The body was so decomposed it could not be identified, but a local court found She, a former part-time police officer from central Hubei province, guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. A provincial court later commuted the sentence to 15 years in prison.

She confessed to the crime after being interrogated and tortured:

She, 39, was coerced into confessing to her murder and badly beaten in prison, the China Daily said....She told the Beijing News that when he was first apprehended, police took him to a remote house and interrogated him for 11 days. He was given just two bowls of rice a day, nearly no water, prevented from sleeping and threatened with death.

"A policeman put his gun to my head and said, 'Believe me, I could shoot you right now'," She was quoted as saying from a prison hospital bed, where he was receiving a physical check before being released on Friday. He said he did not remember making a confession, though the local court that ruled on his case was told he had. The China Daily said photographs published since She's release showed he had been severely beaten while in jail and his legs and fingers broken.

She's wife turned up last month, having run away in 1994 to another province where she married a local man. She wants to be compensated for the time he spent in prison, for the cops who mistreated him to be held accountable.