During China's "Strike Hard" campaigns focused on violent crime in 1996 and on organised crime in 2001, law enforcement widely used coerced confessions through torture to meet the "solve all homicide cases" mandate, leading to numerous wrongful convictions. By 2024, after five death sentences and 23 years of pre-trial detention and death row imprisonment, this case became a typical example of China's "when in doubt, suspend" (疑罪从挂) practice, where cases with unsolved doubts are prolonged indefinitely, and unsolved death penalty cases often resulted in a death sentence with two-year reprieve.
In 1995 and 2000, two triple homicides occurred in a Hebei town. In 2001, police arrested Yuan Weidong and five others, linking Yuan and co-appellant Tang Fengwu to the 1995 case. Yuan was detained for nearly a year before formal arrest, violating legal time limits.
In 2006, both were sentenced to death with reprieve. In 2009, the Hebei High Court acquitted five other suspects but upheld Yuan and Tang’s convictions as murderers of the 1995 case. Ordered for retrial by the Supreme People’s Court in 2013, the case remained unresolved for 11 more years, with a fourth death sentence with reprieve issued in 2020. They both appealed. Yuan’s bail request for late-stage cancer treatment was denied, and his family and lawyers were barred from visiting after his surgery.
During the second-instance retrial in July 2024, defence lawyers challenged illegally obtained evidence, citing witness testimonies of police torture and fabricated confessions. The case has drawn widespread media attention, with lawyers producing a documentary and news outlets following its developments. However, the Hebei High Court dismissed the appeal on October 29, 2024. On December 31, 2024, Yuan died in prison, and his family continued complaining to seek justice.