A police officer operates a drone carrying a QR code placard near an expressway toll station in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Feb. 11, 2020. As a measure to help prevent and control novel coronavirus, an online register system for vehicles coming back to Shenzhen has been put into use since Feb. 8. To increase the efficiency, local police officers used drones to carry a QR code at the expressway exits for drivers to get registered with less contact with other people. (Photo by Lai Li/Xinhua)

Police on Sunday arrested a man suspected of brutally murdering a female college student 28 years ago in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, and leaving her body in a sewer.

A total of 481 fugitives have been taken into custody in Jiangsu Province amid tightened police operations since the novel coronavirus outbreak, the Legal Daily reported.

A special investigation team from the Nanjing police found a major piece of evidence on Sunday, which led to the arrest of the suspect, surnamed Ma, on the same morning, the Nanjing police said in a statement released on Sunday.

The victim, a university student at a Nanjing-based medical college surnamed Lin, was brutally killed on March 24, 1992. A special investigation team was immediately formed at the time, but was unable to identify the murderer due to lack of evidence, according to the statement.

But the investigation team never gave up, taking several measures which eventually led to the arrest 28 years later, the statement said.

Ma, the suspect, a vocational driver born in 1966, admitted his guilt immediately after he was taken into custody, Legal Daily reported on Monday.

A classmate of Lin's told Legal Daily that her body had been found in a sewer of a courtyard days after she was found missing.

Lin was an excellent student, the second best in her grade, the classmate said.

Some netizens mistook this case for a separate murder case that happened in 1996, also in Nanjing.

In that case, a female student surnamed Diao was killed on January 19, 1996 in Nanjing. The murderer cooked her body and sliced it into more than 2,000 pieces in an attempt to erase the evidence, the Legal Daily reported, noting that the murderer is still on the run.

Global Times