Police Report of a Woman Who Jumped to Death From a Car
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On February 6, a woman surnamed Che who was living in Changsha, Hunan Province, was moving to a new house, she used an online moving service "Huolala", also known as Movelala to rent a car. But she jumped out of the window of a passenger seat in the middle of the journey and was pronounced dead the day after.
Many questions were raised about her death considering that online ride hailing services have a reputation of being dangerous for solo female riders.
According to her relatives, she was not suicidal and just a few minutes before this incident she was happily chatting with her colleagues in a wechat group. The content of the chat didn't seem like someone who will do such a thing just few minutes later.
They questioned why the driver took what they think is a longer route with little or no surveillance cameras, as opposed to the shorter one recommended by the platform.
Furthermore, it is hard to explain why a suicidal person will pay for and be on her way to a new house. Needless to say, the whole situation left many questions unanswered.
On March 3, Changsha's Gaoxin District PSB released a detailed report on this case after they concluded an investigation, below is a summary as translated from the report.
Evidence From the Car and Nearby
Police were not able to obtain surveillance footage or audio from the car, since the platform does not require a car to be equipped with video or audio recording instruments.
Furthermore, the road where the incident took place had few people and cars, and street lights were few and dim at the time. There were no damage on the passenger seat window or door, and there were no signs of sudden braking on the road.
Autopsy Report
From the autopsy report, apart from injuries from the fall, there were no signs of other injuries on the victim caused by a struggle to escape or fight with someone.
Furthermore, her clothes were intact, eliminating the possibility that the driver may have tried to sexually harass the victim. Finally, they didn't find driver's DNA on her nails and other parts of her body, so it was concluded that her death was caused by the fall.
CCTV Cameras
Police collected 368 video footages from public CCTV cameras and reviewed every single detail on the day of the incident. They found that apart from the driver veering from the route suggested by the platform, there was no any other abnormal behaviour suggesting something was amiss.
Remember the quote from "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" from a 1926 Sherlock Holmes short story?
"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Well, at this point, it does not take a police officer or Sherlock Holmes to figure that the whole thing must have something to do with the driver using a different route. But it does not make sense at all that someone will just jump from the car because of this.
To get to the bottom of it, police recreated the whole scene using someone with the same body measurement as the victim. They found no evidence that someone could accidentally fall from the car and concluded without a doubt that the victim jumped from the car. For now, the only way to know the truth is to interrogate the driver.
Conclusion
On February 6, around 3PM, Mr Zhou took an order to provide moving services to Ms Che through an App. He received in total 51 RMB as a payment, from which Ms Che paid 39 RMB and the platform gave him 12 RMB as a bonus.
He arrived at the pick up point at around 20:38 as required and met the customer, he asked her if she needed him to help with carrying her stuff to the car but Ms Che declined (helping carry the stuff would require a separate payment).
Ms Che took 15 trips to carry her stuff from the first floor of the building to the car, he urged her to hurry up because the platform has a rule that if the driver waits for more than 40 minutes, there will be more charges.
At 21:14 they set off and Zhou asked the victim if she will need services to unload the stuff from the car and Che declined.
At 21:29, Che complained that the driver took a different route from the one recommended by the platform, the driver ignored her complaint.
He explained that in order to save time so he can pick up another order, he took a shorter route. Che complained two more times again and this time Zhou used a rude language to express his dissatisfaction torwards Che.
When they reached near where the incident happened, Che complained again about the driver changing routes and asked him to stop the car but he ignored her.
Che stood on the passenger seat, sticking her upper body outside the window, and even after seeing this, Zhou didn't say anything and neither did he stop the car. But he said that he turned on flash lights and deccelerated.
When Che fell from the car, he stopped the car and went to check on her and found that she was lying still on the ground, her head bleeding. He called 120 emergency number at 21:30 and at 21:34 he called an ambulance. Ambulance driver told him to call 110 at 21:39. That is all the police found out.
On February 23, Mr Zhou was detained by police on suspicion of causing death by negligence and on March 3, authorized his arrest.
Source: Changsha City, Gaoxin District PSB branch
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