Wife-in-freezer murderer begins appeal for mercy
Print Edition
The appeal of convicted murderer Zhu Xiaodong opened yesterday at Shanghai Higher People’s Court.
On the morning of October 17, 2016, Zhu, 31, grabbed his wife Yang Liping by the throat in a dispute at their home in Hongkou District and choked her to death. The couple had been married for less than a year. He then put her body in a freezer where it remained for three months.
During those three months, Zhu impersonated Yang via SMS and WeChat messages to give the impression she was still alive. He also used her money to travel and checked into hotels with other women.
He turned himself to police on February 1, 2017.
Zhu was sentenced to death by Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People’s Court in August.
According to the court, Zhu recklessly squandered money for his personal pleasure and showed no remorse. He was therefore not granted any leniency, despite handing himself into police.
At the appeal Zhu admitted his guilt.
“I feel ashamed. I am sorry for my wife and her family, as well as my own,” he said.
Yang’s father Yang Ganlian showed no mercy. “I want the court to uphold the original verdict,” he said. “We hope he receives the death sentence. We do not accept his apology and compensation.”
Zhu insisted that he killed Yang on impulse. He claimed that he had just wanted to stop her complaining about travel arrangements for a trip to Hangzhou.
He said that Yang had some behavioral problems, sometimes going to extremes and getting herself into a dead end. She had cut the wire of a new bread machine just because she didn’t like it and had threatened suicide after finding out that he had affairs with other women.
Zhu’s lawyers showed some of Yang’s Weibo posts as evidence that her public and private personae were wildly different and argued that Yang’s unreasonable behavior had, to some extent, triggered Zhu’s violence.
“As soon as I killed her, I realized that my life was ruined,” Zhu said.
Prosecutors suggested the court uphold the original verdict because of clear facts and solid evidence.
The night after Zhu killed Yang and concealed her body in the freezer, he went out drinking with a friend. He transferred money from her Alipay account soon after her death and used her ID to borrow money from a bank. Over the three months, he squandered around 530,000 yuan (US$77,000), including about 260,000 yuan of Yang’s money, on traveling with women at home and overseas, prosecutors said.
During the appeal, Zhu answered “I don’t remember” to several questions related to time, money and women, questions he had answered in the previous trial.
Prosecutors said Zhu had not admitted his guilt soon enough and suggested his regrets were fabricated. Yang’s family had not forgiven him and he did not deserve a lighter sentence, they said.
Zhu claimed that he lived his luxurious lifestyle after Yang’s death to try to get over what he had done.
He also claimed he had tried to hang himself but failed.
He offered no explanation as to why he threw away Yang’s mobile phone the night before he handed himself in.
Yang’s lawyer Yan Jinjie said he turned himself over to police when he realized he couldn’t conceal her death any longer and his mother told him it was the only way that he might escape the death penalty.
The final decision will be made at a later date.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
