Slain farmer’s items found

Part of a large group of concerned members of the Chinese community that searched for the then-missing two farmers found some items that belonged to one of two victims, Saipan Tribune learned.

Members of the Chinese community disclosed that they recovered on Saturday afternoon Hai Ren Li’s passport, weighing scale for vegetables, a plastic bag of corn, his ATM card, and his business license.

Photo shows the grassy field near Tun Kioshi Road and the unfinished castle-shaped hotel, where the passport, ATM card and other items of murdered farmer Hai Ren Li were found by concerned Chinese nationals last Saturday. The same group of searchers found the bodies of Hai Ren Li and his brother-in-law Cheng You Li in a grassy area at the old airport runway in Koblerville the following morning, Sunday. (Ferdie de la Torre)

The items were found strewn in the grassy area of a big field located along Tun Kioshi Road, behind the unfinished castle-shaped hotel. The area where the items were found is a few steps from a rough road that leads to a house.

Sources in the Chinese community said that after they found the items, they immediately called the police, who then collected the items.

Almost at the same time, concerned searchers spotted Hai Ren Li’s Toyota Tacoma that was abandoned under some tangan-tangan trees a few meters on the side of Magisa Drive in As Gonno. Sources said black plastic bags were draped over the back of the vehicle to conceal it. Police were informed about the car and they towed it for processing.

Magisa Drive is located just about 50 meters from the old airport runway in Koblerville, where the bodies of Hai Ren Li and his brother-in-law, Cheng You Li, were found Sunday morning.

Magisa Drive is also a few meters away from Tun Kioshi Road, where Hai Ren Li’s items were found.

The same group of searchers found the bodies dumped in the grassy area and covered with mango leaves, sources said.

It was not clear yet whether an autopsy had already been conducted on the victims as it was last reported that Guam chief medical examiner Aurelio Espinola is off-island

According to police investigation, Department of Public Safety Dispatch received a call about two missing persons on Saturday at 9:39am.

The victims were last seen in the afternoon of Friday last week, when they left their respective homes in As Lito and San Antonio between 12pm and 2:30pm.

Families and friends of the victims urged the FBI to assist DPS in solving the murder after they tagged six local men who have allegedly been extorting money from Chinese farmers as possibly behind the recent killing as well as the murder of two other Chinese farmers, also in As Gonno.

Sources said Hai Ren Li, 51, has money and that his sister also owns a store on Saipan. Cheng Yu Li, 47, worked with him in his farm.

Hai Ren Li had been supplying almost all hotels and stores on the island with vegetables and fruits.