President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, presents the July 1 Medal, the Party’s highest honor, to Cui Daozhi at the award ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 29. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

Five years after a mother and a son were murdered in Ning’an County in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province in 2002, the criminal case was still not resolved.

A key clue to the long-standing investigation of the case, however, was an incomplete bloody fingerprint uncovered at the scene of the crime. And the husband of the victim was considered to be the main suspect.

Cui Daozhi, then 73, of Korean ethnic origin, recalled that he first examined the half fingerprint in the autumn of 2007. Utilizing a “trace image processing system” that he had developed on his own, Cui found seven relatively stable characteristics and a number of other detailed biometric features in the half-fingerprint.

Cui, now aged 87, is known in China as something of a Sherlock Holmes, after the fabled detective in British author Arthur Conan Doyle’s best-selling crime fiction books. Over the past 66 years, he has completed over 7,000 identification tasks for traces of evidence at crime scenes with 100 percent accuracy, and taken part in investigations into some of the biggest criminal cases in China. 

He is among China’s first generation of forensic police officers with major breakthroughs in trace evidence examination. Even in his 80s, he solved complex cases and filled academic gaps. 

As for the murder of the son and mother, Cui said that based on the results of the analysis he had gathered, he found there was no adequate evidence to pin down the husband as the murderer. So, two months later, the police provided Cui with the fingerprints of all the 42 suspects in the case.

“Within two days and two nights’ time, I finished reviewing all of them including a left thumb fingerprint that belonged to a person surnamed Cui,” he said.

He found that some features from the print of the suspect, who bore the same surname as himself, matched those of the fingerprint left at the murder scene.

“Even so, I didn’t jump to any early conclusion,” Cui Daozhi told reporters. “Over the years, I have always adhered to the principle of being ‘scientific, accurate, standardized and fair’, doing every test seriously, not letting go of any bad people or wronging any good people. And this case was no exception.”

Cui Daozhi thus went to the county again to take the fingerprints of the suspect Cui. After a meticulous comparison, he found more matching features, and then released a report based on his finding. Based on the result, the public security personnel put the suspect Cui on trial, who later confessed to the crime.

In another case, on Dec 9, 2000, a severe incident of armed robbery and fatal shootings occurred in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province. Four gangsters with masks stormed a local bank, blowing open with explosives a bulletproof window at a business counter and taking away more than 2 million yuan cash.

The case was particularly difficult because the offenders carried out the attack with a shotgun. Since research at that time was mostly limited to handguns or pistols for military use, there was little study conducted on bullet marks of shotguns weapons.

This prompted the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security to invite Cui Daozhi for the investigation, hoping he would help identify the type and origin of the firearms involved in the criminal case.

“Since I had studied and mastered this knowledge, I immediately provided the information about the shotgun,” he said.

Cui Daozhi identified the shotgun type after studying closely four shell casings and one bullet collected at the crime scene. 

Based on the available evidence, he concluded that the shotgun was produced in a factory in Hunan province rather than in Chonqqing.

The key piece of information helped local police locate the shotgun the bank robbers had used, and subsequently nab the offenders. 

Cui Daozhi noted that since the late 1990s, the number of criminal cases that involved the use of shotguns as weapons had risen, and as an expert in bullet marks identification, he could not sit idle. He began studying the formation mechanism of the bullet marks of shotguns and small-caliber guns.

Good detectives often have penetrating insight and can always discover the minutest detail in everything. For Cui Daozhi, even millimeters matter when investigating bullet marks, and no slight difference can escape his sharp eyes. 

No two different hands can have the identical fingerprints, he said. “In the same vein, no two different guns will leave the same bullet marks.”

Cui Daozhi kept records of the types of evidence he found each day and developed the habit of taking pictures of bullet marks whenever he participated in the investigation of cases involving guns.

“I have collected thousands of photos, covering almost all the shotguns produced in China,” he said.

Born into an impoverished family in Meihekou, Jilin province, in 1934, Cui Daozhi had a miserable childhood.

His father died when he was four and his mother died two years later. He was brought up by his grandparents.

“My childhood left me memories only of extreme poverty and the turmoil of war,” he said. “I was able to continue my studies at junior high school after the founding of New China in 1949. 

“It was also the CPC that gave me the chance to join the military and later become a police officer.”

In 1951, Cui Daozhi enlisted in the Chinese People’s Volunteers following the outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea in 1950. When it ended in 1953, he joined the Party at the age of 19.

“Without the CPC, there would not be the good life I have now,” he once said. “I have sole faith in following the Party’s command forever.”

After retiring from the military in 1955, he was assigned to the Heilongjiang Provincial Department of Public Security and became a criminal investigation officer.

However, because he had only been educated to junior high school level, he encountered lots of difficulties at first.

“I couldn’t even write a standard crime scene investigation report,” he said. “Thanks to the support of the department, I got the chance to continue my studies.”

In 1956, he was admitted to the Criminal Investigation Police University of China to study criminal science and technology. In the following years, he undertook further study at Harbin Medical University and a vocational college to gain more knowledge related to his job. 

“These experiences brought me great progress both in theory and practice,” he said. “I decided to devote all my abilities to do my best at my job.”

Cui Daozhi was always brimming with creativity and would never give up easily. In 1997, during a visit to an international criminal equipment exhibition, he became aware of the need to innovate when he saw a foreign device that automatically identified bullet marks.

After five years of research with his colleagues, he invented a Chinese version of the device that used homegrown technologies and performed at an internationally advanced level.

To solve a difficult case of bank robbery, Cui Daozhi once held a magnifying glass against the wall to look for clues inch by inch for three hours, and he finally found clues from three hemp fibers, which provided important evidence in cracking the case.

When he was in his 70s, he once rushed to three criminal scenes within three days’ time, spanning a distance of more than 2,000 kilometers. After completion of on-site investigations, he had to be rushed to a hospital due to elevated blood pressure.

Cui Daozhi officially retired in 1994, but he effectively never left his position and put even more energy into researching trace evidence.

“Whenever the Party needs me and I’m called upon duty, I’ll just be here,” said Cui.

In late June, Cui Daozhi was awarded the July 1 Medal for outstanding Party members in recognition of his contribution to the country.

The medal, the highest honor given by the CPC Central Committee, was conferred for the first time this year as part of the celebrations of the centenary of the founding of the Party.

Under the influence of Cui Daozhi, all his three sons chose to join the police force. The youngest son even took up the same career as a criminal investigator. 

Among Cui Daozhi’s few regrets is not having spent enough time with his now-deceased wife, Jin Yuyin, as he had always been busy with his work. 

After his wife got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, he tried his best to awaken her memory through every means, including singing to her, but his efforts did not succeed. She passed away last year. 

Nowadays, when Cui Daozhi is not working, he often sits quietly, staring at potted sunflower plants on a windowsill — plants that had been nurtured by his wife.

But he is still dedicated to his work. “As long as my eyes can see and my legs can move, I will work for the CPC’s course of criminal investigation to the last minute,” he said.

Legal Daily contributed to the story.