The case of a murder which occurred in Nanjing in 2003 is finally at an end, with the recent confirmation of the victim’s identity. While police knew who had committed the killing, they were not until now able to say just who he had killed.
2003年发生在南京的一起杀人案终于落下帷幕，受害人身份近日得到确认。虽然警方知道谁是凶手，但他们直到现在才能够说出他到底杀了谁。
On Tuesday of this week, 22 February, the Nanjing Public Security Bureau brought to an official end the case which began on 25 October, 2003, when they were alerted that a female body had been found in an empty room Nanjing’s Yuhuatai District.
本周二，即 2 月 22 日，南京市公安局正式结束了这起于 2003 年 10 月 25 日开始的案件，当时他们接到警报称，在南京市雨花台区的一个空房间里发现了一具女性尸体。
Initial investigations quickly revealed that they were dealing with a homicide case.
初步调查很快发现他们正在处理一起凶杀案。
The task force assigned was able to gather much suspicious evidence at the scene, but nothing that would identify neither the murderer nor the victim.
指定的专案组在现场收集到了许多可疑的证据，但没有任何证据可以确定凶手或受害者的身份。
Subsequently failing a breakthrough, the case was at an impasse. And it was to stay that way for a long time, reports The Paper.
随后未能取得突破，案件陷入僵局。据澎湃新闻报道，这种情况将持续很长一段时间。
“Limited by the investigative conditions of the time, the case was never going to be solved quickly”, said Ji Shengzhi (纪圣智), who is now Party Secretary for the Gaochun District branch of the Nanjing Public Security Bureau.
“受限于当时的侦查条件，案件不可能很快侦破”，现任南京市公安局高淳分局党组书记的纪圣智说。
Ji continued, “However, thanks to careful and standardised, rigorous material-evidence preservation, a strong guarantee for solving the case in the years to come was provided”.
“但由于细致规范、严格保存物证，为今后破案提供了有力保障”。
In their attempts to do so, police have over the past decade travelled to Huai’an, Lianyungang and Suqian in Jiangsu Province, as well as Lai’an and Mingguang, and other places, in neighbouring Anhui Province.
为了做到这一点，警方在过去十年中多次前往江苏省的淮安市、连云港市和宿迁市，以及邻近的安徽省的来安市和明光市等地。
With an additional focus on identifying the victim, officers turned to CCTV’s missing person initiative, “Wait for Me” (等着我). Therefrom, they performed a one-by-one screening of the data on more than 40,000 missing persons. But still no luck.
为了进一步确定受害者的身份，警方转向了中央电视台的寻人倡议“等着我”。由此，他们对4万多名失踪人员的数据进行了逐一排查。但仍然没有运气。
Finally though, 2021 ushered in a major breakthrough, when a man surnamed Fan was suspected of committing a major crime. Fan was brought in for questioning on 15 September of that year, whereupon he explained the facts of the killing. According to his account, he had met the deceased the day before the crime, but did not know her identity.
最终，2021年迎来重大突破，一名范姓男子涉嫌重大犯罪。当年9月15日，范某被带入讯问，并交代了杀人事实。据其交代，案发前一天他曾见过死者，但不知道她的身份。
Subsequent notices offering a reward for the victim’s name also failed to turn up anything, reports ChinaNews.com.
据中新网报道，随后发布的悬赏受害人姓名的公告也没有得到任何结果。
But then on 24 January of this year, computers assisted in restoring a facial portrait of the victim, which was then posted online. It received more than 16 million views in just a few days.
但今年 1 月 24 日，计算机协助恢复了受害者的面部肖像，并将其发布到网上。短短几天内浏览量就超过了 1600 万次。
Finally, the police received a call from someone in Henan Province, who said that the woman in the portrait was very similar to his sister, surnamed Wang, who disappeared in Nanjing in 2003. Police drove immediately for 9 hours to Guangshan County in Henan to carry out a comparison. As Chinese New Year approached on 31 January, Nanjing’s finest finally confirmed that the victim was indeed Wang.
最后，警方接到河南某人的电话，对方称画像中的女子与2003年在南京失踪的王姓妹妹非常相似。警方立即驱车9个小时前往河南光山县进行比对。 1月31日，农历新年临近，南京市最高层终于确认死者确实是王某。
Following this, and the earlier confession by the killer, Fan’s criminal processing continues.
在此之后，加上凶手早些时候的供述，范的刑事处理仍在继续。
