![\"Department](\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Missing-pix.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cAt this point of time none of that has occurred. We have not located the victim in this particular incident,\u201d the commissioner said.<\/p>\n
He disclosed that DPS detectives are working closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an effort to locate and hopefully rescue the 43-year-old Li.<\/p>\n
On Monday, rumors spread that Li had been beheaded and that his head and body parts have already been found.<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune has been contacting DPS since Sunday after learning that Li has been reported missing since Saturday afternoon, but DPS only released brief details confirming the incident yesterday at 3:08am\u2014or after three days.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero admitted yesterday that they indeed tried not to inform the media because they were still doing a search operation. He said they decided as a department to withhold information early on because of the fact that the victim had not been located.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes, what generally happens in these type of circumstances unfortunately is that it leads to something more tragic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The commissioner explained that it was a judgment call based on his conversation with the department\u2019s investigators.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re hoping quite frankly that the media would not discover this but you did,\u201d said Deleon Guerrero at the news briefing.<\/p>\n
He said they have been working with Li\u2019s family and the family too wanted the fact that Li has been missing to be kept quiet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason is because we don\u2019t want anything to happen to the victim,\u201d the commissioner said.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero confirmed news reports that Li\u2019s white Toyota Tacoma pickup truck was found by a patrol officer on a dirt road between Ladder Beach and Obyan Beach on Sunday at 8am.<\/p>\n
The commissioner said he has no information what items were found in Li\u2019s truck.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as I know, the vehicle looks to be in good order. It appears to have been driven there and just parked there. There was no damage to the car. There was nothing messy inside the vehicle. Everything appears to be in kind of normal order,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Investigators towed the truck as its key could not be found.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero said there is nothing to suggest at this point of time that foul play is involved.<\/p>\n
He said investigators combed the entire Obyan Beach and Ladder Beach areas since Saturday and that much of the search operation continued on Sunday.<\/p>\n
DPS activated its search and rescue unit as well as its Tactical Response Enforcement Team to assist in the search at Obyan and Ladder Beach areas.<\/p>\n
After the initial news blackout, Deleon Guerrero is now appealing to the public for information that will lead to locating Li.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are appealing to members of the community that anyone with information as to where this particular person may be to give us a call at Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation at 664-9042 or the Crime Stoppers at 234-7272,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Since the last double homicide incident in November 2014, DPS has assigned five additional investigators to the Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation to assist the office in its current workload.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero said they also initiated a new activation protocols.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone is reported missing, we immediately send out teams that go out and conduct searches and follow up on leads,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The commissioner noted that the two double homicides in February and November and Li\u2019s disappearance point to the same group of families and same areas in Koblerville.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething is wrong. Something seriously is wrong. And those things need to be dug up further,\u201d said Deleon Guerrero, adding that they\u2019re doing the best they can right now in coordination with federal law enforcement partners.<\/p>\n
Li is the nephew of Hai Ren Li, one of two Chinese farmers who were murdered and their bodies dumped at the old runway in Koblerville last November.<\/p>\n
As for some local individuals implicated in the two double homicides, the commissioner said they were all interviewed both at the state and local levels. He declined to elaborate.<\/p>\n
Last Feb. 23, the bodies of Guo Huang Xu and his wife, Qing Xiu Zheng, both farmers, were found charred inside their house that had been burned to the ground. Police classified the case as a double homicide.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero said they have been communicating with a Chinese group on the island and they are providing some information that is giving investigators leads.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are pursuing every single lead that is coming to our department,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He said none of the information, however, had led investigators so far to locate Li.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not know at this point in time as to what his status is and we are hoping that we can find him in good health,\u201d the commissioner said.<\/p>\n
DPS police information officer Travis Hurst confirmed that the family reported Li\u2019s disappearance to DPS on Saturday at 7:56pm.<\/p>\n
Hurst said Li was last seen on Saturday at 11am seeing a friend at a tire shop in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
Li\u2019s daughters, ages 13 and 23, are on Saipan. Li is already separated from his wife, who is in China, a family member told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The search for missing Saipan Fresh Market owner Zhi Yuan Li is still ongoing and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":189968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,4],"tags":[152,35,265,38],"class_list":["post-189962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-local-news","tag-deleon-guerrero","tag-dps","tag-ladder-beach","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}