By staff reporter Ouyang Hongliang
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(Caijing Magazine) A light drizzle was falling on a typical June evening when shopkeeper Yu Changhua heard a thump from the direction of the Yonglong Hotel, across the street in the Hubei Province city of Shishou.

Yu looked up and heard a woman cry out, "Someone died!"

Yu ran to the scene. On a sidewalk in front of the six-story hotel was a young man, lying face up. He was naked from the waist up, wearing dark pants with one leg-bottom rolled up. There was no blood. But he was lifeless.

Tu had left home at age 14 to become a cook. He'd started working at Yonglong four months before dying, relatives said, and had just received his first month's salary of 1,500 yuan, of which he spent 200 yuan and sent the rest to his mother.

The police did not cordon off the sidewalk where Tu died June 17. Instead, they examined the area and went inside the hotel. Later, they reported a letter had been found in Tu's upper-story room, prompting a forensics expert to rule the death a suicide. The morgue was called, and the body was readied to be taken away.

But Tu's relatives questioned the official cause of death and objected to having the body removed. They also questioned the officials' motives, citing the lack of blood stains at the site, as well as green and purple bruises on Tu's chin, neck and chest. And they expressed doubts about the authenticity of the letter.

The father said he had called Tu the day before his death and asked if he would return for a family dinner the next day. Tu said he needed to wait and see. To the father, everything seemed normal.

Bad Memories

The hotel locked its doors after the death. Tu's relatives were enraged. They smashed the glass door and then carried the body to the lobby. They demanded more information about the cause of death.

The death had rekindled speculation about shady behavior at the Yonglong.

On August 11, 2002, a 16-year-old waitress at the hotel restaurant named Tian Feng fell to her death from the building, just two months after she started working. Upset relatives held Tian's body for 14 days, demanding a police investigation. Officers eventually ruled the case a suicide and forced a cremation. Relatives appealed to higher authorities, but to no avail.

Also fresh in the local memory was the case of a farmer who had died while being transferred by ambulance two weeks before Tu's death. Relatives of the farmer, who was being moved from one hospital to another, detained the body in the hospital until scores of police officers and party officials sent it to the morgue for cremation. The hospital was later exempted from liability, but the family received 40,000 yuan in compensation.

In addition, some local residents claimed a large number of disposable syringes had been found in a garbage pile by a back wall outside the hotel. They cited the syringes as evidence of the hotel's connections to drug-dealing -- apparently a growing problem along with rampant drug abuse and deteriorating social order in Shishou, a city of about 100,000.

The Shishou Public Security Bureau has estimated some 3,000 local residents use drugs, and drug abusers commit 60 percent of all property related crimes.

Tu's death stirred these and other rumors. But local authorities kept their mouths shut.