resolve to the situation in exchange for money. Just pay him off and like that's fine. So the goal it wasn't exactly to end in any sort of violence, but instead to use embarrassment or fear to end up with the victim paying his way out

of the situation. So most victims in the scenario, they do just that, they pay, they leave without reporting the US whatsoever.

of a distance. Now, once inside the alley, that's when the situation unfolded according to the pattern that officers already recognized and they knew was coming too. The woman stood close to the traveler, touching his arm and speaking softly, and after a brief exchange, that's when the larger of the two men stepped forward and forcefully pushed this traveler

against the wall. And that's where things changed. The larger man raises his voice and he accuses the victim of molesting his wife and like, what are you doing, Like, that's my wife's sort of thing, like yeah, And so the sudden confrontation, it catches the traveler off guard. And now he tried to explain that the woman presented herself as a sex worker and that the money had already been discussed, right predetermined. But the explanation, of course, to

this bigger guy goes unanswered and basically ignored. So that bigger guy, the large man, continued shouting threatening violence at this individual. He even slapped the woman and accused her of betraying him, building up this facade. Now. Moments later, the second man then stepped in and he positioned himself as the calmer presence. He claimed that the woman's he was the woman's brother in law, and he suggested that the conflict could be resolved just privately, right, like it's okay,

Like we can just resolve this here. And he warned that this guy, this big guy, had recently been released from prison and was unstable, implying that, you know, any further resistance could lead to some serious harm. So not only can you not go to police, but if you don't give us what we're after, you're likely going to get hurt. So pay now and just end it well.

and they were preparing to intervene. But before they could act, however, this is when things went a little different than normally. The victim reacted in a way that was unexpected. Instead of simply complying like everyone how else generally does, he actually challenged the men and suggested involving the police. Oh okay, yes, now this response went against the group's typical routine. People usually just pay up. They're not used to this. Uh huh,

So now off their usual script to act. The second man, who had been acting as the mediator, the business guy, He became visibly angry right away, and he struck the traveler, and the larger men joined in. They jumped him there on the spot, and it was no longer just a stage confrontation. It had turned into a genuine assault. So officers moved quickly and identified themselves, ordering everyone to stop. All three suspects attempted to flee the scene as fast

as they could, running all in the same direction. However, backup units had already been called and positioned nearby, so they were intercepted within minutes and taken into custody. Without any sort of further resistance. All three of these suspects were transported to the local police station and placed in separate interrogation rooms. Immediately, officers began their routine inventory check of the personal belongings that were on all three of them.

The woman's bag contained a modest amount of cash, cosmetics, and personal items. The larger man's belongings were similarly unremarkable. It was the bag carried by the well dressed man, however, that began to raise some questions. Inside, officers found a large amount of cash, far more than would normally be associated with, you know, just a low level street scam group. They also discovered multiple identification documents that did not belong

to this individual. These included foreign issued IDs and traveler papers that bear different names and photographs on them, none of which matched the man in custody. Even more concerning was a collection of pharmaceutical substances that he had. Some were sedatives and others were drugs commonly used to induce unconsciousness, made for incapacitating someone very quickly. Now they definitely weren't

recreational drugs. I need to clarify that. This immediately shifted the tone of the investigation because people running these schemes relied on intimidation, not on drugs, so this actually suggested they were running something else, something a lot darker, involving, you know, isolating victims and rendering them helpless. Even officers quickly decided to contact regional databases to check the foreign identification documents that they had, and the results were unsettling.

Several of the names they found on these IDs were associated with missing persons reports. In some cases, the individuals had been reported missing months earlier after traveling through northern China, and none of them had been located whatsoever. They've not been found. So these are all ideas associated with missing people.

in this extortion scheme. But he denied any violence, saying the group was just harmless scammers and playing down the role of it. But neither Man's accounts explained the sedatives or the missing person's connections with the IDs and their possession.

Initially approached her very gently, they figured that maybe she was, you know, a minor participant or possibly even being exploited by the other two, and after several hours of questioning, her answers to questions grew shorter, her hands began to tremble even more, and at one point, well she started to ask some questions of her own. First, she asked,

you know, can she get some feminine hygiene products? And some other things like that, and she's trying to talk to investigators, and eventually she told them, I need to talk to the director of homicide. This statement alone made the hair on the back of the investigator's next stand up. On end. It suggested that she believed her information, whatever it was, involved deaths, not just financial crimes. Investigators immediately

paused the interview and contacted their superiors. When questioning resumed with the senior officers, the woman told them that the two men that were with her not just scammers. She said they were connected to multiple different murders. According to her, dozens of people had been killed and buried beneath the house in Nihe. She claimed the bodies were hidden in pits beneath the kitchen floor. Now, at first, officers struggled to understand what she was even saying her story sounded

so extreme, even implausible. Mass murder on the scale that she was talking about was almost unheard of in the region, and sensing officers hesitation, she tried to explain her urgency in a flat, resigned tone, even as if she's already accepting her fate. She knows what's going to come of this, but she's still blatantly needing to get it out. Quote. If you listen to me, you will be a hero. You will save people, but I will be executed. Quote.

investigators faced an immediate problem. Her account pointed to a mass scale murderer. Operation in Nihi, but there was no active case on record that matched what she was describing. So before committing to you know, spending resources such a serious allegation, they needed to confirm with the local authorities first. So an officer contacted the Kniehe City Police Security Bureau and provided the details, the suspect's name, the alleged address,

and the claim of these multiple bodies in a residential house. Now, this responding officer in Nihi reported that they had no major homicide investigation open and that there were no registered cases involving dozens of missing persons connected to a single address. Now, this directly contradicted what investigators in Suso had been seeing

for months. Missing persons reports had been circulating informally, and rumors about people vanishing in Nihei had spread beyond the region, and business travelers had begun to even avoid the area almost entirely. Nihei had a reputation of if you want to disappear, that's where you go. Yet none of this had translated into a coordinated criminal case. This disconnect highlighted a very major weakness in the system at the time. You see, in the early nineteen nineties, information sharing between

local police departments in China was extremely limited. Records were kept on paper, databases were fragmented, and cases were not formally classified as major crimes and often remained isolated within local offices instead. So if reports were dismissed early on

or never escalated, they effectively disappeared from the system. Now in Nihe, many early disappearances had involved transient workers, sex workers, and visiting merchants, and these cases were often treated, as I mentioned earlier, voluntary departures rather than potential crimes and missing persons cases.

they risked ignoring a very possible mass murderer case. If they pursued it without any sort of confirmation, they risked overstepping jurisdiction and wasting resources. So after internal discussion, they had their decision they wouldn't let this go and that they would instead move forward.

While preparations were being made to verify these claims, investigators continued questioning the two men who'd been arrested with as well. They were kept in separate rooms, still questioned by different officers and prevented from communicating with one another, and for several hours, neither gave investigators anything useful. But that changed when officers began confronting the bigger man with specific details from the woman's statements. You see, instead of asking broader questions,

they focused on physical facts. They asked about the house, about the kitchen, about the pit beneath the floor. Investigators noticed a shift immediately in him where his answers became slower, and he started asking what the woman had said. They told him that the woman had already provided a full account, and they suggested that the leader was blaming him. The leader being the businessman, they kind of framed him in

that position. They implied that he would carry the worst legal consequences if he stayed silent, and they made it clear that cooperation was this guy's only realistic one.

a potential seller and a burial site. After all, officers at the Sioux's host station contacted their immediate supervisors and reported that they now had two suspects independently describing a concealed burial site beneath the residence in Nihe. The information was forwarded to provincial authorities and to the local public security bureau responsible for Kniehe. Within hours, a temporary task force was assembled to coordinate the response and a identify

the target house, and they did so. It was a small rented property in a residential neighborhood. The convoy reached Niehe later that morning, and the neighborhood streets were narrow and quiet, lined with small brick homes and simple courtyard fences. Most residents were already awake, going about their regular everyday routines. The house in question was a single story brick structure with a small yard and a metal gate in front.

The exterior showed signs of neglect, with paint peeling in places and sections of brickworks stained, and weeds that had grown along the fence line. However, it did not appear to be abandoned. When officers stepped out of their vehicle, several neighbors began watching from a distance. Commanders instructed residents to remain inside and cordoned off the immediate area. As officers began to approach the front door, another detail became noticeable.

There was a faint but very persistent odor hanging in the air. It was difficult to define. It didn't resemble ordinary garbage or spoiled food, and some officers described it as sour, metallic and very heavy. Neighbors reportedly previously complained about the odors from the property, but often attributed it to pickling vegetables or just food storage. Things like that.

As teams moved through room to room, the smell that they smelled outside only intensified, and it was strongest in the kitchen. Now, this kitchen itself was small, with the concrete floor and simple counters. There were pots and storage containers and sacks of grain, and then there was a rectangular concrete slab that had been fitted into the center of the floor. It was roughly two by three feet in size. The edges were uneven, and the surface looked

newer than the rest of the room. Investigators gathered around it. The suspects had mentioned that this pit was beneath the kitchen floor, something that was in fact typical for many homes. There was a root seller right that was normal, but this one it seemed to be different. Forensic staff were called in before anyone touched it. With the report of the bodies hidden beneath that slab, they wanted to be careful.

They wanted to document everything, so photographs were taken, measurements were recorded, and the area was marked off and secured. Officers even checked for traps or hidden mechanisms just in case, but they found none. Eventually, using crowbars and heavy tools, the team began prying at the edge of the concrete slab. As the tools began to wedge between the crack and lift it, a strong wave of the foul odour rose

from beneath it, spilling into the room. Several officers instinctively stepped back to fend off the foul odor and ease their stomach. Soon investigators removed the slab covering the kitchen floor entirely, and they were able to see directly into the space beneath the house. Below was a narrow, vertical pit roughly nine feet deep, reinforced by compacted soil and concrete. The smell was immediately overwhelming. Several officers reported feeling light

headed and nauseous within seconds of approaching the opening. Forensic personnel were forced to wear additional protective equipment before they could even continue. The confined space beneath the floor had trapped gases produced by deep composition, creating an environment that was difficult to tolerate even for experienced investigators, and when flashlights were lowered into the pit to take a look,

the scale of what was inside finally became clear. There below the floor were dozens of human remains stacked in layers compressed by time and by repeated use of the space. This root cellar. This pit was supposed to be a cold storage, but the sheer volume of bodies inside, decomposing over long periods of time increased the temperature inside the whole,

and now it was sweltering with decay and rot. Some bodies had even decomposed to the point of partial skeletonization, while others still remained with their tissue, and some newer ones even remained with bloating. Fluids were leaking from the decomposition process of the human body, and it had pooled to the bottom of the pit too. Coated bones, clothing, and personal belongings all were left in this foul, putrid sludge.

In many areas, individual bodies began to merge and meld together due to such serious decomposition, making it difficult to distinguish one victim from another. Several skulls showed fractures consistent with blunt force trauma to the head. The positioning and condition of the bodies indicated that this pit had been used repeatedly, over and over for an extended period of time, with bodies simply being dumped on top of each other left to rotten this hole no matter how much time

had passed between each of the murders. This was a long term disposal site and it was nearly full.

floor in their neighborhood was a nightmare. Investigators had uncovered one of the largest concealed burial sites that region had ever seen, and now, given the depths and narrowness of this pits, well, standard excavation equipment wasn't going to be able to be used to remove the bodies either, which meant all of the remains inside the pits had to be removed manually.

extremely difficult. Tools frequently slipped out of their hands, they were dripping with sweat inside their suits, and workers had to maintain balance while handling fragile remains in a confined space rightfully, so, several team members experienced dizziness, nausea, and respiratory distress during their shifts. At times, some even became disoriented and even lost consciousness while working, and their colleagues had to pull them from the shaft and transport them

to hospital for treatment. Medical staff later reported that high exposure of high concentrations of decomposing organic matter had caused serious respiratory and systemic reactions to those who did not get treatment.

rather than transporting all remains to distant facilities. So temporary shelter was erected in the yard where forensic teams could conduct initial assessments to control conditions. This whole recovery process lasted several weeks. Each body or fragment of body was cataloged, photographed, assigned an identification number before it was even removed from

the pit. Clothings, personal items they were preserved separately. In total, dozens of bags contained remains were transported for further examination once initial documentation was even completed. By the time the last remains were finally removed, many members of the investigation team were physically depleted. Several required extended medical leave, while others continued work despite chronic symptoms.

In nineteen ninety one, forensic identification and rural China relied heavily on physical records, personal belongings, and even family reports. DNA profiling was not exactly available or for routine use at least, and many other remains had been severely damaged by the decomposition process and the environmental exposure too, so in several cases only partial skeletal remains or dismembered limbs were even recovered. Facial features were often unrecognizable, and fingerprints

couldn't even be taken. This limited investigator's ability to use visual identification or standard biometric methods, so forensic teams began cataloging every item that they recovered from the pits. Clothing, fragments, shoes, jewelry, watches, and personal accessories were photographed and logged. These items were then circulated to police departments across the region, along with descriptions of estimated age, height, and distinguishing physical traits wherever possible.

Authorities also reviewed missing persons reports that were filed and all around the area and in neighboring provinces too. For over the last two years. Even many victims had been migrant workers, traveling traders, sex workers, all groups of people who disappeared and were often reported late or not not even at all, And in many cases, families had assumed their relatives simply moved on for work, like we talked about earlier, but

that was clearly not the case. Investigators cross reference the recovered identification cards and personal documents with regional databases too, But despite all of these efforts, full identification proved impossible. In many cases, according to official figures, only slightly more than half of the victims could be positively identified as the victim identification began, though, investigators also started focusing on

the house itself. Land records showed that the property was not owned by any of the suspects who had already been in custody from that train station. It was, however, leased under the name of Gia Wengey, the man the police now believed to be the leader of the group. The guy and the business attire. Neighbors described the home as poorly maintained and that he gioenge kept to himself. Police all learned that Gia had lived in the house

with multiple associates over the time. At different points, witnesses recalled seeing couples staying there, followed by several men who appeared to come and go irregularly. Now inside the house, investigators documented signs of blood residue that was found in several rooms, partially near the bedroom, and even the kitchen well of course the kitchen. Financial records and rental agreements

showed that Gia paid rent regularly and in cash. Landlords reported no miss payments and no major disputes, which reduced any sort of scrutiny. Right, why keep this guy under a microscope A He's a prime tenant to have. Police also recovered several documents, notebooks, and contact lists belonging to Gia.

These materials suggested that he had been recruiting many people from outside the town and coordinating activities across multiple locations, so phone numbers and traveling notes linked him to nearby cities, railway hubs, and including the Shozo station. By this stage, investigators were confident that the house had served as the operational center for this group's criminal activity. It was where victims were brought, where they were restrained, robbed, killed, and

then hidden belief beneath the floor. So with this foundation established, police turned their attention directly to gionge himself, seeking to understand how someone with no prior serious criminal record had become capable of orchestrating such violence. Now, Gea was described in school records as intelligent and capable. As a child and teenager, He performed well academically and held leadership positions

in both primary and middle school. His parents reportedly had high expectations for him, and his name itself well it reflected those hopes. Teachers remembered him as serious, reserved, but not violent or disruptive during his early years at all. Now that changed, however, after both of his parents died, including his mother's suicide, which Gia reportedly witnessed. Even after this loss, people noticed very sharp shift in his behavior.

He became withdrawn, angry, and very unpredictable. Neighbors were called frequent outbursts and verbal abuse, and even property damage. But despite those problems, Gia secured work at a local factory while still quite young. Coworker said he was charming when he wanted to be, and was considered physically attractive, which helped him socially in some settings. Female employees even reportedly referred to him as the melancholy Prince, reflecting his mix

of good looks and emotional detachment. During this period, Gea would meet you Mei, the adopted daughter of one of his supervisors. Their relationship, you know, in the workplace and everything was a little bit controversial within the factory management opposed their eventual marriage. And after it did take place, when they got married and Gea was, you know, now happy with a job and trying to move on with his life, well that's when he was fired from his job.

Now without state employment and carrying growing resentment, he began drifting between short term work and increasingly risky behavior. He later worked as a butcher, slaughtering livestock. While this was common work in the region, neighbors noticed that Gia often returned home from work covered in blood and made very little effort to clean himself.

his wife eventually filed for divorce. By the time Gia rented the house in Knihe, he was already financially unstable and engaged in a lot of criminal behavior. However, shortly after ga began presenting himself as a small business owner with plans to open a candy factory. He obtained some basic paperwork stuff that allowed him to appear legitimate, and with this he introduced himself as a company director or CEO, looking for employees, giving him a story just credible enough

to avoid any sort of suspicion. He focused his recruitment efforts at railway stations, where large number of travelers and workers and job seekers passed through every day. Many people at the station were unfamiliar with the area, They are short on money and what they did have they were carrying on them, and they're actively searching for work. Gea targeted individuals who appeared vulnerable in these spaces, especially young

women and travelers carrying luggage with them. He would strike up casual conversations, ask where someone was headed, and gradually steered the direction of Hey, you're looking for work.

this strategy to commit the robberies. He would bring people to the home, intimidate or assault them while they're there, take their money in valuables, and then force them out the door. And because many victims were travelers or temporary workers, few reported the incidents, and even those who did often lacked precise information about location or suspect they don't know the area. Can they remember the street or the house

or where it was, things like that. Now, over time, Gia realized that this method didn't actually pay all that much. In the end, many of the people that he victimized carried carried cash, but not all that much. And he repeated all these repeated robberies, well, they increased the risk of attention. The more you do it, hey, the more

that you're going to be under scrutiny. So as his debts and spending continued, he began seeking wealthier targets, businessmen traveling for agricultural products and stuff, people that would have

more money on them me. He was that regional center for potatoes, beats and all that sort of farm trading, which attracted buyers from over other areas, and these visitors often arrived with much larger amounts of cash, and Gea adapted his story to fit for them, offering business connections, introducing them to different and new suppliers or shared meals to discuss different deals, and it was this shift that marked the beginning of his transition from robbery into murder.

According to Gia's later confessions, his first murder happened after he had already been emitting robberies for quite some time. Eventually, he began to see violence not just as a tool for intimidation, but as a way to eliminate resistance entirely. One of the earliest documented killings involved a father and son who traveled to Nihi to sell grain. Gea approached them under the pretense of helping them find wholesalers. He invited them to his house, offered food and drink, and

encouraged them to relax while discussing business. After the meal, Jea abruptly changed his tone and he began demanding that they leave all of their money behind before they left his home. Now. When these two refused, Gia retrieved a hammer and attacked them. Without a second of thought, he coldly beat both these victims, the father and son, to death inside his house and then simply disposed of the

bodies in the cellar beneath the kitchen floor. Despite the disappearance of these two people, No police came looking for them. No police came looking for Gia either, and the absence of consequences confirmed to him that he could, in fact commit murder without being caught. This had a very powerful psychological effect on him. Gia later described feeling emboldened by

how easily he had avoided any sort of suspicion. He interpreted the silence as proof that authorities were ineffective and that victims, especially outsiders, could vanish without a trace.

his original approach less effective. In response, he adjusted his strategy. He began targeting people who were already marginalized or less likely to be reported missing quickly, which included sex workers, migrant labors, and individuals who were traveling alone along the way. He also began recruiting accomplices. Others would watch from a distance while a victim was being approached, making sure no

police or witnesses were nearby. Now this pattern explains why the killings that he were doing were going unnoticed for so long. Each disappearance. They seemed separate, involving different people from different places in different areas, and without centralized records or coordination, coordinated investigations, authorities failed to connect any of

these cases. Now, by the time Gia met the woman who would later become central to the investigation, he had already killed more than twenty people.

and she was raised by her older sister. As an adult, she married quickly in search of stability, but the relationship was unhappy and marked by frequent arguments. By nineteen ninety one, she felt trapped and emotionally exhausted. One night, after a serious fight with her husband, Julie Ha left her home clear to go clear her head. She's walking to go by the nearby train station without a clear destination, just moving her feet one step after another, with thoughts racing

in her mind. Trying to collect herself, and that's when Gea noticed her. She was attractive, she was alone, and she fit his victim profile well. He approached her calmly and introduced himself as the owner of a small candy factory, and he told her he was looking for employees, suggesting that she could come earn money and leave her unhappy marriage. When he invited her to see his factory to discuss work,

she agreed. She followed him away f in the station and towards his rented house in Nihe believing she was walking to a possible new beginning. Once inside, that's when things changed, just like they always did. Jias stopped pretending to be a businessman and he attacked her, and he dragged her to his bed and strangled her until she

lost consciousness. Then, believing that she was dead, he searched for her belongings, going through all that she had on her for money and everything, and he sort of valuables, and after taking what he wanted, he took her body to the kitchen and dropped her into the cellar.

dirt or concrete. It felt organic, slippery and uneven. As her fingers pressed and sinking in and her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark space, that's when she began to make out vague shapes around her. What she saw didn't make sense at first, but eventually she realized she was surrounded by bodies. Dozens of decaying corpses were piled all around and beneath her. Insects and maggots, as you mentioned earlier, were crawling all around the bodies, weaving in and out

covering many of them. She tried to move away, but her hands and feet slipped off the rotting skin into a thick, foul smelling liquid sludge that filled the bottom of the pit. Later investigators would describe that sludge as corpse mud created by months of that accumulated decomp Oh my goodness, gracious. The cellar was narrow and deep, dug straight down beneath the kitchen floor, and its walls were

made of packed earth and offered no proper handholds. There was no ladder, no rope, and no obvious way out. The opening was above her, and a faint trace of light filtered down. Julie h panicked, but she forced herself to stay quiet. She knew that if an attacker heard her, he would return and finish what he started, so she composed herself as best she could and focused on escaping.

After several minutes of looking around, she understood that the only way out was climbing on top of the bodies and out from the top.

reached to be close enough to the opening. She grabbed the edge of the concrete slab and with one final push, she moved the lid open enough to pull herself out of the pit and collapse onto the kitchen floor. She was exhausted, filthy, and shaking uncontrollably, but she was alive. And then she looked up and Gia was standing right in front of her, staring in disbelief. Gia had just witnessed one of his victims crawl out of the very

corpse pit that he had beneath his kitchen floor. Julie Ha was still alive, and Jia quickly reached for a shovel and raised it over his head, preparing to kill zu Leieh. As she crawled on her knees and began begging for her life, she told him she had only come because of a fight with her husband. She's just trying to clear her head, and she promised she would never tell anyone what she had seen or experienced. She pleaded with him to just let her go.

her life was no longer her own. Now, remember he went through her belongings, identification, you know, address, He has all that information. He knows immediately all about her because of that, so he kept her inside the house and limited her movements. At times he locked her in rooms, and on other occasions he even forced her back into that pit as punishment when he felt that she was not cooperating enough. So she didn't crawl out of that pit once, she had to do it multiple times.

no choice and began threatening your family once again. Each time she went out to find a target, she lived with constant fear that it would be her family's last day alive. She was allowed occasional contact with her family, which Jiah carefully monitored, mostly to keep her from being a missing person, missing persons, missing missing person.

There were even reports, as I'm just saying now, eaten of cannibalism involving organs and genitalia taken from the victims. So they take them, fry them up in a pan and eat them.

on had slown down dramatically. Even when he's trying to defer to different targets and change his tactics, it was becoming overwhelming, to the point that that it didn't even work anymore. And inside his home, conditions were becoming unbearable due to the smell that was coming from that pit or the pits, not to mention the bloodstains, the filth, and the structural damage accumulating over time to the home. Maintaining a normal appearance became harder, and the group also

began to fracture a bit. Some members grew anxious, and the constant pressure of hiding dozens of murders well, it was starting to take its toll. Eventually, Jiad decided that continuing to kill in Nihi was too risky, as he had outgrown this area and it was just unstable, so he and his group began to shift away from murder based robberies and towards scams and extortions instead. This is when most of the group members left town and only a small number remained behind to monitor the house and

guard what was left of their operation. Some of those who stayed later died by suicide or were arrested in unrelated cases, further weakening the group. Still, Jia himself reduced his presence at the property. He focused more on traveling and organizing scams in other cities, and the group adopted a variation of what the officers would call the badger game,

the very one that brought this all to light. In some cases, the group even used sedatives to knock victims unconscious before robbing them, making it easier to start to steal larger amounts of cash now. Of course, once those arrests were made at the Suso's train station, the case began to move quickly from there, and with the confession secured and physical evidence recovered from the house in nih

the investigation moved to its final phase. Prosecutors worked closely with police to organize witness statements and forensic reports and confession transcripts into a formal case, all of it to try and put these people behind bars and get them convicted. Now, given the scale of the crimes and the number of victims involved, the proceedings were handled at a high administrative

level and closely monitored by provincial authorities. By early nineteen ninety two, charges were formerly filed against the woman Julie Ha, the larger man whose name was Sun Wen Lee, and the man dressed in the business tire. The leader of it all well, his name was Gioegei himself. Others were identified to There was accomplices that were charged as well. In fact, in total, six people were ultimately linked to the operation, though as I mentioned, some had committed suicide,

some disappeared. Regardless, the defendants were charged with multiple accoutunts of international homicide, robbery, illegal detention, and participating in organized violent crime. The trial was scheduled to begin on January eighth, nineteen ninety two. News of the case had already spread across the country and public attention was intense. During the proceedings,

prosecutors laid out the full timeline of the crimes. They presented evidence from the seller financial records showing stolen money and detailed confessions from each defendant. Investigators testified about how victims were lured, restrained, killed, and how their bodies were hidden. Survivor's statements and family testimonies were also introduced, reinforcing the human cost behind the numbers. The defendants roles were clearly separated.

Jiha was portrayed as the organizer in the primary decision maker. Sunwn Lee was described as the enforcer who helped control victims and intimidate accomplices, and Julie Ha was presented both as a participant and someone who had acted under extreme coercion, being a victim herself. Large crowds gathered outside the courtroom each day in nihe schools and businesses reportedly even adjusted

schedules so people could follow developments. By the end of the hearings, prosecutors concluded that the group was responsible for at least forty two murders, including twenty four women and eighteen men. The court accepted this figure as the official count, though investigators acknowledged that the full identification of all victims remains incomplete, meaning there were at least forty two and likely many more.

sentenced to death as the leader and primary perpetrator. Sun Wen Lee and the other male accomplices who had actively participated in the killings and robberies also received death sentences. But the most debated sentence of all was that of Julie Ha, the woman who had survived being thrown in the pit and later cooperated with police opening this case from the very beginning, despite evidence that she had been

coerced and threatened. The court determined that her repeated participation in luring victims and assisting in murders made her criminally responsible as well, and so she too was sentenced to death.

or two, Okay. So executions were carried out that very same month of sentencing, and on January twenty fourth, nineteen ninety two, all condemned defendants were taken to a designated execution ground where they were killed by firing squad, which was the standard method in China at the time.

amount of victims. They might have found another house and dug more pits, and who knows.

been targeted as a victim. She had been attacked, she had been strangled, and she had been thrown into that cellar where she narrowly escaped and survived. And when she did escape, Jiha threatened, you know, death of her family. So he tracked down her husband, child, learned where they lived, all this sort of stuff. And these these were continuous threats that went on, and he made it clear that any at tempt to flee or to report him would result in their death. If he got wind of anything,

they were dead. So, according to her later statements, these threats were reinforced repeatedly. She was even punished at times, but being thrown back in the pit. These things, if she ever showed signs of resisting, and under this pressure, is when she began cooperating. She lured men to the house, watched them walk into danger, and in some cases was

forced to even participate directly in the violence. One of the most disturbing details of this in her confessions was that Jia once made her stab a victim while he was taking pictures of it, so he ensured that she could never claim innocence. From that point on, she believed she was trapped permanently. Supporters argued that her actions will result of prolonged captivity, psychological terror, and very credible threats

against her life and her family's life. They pointed out that she had no realistic way to escape, lived under constant surveillance, and had been conditioned to believe that disobedience meant death for her loved ones, and from this perspective, she was not a willing accomplice, but someone forced into criminal behavior under extreme dress. Now critics, though, saw it differently. They focused on the length of time she remained involved

and the number of victims that she helped lure. Over months, she brought in more than a dozen men, and in court, prosecutors pointed out that she had opportunities to flee or seek help and did not. In their view, the fear didn't fully excuse repeated participation in the murder of over a dozen individuals. Now, as you're not really liking this, and I can see them by the look in your.

to the horrific murders. In other parts of the province. People no longer thought of it as an ordinary rural community known for farming and trade. Instead, they thought of that brick house, that root seller, and the dozens of people who had vanished without explanation and only being found in a pile of decomposing flesh. Business travelers continued to avoid the area for a very long time even after the crime stopped. Some families moved away, unable to live

with that association. Others stayed but rarely spoked about what happened. The psychological impact on investigators and forensic workers was severe. Many of those who had participated in the recovery described it as the most difficult assessment of their lives. Working in confined spaces filled with decomposing remains for days at a time left very long lasting emotional scars on them.

had been punished. Others struggled with anger and grief, especially those who never recovered identifiable remains of their loved ones, with only parts of the victims formerly being identified or claimed, and many families were left without clear closure. In some cases, relatives never received confirmation of what had happened beyond official notice, and that was it. In the end, the case left behind more than a list of victims and court documents.

It left a community permanently changed, a generation of officers shaped by trauma and a lasting nightmare of a deep pit somewhere in the world, one with rotting flesh, with corpse mud and lost lives. And it begs the question, how big and cruel is this world? How many pits exist out there right now? How many cruel murderers are getting away with mass killings and dumping bodies simply because they can. Unfortunately, I don't think those are questions we'll

ever find answers to. And that's the story of Geonge, the man with the corpse pit.

chose to bring this to light. And because of that alone. Yeah, she is responsible for some stuff too, but she she is the badass the day I'm going to say that she survived literal hell yeah, unfortunately had to be an accomplished in certain aspects, and I feel so terrible for her.

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