American murder suspect found teaching English in Shanghai under false name for years

A former South Carolina police officer was flown home from Shanghai last month to face murder and child sexual assault charges he fled 21 years ago. Chinese police handed Dan Hiers Jr., 53, to American law enforcement at Shanghai Pudong International Airport at the request of U.S. authorities, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement carried by Xinhua.He faces a murder warrant out of Goose Creek, South Carolina, a Dorchester County warrant for criminal sexual conduct with a minor, and a federal warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.Hiers had 11 years of service across three South Carolina police departments. North Charleston police charged him in November 2004 with sexually assaulting a girl he had met in a karate class, The Post and Courier reported, and the Charleston Police Department suspended him soon afterward.He was released on bond. On March 9, 2005, the Dorchester County Sheriff's Office filed further charges involving the same child.He was due to surrender six days later. He never met his attorney at the sheriff's office.That same morning, his 24-year-old wife was found dead inside the couple's Goose Creek home.Goose Creek police determined that Ludimila Hiers, a Brazilian known to friends as Mila, had been shot in the back of the head at close range while she slept.Investigators believe she died between 7 a.m. and noon, and neighbors reported seeing her husband leave the house early that afternoon.Police named Hiers a suspect within days.His red 2005 Chevrolet Aveo turned up in Laredo, Texas, two miles from the Mexican border, its odometer showing it had been driven straight there. He spoke Spanish and Portuguese, and investigators focused on Latin America.The Marshals Service added him to its 15 Most Wanted list in June 2005, and Interpol issued a red notice that August.His case ran repeatedly on "America's Most Wanted" and "The Hunt with John Walsh," drawing reported sightings in Michigan, Colorado and Toronto. None produced an arrest. Dan Hiers Jr., his face blurred, is escorted to the United States by U.S. marshals. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Marshals Service In September 2018, a former student of his who had moved to the U.S. was browsing the Marshals Service website when she recognized his face among the 15 most wanted. She posted about it on the Chinese social platform Weibo.Live 5 News reported receiving a Facebook message on Sept. 10 that year pointing to an article carrying her account.She described a teacher who was tall, good-looking and popular with female students, but whose private life was disordered. She remembered him clearly, she said, because he had pursued a friend of hers.He had been living as David Williams and teaching at a Shanghai college. Shanghai police detained him.In 2022, the Marshals Service removed him from its 15 Most Wanted list, four years after he was located.The Post and Courier reached him by video link from a Shanghai detention center in 2023, when he said he wanted to return and clear the charges, and denied guilt.First Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe told the paper that prosecutors had spent a decade working with the Marshals Service to bring him back.China and the U.S. have no extradition treaty, leaving such transfers to case-by-case negotiation.Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said she will prosecute the murder charge and has not ruled out seeking life without parole or the death penalty. Hiers is to be held at the Hill-Finklea Detention Center in Berkeley County.