The most famous serial killers in China. China's Most Famous Serial Killers Persistent Strive to Save Face
Chinese police recently announced the arrest of the “Baiyin killer,” a maniac who terrorized the city in Gansu province for almost three decades. The criminal has 11 deaths. Over the past decades, serial killers have repeatedly appeared in the PRC, sometimes keeping entire provinces in fear, but information about them has rarely appeared in the foreign press. Lenta.ru decided to correct this omission.
Gao Chengyong: maniac without registration
On Monday, August 29, Chinese police announced that the elusive killer who had terrorized the city of Baiyin for nearly three decades had been arrested. Law enforcement reported that he was 52-year-old Gao Chengyong, a father of two children, a teacher at a local vocational school. Over 28 years, he raped and killed 11 people - women, girls and girls, the youngest of whom was only eight years old. Gao fully confessed to his crimes.
His first victim was a 23-year-old girl from Baiyin - Gao killed her in 1988, when his eldest son was born. There were 26 wounds on the unfortunate woman’s body. Since then, the city lived in a constant state of terror: an unknown criminal tracked down lonely women, followed them home, raped and killed, sometimes dismembering their bodies. It was known that he operated during daylight hours and preferred girls in red clothes (the color red in Chinese culture symbolizes happiness and prosperity - approx. "Tapes.ru"). The women of Baiyin stopped walking the streets alone - only under the protection of friends and relatives, and tried not to wear bright colors.
All this time, the police were unsuccessfully searching for the criminal. The law enforcement officers had everything - DNA, fingerprints, sperm samples, a cast of a shoe print. They scrupulously checked every resident of Baiyin, but to no avail: Gao Chengyong was registered in his hometown Qincheng, 120 kilometers from the place where he committed the murders, and invariably avoided checks. He came to the attention of the police by accident, but how exactly the arrest took place is not reported.
Gao's vocational school colleagues note that he was a reserved person and was reluctant to talk about his past. Relatives and family friends describe him as a quiet and calm man, a respectful son. The killer's cousin said that in the late 1980s, when Gao's father was paralyzed, he carefully looked after him. According to youngest son Gao Chengyun, he heard from his father that his life was ruined in his youth - he was not accepted into school “for political reasons.”
Although the trial is yet to come, the verdict is beyond doubt: execution. This is exactly how all serial killers ended their lives, of which the Celestial Empire has seen many over the past decades.
Peng Miaoji: Anhui Devil
One of the most famous was 33-year-old Peng Miaoji, the leader of a gang of peasants in Anhui province. In just over a year - from February 1998 to March 1999 - the gang he led killed 77 people, wounded 32 and committed 38 robberies in four eastern provinces - Anhui, Shaanxi, Jiansu and Henan.
Peng's gang consisted of 12 people, the youngest of them, Su Xiaoping, was 22. They broke into the houses of farmers like themselves, killing entire families, taking away valuables and money. In total, the criminals took more than 240 thousand yuan (about 36 thousand dollars) in cash from their victims. They were particularly cruel: many victims were tortured before death, men had their genitals cut off, women and girls were raped, and the bodies were then burned to destroy evidence.
Frame: YouTube video
Peng Miaoji set an example for his subordinates: as the investigation found, he personally cut the throats of 40 victims, preferring to use a butcher knife and scissors. The Chinese press nicknamed him the “Anhui Devil.”
Strict discipline reigned within the gang: Peng beat one of his accomplices, who had quarreled with him and threatened to go to the police, to death, and then burned the body.
When the gang was finally caught, seven - including Peng and Su - were sentenced to death. The execution of one criminal, Ma Wei, was delayed for two years - a de facto sentence of life imprisonment. Of the four remaining gang members, two received 20 years in prison, two more were sentenced to 15 and 14 years. The court rejected all appeals, and six bandits were executed on January 28, 2000.
Yang Xinhai: Monster Killer
Yang Xinhai was the fourth child in peasant family. He was born on the outskirts of Zhumadian City in Henan Province. His parents lived in terrible poverty. Little Xinhai, according to the recollections of his relatives, was a smart but reserved boy. At the age of 17 he dropped out of school and, deciding not to return to native home, went to travel around the country, doing odd jobs.
Life was difficult for Yang Xinhai. He served two terms in prison for theft. In 1996 he went to prison for attempted rape and was released for two years. ahead of schedule- in 1999, for exemplary behavior. After leaving prison, he met a girl, but soon broke up with her - after she found out why he went to jail.
And after that, Yang Xinhai began to kill. Over three years, 67 people became his victims, 23 women were raped along the way. At night, Jan entered peasant houses and killed everyone he found inside - old people, women, small children. As a rule, he used axes, hammers and shovels as murder weapons. Each time he wore new clothes and shoes a couple of sizes larger to confuse the police. He buried the instruments of the crime, and threw clothes with traces of blood into the river.
Frame: YouTube video
In October 2002, Yang killed a man and his six-year-old daughter with a shovel and raped his pregnant wife. The woman suffered severe head injuries but survived. However, from the shock she experienced, she forgot all the circumstances of what happened. After this incident, and because he raped the corpses of his victims, the press dubbed him a “monster.”
Yang was detained by accident: he became nervous during a routine police check of visitors to entertainment establishments in Cazhou in Hebei Province, and this seemed suspicious to law enforcement officers. Ian almost immediately confessed to all the crimes, DNA analysis confirmed his guilt. A medical examination showed that he is sane. Doctors also discovered that Yang had contracted HIV from one of his victims.
Initially, the press portrayed Ian as an antisocial type, angry at society and acting out of revenge. At the trial, he denied these speculations: “I took pleasure in killing people. This pushed me to commit new murders. I don't care if they deserved to die or not. I don't care. I don’t want to be part of society, it doesn’t bother me either.” In 2004, Yang Xinhai was executed by firing squad.
Long Zhimin: frugality and frugality again
If Yang Xinhai killed for pleasure, then Long Zhimin - according to strict calculation.
Long, a farmer from the outskirts of the city of Shanlo in Shaanxi Province, was known as a man of exceptional thrift. In his youth, according to some information from Chinese social networks, he was a Red Guard and until the end of his life he retained respect for Chairman Mao (this is not mentioned in the results of the official investigation).
Lun began killing in 1983. Over two years, 48 people became his victims, mostly peasants from mental disorders or dementia. Lun lured them to his home, offering to earn extra money - to help harvest turnips or dig a cesspool. He killed them, as a rule, while working - by hitting them on the head with a heavy object or piercing their throats with a sharp stick, and his wife, Yang Shuxia, illuminated them with a lantern to make it more convenient.
Sometimes, however, Lung allowed the victims to live a little longer. If they were young and strong, he forced them to copulate with his partially paralyzed wife, to whom he had not felt sexual attraction for a long time. If they had even a little money, Lung forced them to write promissory notes and then killed them. He did not make a fortune from this: for the entire time, the couple of killers received only 573 yuan - 195 dollars.
Lun approached murders with true peasant thoroughness and frugality. He wore the clothes of his victims, carefully washed by his wife, and cut off and sold their hair. He carefully buried the corpses in a cesspool - one layer on top of the other, to save space on the site.
Luna was also caught because of his greed: after killing a fellow villager, he went to the victim’s brother, to whom he presented a promissory note. Brother Lun seemed suspicious. Unfortunately for the criminal, a group from a neighboring village wandered into the village, who were just looking for a missing fellow countryman. Together, Luna was tied up and handed over to the police.
Psychiatrists declared Luna and his wife sane. When asked why he killed the poor, Lung replied: “Well, how would I lure a rich man into my shack? I could only deceive those who had almost no money. You have to take what you can take."
The Lean Killers were executed by court order in 1985.
Huang Yong: inventor with a childhood dream
Since childhood, Huang Yong wanted to be an assassin. As he later admitted, “I dreamed of becoming an assassin as a child, but I never had the right chance.” According to Juan, he was greatly influenced by films and television series that contained scenes of violence.
When Huang Yong grew up and served in the army, he finally decided to fulfill his childhood dream. With the money he earned from his side jobs, he bought a noodle-making machine and made a number of changes to its design. He affectionately called the resulting unit - essentially a giant meat grinder - a “smart little horse.”
Juan found victims mainly in rural areas - usually in video stores, Internet cafes and arcades. He was exclusively interested in boys: as the criminal himself explained, he considered violence against women “less heroic,” and adult men were too cautious and distrustful. Juan lured his victims to his home, promising to help them get a well-paid job, pay for education or a tourist trip. He mixed drugs into their drinks, and when they lost the ability to resist, he tied them up and raped them.
When he woke up, the victim found himself tightly tied to the “clever horse.” Huang Yong strangled her, wrapping her head in a rag, after which the converted noodle machine began working, destroying traces of the crime. Juan took the belts of the dead as souvenirs, amassing an impressive collection.
Juan acted from September 2001 to November 2003. His career was ended by 16-year-old Zhang Liang. The maniac drugged him and raped him several times, but young man, who received serious injuries, managed to break free and escape literally at the very last moment. Law enforcement officers did not immediately believe Zhang, but in the end they raided Huang’s place and found a “skate” in his apartment, a collection of belts and the victims’ clothes.
According to Zhang, Huang Yong told him: “I have killed at least 25 people, and you will be the 26th.” However, only 17 episodes were proven, but that was enough: the maniac was executed in December 2003.
Yang Shubin looked as expected: a fat man, seemingly rich. In nightclubs, he said that he worked as a director of a power plant and ordered expensive drinks. A crowd of women instantly gathered around the spectacular businessman, to whom he paid double the price for an evening in their company and even gave gifts. At the end of a long party, it didn't take long for Ian to persuade the girls to go with him.
They probably thought they were lucky to have found such a generous client. Becoming the mistress of a rich businessman is the pinnacle of a career for a girl from a karaoke club in China. But in Yang's apartment, they were surprised to find another woman: 20-year-old Ji Hongzhi, his friend and accomplice.
There were also Yang's childhood friends, Wu Hongye and Zhang Yulian from Heilongjiang Province, who tied the woman to a chair, then beat her with sticks and iron rods, knocking out information about bank deposits from the victim. Ian usually beat the naked girl with a spatula, and his girlfriend pierced her chest, arms and legs with needles. After withdrawing money from the victim's account (the amounts ranged from 60,000 to 500,000 yuan), they sometimes forced her to call her colleagues and lure them into a trap as well.
The bodies of the victims were cut into pieces, boiled and minced. The ground meat was mixed with bones crushed in a vice and thrown into gutters and trash cans near hotels and restaurants. From 1998 to 2004 the gang earned about 2 million yuan this way. Although the criminals did not stay in one place for long and subsequently fled from Shenzhen to Zhejiang province, they were worried that the police might track them down.
Yang Shubin Two sisters, who were held captive for 13 days in Guangzhou in 2001, saw axes, saws, duct tape and garbage bags in the next room through a crack in the door. Realizing that there were no criminals in the apartment (the same channel was on the TV for several hours in a row), they began to try to untie the ropes. In the end they succeeded and escaped. They later said that the torture was so brutal that one of them required breast implants.
This time, the gang of killers barely managed to escape, and their luck began to run out. The following year, a resident of an apartment building in the northern Chinese city of Jilin tried to clear a clogged sewer pipe and discovered the remains of bodies in it. The police issued arrest warrants, but on September 11, 2002, all four criminals managed to escape, after which they disappeared from police attention. For almost ten years, it seemed that they had escaped justice. They merged with the millions of migrants in the cities of China, and their history itself was forgotten without causing loud discussion.
But there was one person who did not accept this. Harbin police officer Xu Jianguo grew up in the same area of the city where both gang leaders Yang and Wu lived as children. He was determined to see the investigation through to the end. In 2007, a new lead appeared in the case: the Harbin Public Security Bureau found out that Yang's entire family had suddenly left in an unknown direction. Xu led a special team to search for the fugitives; their tracks led him to the city of Baotou in Inner Mongolia. There, in the house of a certain Wang Xuekai, there lived a total of twelve people, including his brother Wang Xueli, Wang Xueli's girlfriend named Ma Haiyan, and Wang Xueguo. As it later turned out, they all lived according to skillfully forged documents. On November 3, 2011, an armed raiding party broke into the house, and all four were arrested. Their capture was announced a month later, when the world's attention was focused on the peasant riot in the village of Wukan.
Almost 10 years after the bodies of their last victims - two prostitutes robbed of 160,000 yuan - were found in a sewer pipe, Yang Shubin's gang lived happily family life and successfully ran a business by opening a massage parlor and a billiards room. Harbin police said the solution to this unprecedented case was a monumental success.
But, unfortunately, it is still not unprecedented.
“Serial killings are one of China’s pressing problems,” says Beijing-based criminologist Peng Weimin (name changed at his request). During our two-hour dinner, the graying Professor Peng told me a number of stories about recent killings. Sometimes he knew the smallest details of a case, sometimes only general details: the bodies of prostitutes on the banks of a river in Shenzhen, dozens of children who did not return home in one city in northeast China...
Here is a partial list of serial killers whose crimes are known from Chinese media and academic publications. Some of them are unverified “yoshis” (野史 - tales, urban legends).
- Tu Guiyu– a moneylender from Chengdu, stabbed and dismembered eight people;
- Chen Yunfeng– at the age of only 20, sentenced to death penalty for killing 10 people over the course of three months, dismembering their bodies and throwing them into the river;
- Li Zhanguo- A serial homosexual rapist who killed at least 11 people between 1991 and 1995. He chose only mentally retarded men from the villages as victims;
- Wu Jianchen– serial rapist from Hebei province, committed 15 murders in 1993;
- Huang Yun– rapist-pederast, in 2001-2003. killed, according to various sources, 17 or 25 teenagers;
- Chen Zhengping– in 2002, arrested in Henan province for putting rat poison in rice at a competing restaurant, resulting in the death of at least 42 people, including children;
- Peng Maiji– hacked to death 77 people with a meat hatchet in the provinces of Shanxi, Jiangsu, Anhui and Henan, executed in 2000;
- Wang Qiang– executed in 2003 for the murder of 45 people;
- Li Shanxi, Yang Mingjin and Li Shankuan– a trio from Guanxi province who committed 26 murders in 1981-1989;
- Yang Xinhai- "Monster Killer", the most famous serial killer in China.
Killer Monster Yang Xinhai
Yang Xinhai (杨新海) In 2006, in a closed court hearing that lasted only an hour, Yang Xinhai was found guilty of killing 65 men, women and children (for comparison, the record number of victims of a serial killer in the United States is 48).
Yang Xinhai was born into a poor family in Henan Province. He grew up as a smart but reserved child; After leaving school, he moved from place to place in the provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Hebei, sometimes working as a laborer.
At the age of 20, Yang Xinhai was first imprisoned for theft; eight years later, he was sentenced to five years for attempted rape, but after serving only three of the five years, he was released in 1999. It was during these three years that Yang Xinhai at some point turned from a sullen thief into an uncontrollable maniac.
The motives for his brutal crimes after leaving prison are not entirely clear. He rode a bicycle throughout the provinces of Henan, Hebei, Anhui and Shandong, breaking into houses in the middle of the night and killing residents, often an entire family, in one case killing five at once. With hammers, shovels and axes, he beat his victims to death and cut their bodies into pieces. Sometimes after this he copulated with the bodies of women.
The Chinese press cited the most common motives for his atrocities: greed, irrational hatred of women (his girlfriend allegedly left him) and “revenge on society.” The desire for profit, problems with girls, or the universal motive of hatred of society - this is how such mysteriously cruel crimes as the case of Yang Xinhai are usually explained. Experts, shaking their heads, say: you can’t understand crazy people. And indeed, Yang was caught only by accident, while checking documents in one of the nightclubs in the city of Cangzhou. He was wanted in four provinces on suspicion of mass murder, and police already had a file on him from his previous prison sentence. But only after a thorough check did the police realize that they had the most dangerous criminal in the country in their hands.
“In the past, there was a strict hukou system, where people were prohibited from moving freely from place to place,” notes Professor Peng. “Now this system doesn’t work like that anymore: anyone can go anywhere; the police have lost control of who is doing what in their neighborhoods.” In order to develop production, the state allowed the free movement of labor, but this made it possible for maniacs (and their victims) to move anonymously from province to province, which became one of the factors in the emergence of a social situation in which those who are rejected by society can take revenge in the most cruel way to him.
“When I killed someone, I wanted to kill more. This inspired me to commit new murders,” Ian admitted. “I don’t care if they deserved to live or not. It's not my concern... I don't want to be part of society. I don't care about society."
Beijing prostitute killers
Li Pingping Beijing is considered one of the most safe cities world, however, even he is not protected from serial killers.
One example is Beijing taxi driver Li Pingping, who killed his former boss and his family in 1995, and in 2002-2003. - four prostitutes who, to their misfortune, got into his taxi. Apparently he was angry that they were making more money than him.
In 2003, 14 more prostitutes working in the area of the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel were targeted by a native Beijinger named Hua Ruizhou.
In May 2011, the death penalty took place for Song Jinghua, who, having killed nine, tried in such a strange way to avenge his brother, who was arrested and executed for another murder. Sun suspected that his brother was arrested because his girlfriend reported him to the police. Sun was only caught in 2007, when a neighbor accidentally noticed him trying to hide a man's severed head.
“And in the 90s, there was a maniac who specialized in killing prostitutes in Beijing’s Shijingshan district,” Peng adds. “He started killing because there were several girls living next door to him who annoyed him by coming home late and making too much noise.”
Henan Province
One day's drive southwest of Beijing and northwest of Shanghai is Henan Province, the most populous and also the most hated among the Chinese. Henan is synonymous with crime. This northeastern province is despised by the entire country. If you believe the rumors, almost every thief, bribe taker and adventurer comes from Henan. Henan probably also leads in the number of serial murders.
Professor Peng says that several maniacs have recently appeared in Henan province alone. One of them killed six wealthy men. He was already wanted on murder charges, so he had to flee. He worked part-time as a motorcycle taxi driver, sometimes killing passengers for money. There were also serial killings of children in Henan. In one case, a criminal lured children by placing a wooden rocking horse in his yard and killed them. The court managed to prove his guilt in six murders, although ten bodies were found in his yard.
In another case, two Henan killers fled the province after one of them, Shen Changying, stabbed a man to death in 2003. Together with his brother Shen Changping, who was 22, they traveled north to Hubei province, where they kidnapped a prostitute, robbed her, killed her and dismembered her body. The next victim, 23-year-old Li Chunling, persuaded them to let her live in exchange for luring more victims to the apartment. Lee actually brought another woman to the criminals, and they forced Lee to kill her. Then the case took an even more shocking turn: the killers cut out a kidney from the victim and ate it, and dissolved the body in sulfuric acid. A series of robberies and cannibalistic murders continued in the provinces of Shanxi, Anhui and Inner Mongolia, where the criminals managed to recruit new accomplices to act as bait. One of them ran away and reported to the police. The brothers were caught dissolving the remains of their latest victim.
In 2005, they were sentenced to death for the murder of 11 women, all of whom worked in karaoke bars and "". Three accomplices received sentences ranging from 3 to 20 years.
Sexual slavery in an "underground prison"
In September 2011, journalists from all over China gathered in Luoyang, Henan Province. The story there was sordid but familiar: In the provinces of Shandong, Zhejiang and Henan, police caught several gangs selling oil made from restaurant slops and waste. 100 tons were seized dangerous product. The authorities claimed a major victory in the fight for food quality, but many suspected that the official version was hiding something.
Local journalist Li Xiang, who conducted the investigation, said on his microblog that he was “closely monitoring underground oil factories.” Shortly thereafter, one Sunday morning, he was found dead outside his apartment, stabbed thirteen times. The police insisted that it was just a coincidence, and Li Xiang was not the victim of underground businessmen, but of a simple robbery. Two local hoodlums were later charged with robbery and murder.
Journalist Ji Xuguang of Nanfang Dushibao, one of China's most progressive newspapers, also went to Luoyang to find out the truth behind Li's murder and other events in the city.
It turned out that something terrible was really happening in the city, which, however, had nothing to do with Li Xiang. Police received a report from a relative of a woman who said she had escaped from sex slavery in an “underground prison.” Five other women were imprisoned there and subjected to torture and rape; two died, although at whose hands is unclear.
The perpetrator was 34-year-old Li Hao, a former firefighter and employee of the technical supervision bureau in Luoyang. For the past 22 months, he has been spending his nights in the city's karaoke bars, picking out his victims. His wife thought he was working as a night watchman.
Lee kept his victims in a surprisingly well-designed underground prison, built four meters below the building's rented basement, behind seven iron doors. Lee fed his victims poorly so that they would remain constantly weak. For entertainment, he gave them laptops. Li Hao killed one of the victims, and, apparently, with the consent of his other slave. Something akin to Stockholm syndrome developed among the women Lee kept captive: they competed for Lee's attention. Another girl was killed for “disobedience.”
Li Hao was caught trying to escape, and the police hoped that the case would not be made public. But the details of this story came to Ji Xuguang, who worked for an influential newspaper outside the jurisdiction of the local police. The police questioned Ji at length (though, as he emphasized in a telephone conversation with me, he had not been arrested or "detained" as reported in the New York Times), and also warned that he might be disclosing potential "government secret." It is with “state secrets” that the police intimidate reporters who publish objectionable articles, and the courts sentence them for disclosing them.
However, Ji Xuguang returned from Henan and published his article.
Li Hao, accused of rape and murder, soon experienced the full consequences of his crimes: a week later, information appeared in the Guangzhou Ribao newspaper that Li Hao “was fired from the inspection department of the Luoyang City Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau”; he was stripped of his party membership and sent to trial. All four policemen, with whose connivance the crimes occurred, were fired. Police also made the controversial decision to detain women released from the underground prison and even charge them with complicity in murder.
Although Li Hao's actions do not quite fit the definition of "serial killings" accepted by some experts ("serial" being defined as three separate cases of murder), kidnapping six women and killing two is already a shocking achievement. How did the authoritarian regime operating in China manage to go unpunished for so long, kidnapping and killing people without anyone noticing?
When I asked Professor Peng this question, he calmly admitted: “The victims were prostitutes. They have a low status, so no one cared.”
“The stricter and faster the punishment, the better”
The reason why many serial killers in China cannot be caught for a long time is because they choose prostitutes as victims and do not stay in one place. Reluctant cooperation between police officers from different provinces is one of the two main problems of China's law enforcement system (the other is censorship, due to which crimes are not made public and are not tracked in the media).
“Police try as much as possible to avoid getting involved in crimes committed in other cities,” Peng notes. “Solving crimes that are assigned to the police of other cities will not improve the performance of local police officers... the motto “Murders must be solved” applies only to murders in one’s own area. If they remain unsolved, the police will receive a reprimand, but they will receive nothing for solving other people's cases. They are not obligated to help others."
Of course, not only in China the police are interested only in catching local criminals. But in China the situation is much worse: “If the police arrest someone from other cities, the situation becomes difficult. According to the rules, a criminal cannot be kept in a local colony. You can’t send him to his hometown either, as it’s expensive.” With rare exceptions, local police officers who arrest a criminal will have to pay the train tickets and living expenses of their colleagues from the public security bureau.
As a result, police concentrate their efforts on catching local criminals and also try to scare away fugitives from their area by creating the illusion of close police control over the area - installing surveillance cameras and placing flashing lights along the roads. An obvious solution to the problem is to create an autonomous, centralized investigative bureau like the FBI.
“When a murder occurs, the Crime Investigation Bureau [CBI] under the Ministry of Public Security forms a central investigation team and directs her to the crime scene. This group is responsible for organizing the investigation and overseeing its progress,” says Peng. He repeats the official line: "In the United States the individual states are independent of each other, so there is a need for a bureau to coordinate their actions, but in China, orders from the central government are passed down the hierarchy and carefully followed, so there is no need for such a system of coordination."
Of course, the capabilities of the Chinese police are expanding. In large cities there are criminological laboratories; A national database of fugitives and suspects has been created. It was thanks to this database that the “monster killer” Yang Xinhai was caught. The BRP employs experienced police officers, as well as forensic scientists and lie detector experts. But often the BRP is used for political purposes. Since 1983, the official position on serious crimes such as murder has been “the more severe and speedy [the punishment], the better,” but in 2009 the wording was softened to “a combination of severe and light punishment.”
The BRP is typically involved in cases that threaten social stability (such as when Zheng Mingsheng broke into a school and stabbed several children to death in 2010) and is responsible to ministries. In Zheng's case, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Security vied with each other to condemn the crime as harshly as possible and to declare guarantees of complete security in the future, ignoring experts who say propaganda slogans are useless in the fight against "large, unpredictable crimes committed by ordinary, ordinary people." "
At the same time, in remote areas where the mountains are still high and the emperor is still far away, the instructions of the central government are often ignored. The Ministry of Public Security issued new guidelines for police in 2003 to warn residents about potential serial killers. This happened after a sensational discussion of a criminal from Henan Province (Henan again!) who killed children. The subject of discussion, in particular, was the incredible incompetence of the investigators.
Huang Yun Huang Yong was a 27-year-old migrant worker. After serving in the army, he lived alone in his parents' house in Dahuang Village (Pingyu County), surrounded by dilapidated brick houses, dead trees and trash-strewn courtyards. Most young people in Henan province went east to find work, but Huang remained in his village and his parents, who worked in the city, sent him money. With this money, Huang visited an Internet cafe in Pingyu City. Schoolchildren often came to the Internet cafe to play games. computer games, and Juan gave them advice. In September 2001, the family of one of the boys raised the alarm when their son did not return home. Both police and school officials refused to help in the search for him.
“In emergencies, the police remain silent, so other parents were left in the dark and unable to take precautions,” Peng said. “More and more children started disappearing.” One of the boys managed to escape and told the police everything. They considered it a joke and sent him home. A week later, Huang Yong was still arrested.
Local residents still dispute the number of victims. They also say that Juan kept the severed genitals of his victims in a glass jar, and began committing murders because his girlfriend had an abortion and left him. Authorities say Huang watched "too many kung fu and other violent movies" and insist the death toll was 17, all of them boys. As Juan stated during the investigation, he chose boys because girls were “less heroic” and adult men were “more vigilant.” But a year after Huang Yong's trial and execution, a group of parents of the dead children broke into his home during the annual Qingming Festival and discovered the remains of other victims in an abandoned courtyard. Some parents sent requests to Beijing for the investigation to be continued, but in response they received only threats and attempts to pay off.
According to the new order, officials are required to warn the population about the emergence of potential serial killers. But three years later, almost identical events occurred, and Ministry of Public Security spokesman Wu Heping again told a familiar story in front of the cameras. The scene was different - Heilongjiang Province - but the actions of both the criminal and the police were almost exactly the same: 33-year-old Gong Runbo, who had previously been convicted of rape, was looking for his victims among children in an Internet cafe, like Huang Yong. More than 10 pairs of children's shoes were subsequently found in Goon's house, but investigators were only able to prove six murders.
“Six children died, probably due to our fault,” admitted Wu Heping. Although the police knew that someone was abducting children, they remained silent - in violation of an order issued in 2003. The Ministry of Public Security determined who was responsible: “Despite the ban on minors being in the Internet cafe, Gong freely brought them in and out, and the Internet cafe staff did not take any action or report to the police.”
“Social norms don’t apply here”
For the police, 2003 was a fruitful year for serial killers. Simultaneously with the arrest of the “monster killer” Yang Xinhai, Huang Yong, the killer of 17 or 25 teenagers described above, was detained, as well as another gang: 43-year-old Ma Yong and his 20-year-old accomplice Duan Zhiqun. They were arrested in Buji City, Longgang District, near Shenzhen. They were accused of killing 12 women looking for work; the bodies were dismembered and thrown into the river.
The official reason given by the police for the murder of desperately impoverished migrant women is a textbook example of how government agencies in China inform the population. The victims “had mobile phones” and “appeared physically weak.” The killers committed the crime “for profit,” said Mr. Xu, a spokesman for the Buji city government.
If killing poor migrants for money seems pointless, here is another disturbing case that occurred in Shenzhen in 2009. This special economic zone is known for its favorable conditions for foreign investors and Chinese entrepreneurs, but Shenzhen is also quickly overtaking Henan as a place with a reputation for serial killers. According to one sociologist, “The thing about Shenzhen is that its people are extremely mobile and alien to each other... which means that many social norms do not apply here.”
The announcement was made in the context of a series of child abductions and murders that plagued the vibrant city in 2008 and 2009. As the Huanqiu Shibao newspaper wrote, “Shenzhen, one of China's richest cities, is now in the grip of a wave of kidnappings. According to Guangdong and Shanghai media, Deputy Police Chief Shen Shaobao said in a press release issued in July that the average number of kidnappings was 44 per month in the first quarter of the year. In the first 20 days of April, 52 cases of abductions became known.”
Child abduction in China- This is not news: 190 children disappear every day in the country. They are believed to be predominantly victims of human trafficking gangs, although it is not known for certain what percentage of children end up in the hands of lone kidnappers who are not in it for the money. As a rule, children from poor, rural, uneducated families are kidnapped. Reports of missing children are investigated superficially (if they are investigated at all) - the police are extremely busy with work and are not interested in cases of this kind. The parents themselves are powerless - it is almost impossible to return abducted children.
In Shenzhen, however, children were abducted from wealthy families who spoke loudly about the incident. Despite their protests, which were covered in the media, the police were uncooperative and continued to act lazily, causing further suffering to parents and exacerbating the problem.
“It’s a pity that the police were silent about these kidnappings,” one parent who lost a child said in an interview with the Nanfang Dushibao newspaper, adding that if he had known that children were starting to disappear in the city, he would have been able to protect own son.
A journalist from the Huanqiu Shibao newspaper, Wang Weilan, herself witnessed how the police continued to remain stubbornly silent. “The police refused to provide any information,” she told me. “They either answered, “The investigation into the case is not yet completed,” or “I don’t know anything about it. The person responsible for this question is not on site right now,” or asked to send questions by fax and then ignored them. Government agencies The Chinese may be the only ones in the world who still ask that official requests be sent by fax, so that they can avoid having to respond and without incurring any liability.
Officials in China are aggressively trying to prevent the spread of rumors (“fake news”); Spreading incorrect information is a crime for which a careless gossiper could end up in prison. In 1997, all of Shanghai was discussing a serial killer who, out of hatred for women, killed his victims with a hammer while approaching them on a motorcycle. The killer chose only girls with long hair. He sent boastful letters to officials, in which he wrote that he had already killed ten people and would not stop until he reached a hundred. The police chief who was ordered to stop the criminal resigned in despair.
Shanghai girls urgently began to cut their hair and do short hairstyles; The media remained stubbornly silent, while panic grew in the city. Suddenly, the police announced that a maniac had been arrested: a migrant worker named Wei Guangxiu was accused of attacking 13 middle-aged women and one elderly man. However, city residents did not believe that the story ended there. “The rumors have poisoned the minds and hearts of the people,” complained one senior official. He was right: most Shanghainese suspected that Wei had simply become a scapegoat.
“For the sake of maintaining regional stability, local police sometimes do not inform the population,” says Professor Peng, adding that strictly speaking, Beijing instructs them to do exactly the opposite. “This is partly due to public pressure. When the police fail to solve a crime, they are accused of incompetence... the system of filing complaints against the actions of government agencies is much less developed than in the West, and the main source of pressure on the police remains the media.”
“Social stability” - maintaining power and maintaining the necessary public opinion– has a higher priority than, for example, public safety. Information about the investigation into the Shenzhen kidnappings remained sparse until the defendant was given an imminent death sentence. “The court was very careful in making its decision,” says Wang Weilan, “the people of the city were angry about these crimes, and the court had to take this into account.”
Liberalization of the system hukou allowed people to disappear (and not always at will), and explosive economic growth led to a tremendous escalation of social tensions; The gap between rich and poor has never been greater. “Shenzhen is a city of migrant workers and successful people”, notes Wang Weilan. “The former live in despair, the latter live a prosperous life. When these two groups live in the same city, problems arise." The GDP per capita in nine million Shenzhen is about $13,000 - the highest high rate throughout China (average – $7,544). “Shenzhen has a lot of first-generation immigrants,” Wang adds. “They have no roots in this city, and therefore no traditional restrictions. The criminals here are more daring and reckless.” In any society, those who attack children are considered the lowest caste of criminals. Even the criminal world itself despises them. In China, crimes against children are considered even more blasphemous. Children are traditionally devoted to their parents and are obliged to take care of the older generation. Due to government policies to limit birth rates, an only child in a family is sometimes the only source of livelihood. However, even when investigating such high-profile crimes, the police act extremely incompetently.
Relatives of the victims, however, can at least count on the speed of justice. According to Klaus Mühlhahn's book Criminal Justice in China: A History (Harvard University Press, 2009), 98% of defendants are found guilty, meaning arresting a murderer is essentially equivalent to a death sentence. The court quickly makes a decision, and the sentence is carried out almost as quickly - usually within 3 months. Huang Yong was found guilty of murdering 17 people less than a month after his arrest, and was executed 15 days later (“the more severely and quickly the better”). The process is also inexpensive: for comparison, in Texas the cost judicial trial The cost of incarceration and execution for each death row inmate averages $2.3 million, while in China it costs taxpayers much less. Thus, China quickly gets rid of the criminals, but at the same time the opportunity to find out the reasons that prompted them to commit serial murders is lost. Professor Peng gives an example of how the state tries to prevent information from falling into the hands of experts: Li Meijin from the University of Public Security tried unsuccessfully to find out from the police any information about a serial killer in Shaanxi province named Qiu Jinhua, who killed 11 people. In the end, she was able to convey her questions to the police only through an acquaintance at the People's Daily newspaper.
Persistent desire to save face
In 2003, after Yang Xinhai's execution, People's Daily reassured readers by reporting that the Ministry of Public Security had convened "a special meeting... and ordered police in all regions of the country to do a better job of investigating serious crimes involving murder and kidnapping."
Eight years later, in 2011, the Propaganda Department began working hard on the sex slavery story, issuing an order on September 22 banning local media in Henan Province from reporting on the case. September turned out to be a busy month for censors - the American edition of the China Digital Times reported attempts to cover up a series of “sinister murders” in Guiyang County, Hunan Province, and even more shocking events again in Henan Province.
Residents of Fangyuan town in the "impenetrable wilderness" (according to an article in the Nanfang Dushibao newspaper, which was later deleted) received shocking news one morning: their neighbor Xiao Lansheng had been arrested on charges of serial murder and cannibalism. But just last evening he was playing cards with them as if nothing had happened! In his free time, Xiao raped and dismembered at least five twelve-year-old schoolgirls, and made medicinal wine from their remains. Xiao lived in a former Buddhist monastery, which was reached by a narrow, impassable road. In the 1970s, the building served as a dormitory for the “educated youth” whom Mao Zedong sent from the cities to the villages.
A skull and women's underwear were found in the house. It was here that Xiao made alcohol from the hearts of his victims and squeezed the fat from their arms and legs. According to other sources, he also treated his friends and relatives to meat, saying that these were exotic animals that he allegedly hunted in the mountains. Censors immediately banned coverage of this story.
Inconvenient questions, the spread of rumors and the persistent desire to save face, and not public safety, bloody murders, raped women and missing children - this is what haunts officials, and thanks to which some criminals go unpunished.
Addition
As this article was being edited, China added one more to the growing list of serial killers. At that time, a massive operation was underway to capture former police officer Zeng Kaigui, which involved 13,000 people, as well as two helicopters. Roads are closed and residents are being actively informed of the danger.
It looks like the police are doing the right thing this time - what has changed? Nothing has changed in the system, this case is just different from the others. Firstly, the police have clearly established the identity of the criminal; Moreover, he is one of them - a policeman, a former military man. This is a great embarrassment for the local authorities and could lead to consequences for them, so they felt that losing face now would be better than risking their own heads later. Secondly, Zeng's latest crime was almost impossible to hide: he robbed a bank of 200,000 yuan, shooting one person in the process.
But Zeng Kaigui came to the attention of the police back in 1995, and has been committing robberies and murders since 2004. It appears that this is the last remaining course of action, which was likely approved by senior provincial leaders, as police in several provinces have significantly increased the reward for his capture. As China Daily reported, “Police in several regions are now offering rewards for his capture, including Chongqing (100,000 yuan), Nanjing (150,000 yuan) and Ma'anshan in Anhui province (200,000 yuan). In state media, Zeng was portrayed as a kind of Chinese Rambo, “a skilled marksman... skillfully evading surveillance,” a master of camouflage who spent many years on the run, communicating exclusively with gestures. The last time this happened was in November, when four minor, non-threatening soldiers in Jilin province stole a rifle with plans to rob a couple of banks and flee the country. Within one day they were hunted down and shot. In China, almost no one learned about this story - nothing threatened social stability, there was practically no danger to the population, and the army as a whole is surrounded by such an aura of secrecy that even the names of the units are a state secret. In Zeng's case, circumstances have changed, but priorities have not.
Translation of the article “Serial killers in China” by Robert Foyle Hunwick, published on Danwei.com on January 13, 2012. The author can be contacted at .
Translation by Anton Ivanov, 2013.
Chinese police recently announced the arrest of the “Baiyin killer,” a maniac who terrorized the city in Gansu province for almost three decades. The criminal has 11 deaths. Over the past decades, serial killers have repeatedly appeared in the PRC, sometimes keeping entire provinces in fear, but information about them has rarely appeared in the foreign press. Lenta.ru decided to correct this omission.
Gao Chengyong: maniac without registration
On Monday, August 29, Chinese police announced that the elusive killer who had terrorized the city of Baiyin for nearly three decades had been arrested. Law enforcement agencies reported that he was 52-year-old Gao Chengyong, a father of two children and a teacher at a local vocational school. Over 28 years, he raped and killed 11 people - women, girls and girls, the youngest of whom was only eight years old. Gao fully confessed to his crimes.
His first victim was a 23-year-old girl from Baiyin - Gao killed her in 1988, when his eldest son was born. There were 26 wounds on the unfortunate woman’s body. Since then, the city lived in a constant state of terror: an unknown criminal tracked down lonely women, followed them home, raped and killed, sometimes dismembering their bodies. It was known that he operated during daylight hours and preferred girls in red clothes (the color red in Chinese culture symbolizes happiness and prosperity - note from Lenta.ru). The women of Baiyin stopped walking the streets alone - only under the protection of friends and relatives, and tried not to wear bright colors.
All this time, the police were unsuccessfully searching for the criminal. The law enforcement officers had everything - DNA, fingerprints, semen samples, a cast of a shoe print. They scrupulously checked every resident of Baiyin, but to no avail: Gao Chengyong was registered in his hometown of Qincheng, 120 kilometers from the place where he committed the murders, and invariably avoided checks. He came to the attention of the police by accident, but how exactly the arrest took place is not reported.
Gao's vocational school colleagues note that he was a reserved person and was reluctant to talk about his past. Relatives and family friends describe him as a quiet and calm man, a respectful son. The killer's cousin said that in the late 1980s, when Gao's father was paralyzed, he carefully looked after him. According to the youngest son, Gao Chengyong, he heard from his father that his life was ruined in his youth - he was not accepted into school “for political reasons.”
Although the trial is yet to come, the verdict is beyond doubt: execution. This is exactly how all serial killers ended their lives, of which the Celestial Empire has seen many over the past decades.
Peng Miaoji: Anhui Devil
One of the most famous was 33-year-old Peng Miaoji, the leader of a gang of peasants in Anhui province. In just over a year - from February 1998 to March 1999 - the gang he led killed 77 people, wounded 32 and committed 38 robberies in four eastern provinces - Anhui, Shaanxi, Jiansu and Henan.
Peng's gang consisted of 12 people, the youngest of them, Su Xiaoping, was 22. They broke into the houses of farmers like themselves, killing entire families, taking away valuables and money. In total, the criminals took more than 240 thousand yuan (about 36 thousand dollars) in cash from their victims. They were particularly cruel: many victims were tortured before death, men had their genitals cut off, women and girls were raped, and the bodies were then burned to destroy evidence.
Peng Miaoji. Frame: YouTube video
Peng Miaoji set an example for his subordinates: as the investigation found, he personally cut the throats of 40 victims, preferring to use a butcher knife and scissors. The Chinese press nicknamed him the “Anhui Devil.”
Strict discipline reigned within the gang: Peng beat one of his accomplices, who had quarreled with him and threatened to go to the police, to death, and then burned the body.
When the gang was finally caught, seven - including Peng and Su - were sentenced to death. The execution of one criminal, Ma Wei, was delayed for two years—a de facto sentence of life imprisonment. Of the four remaining gang members, two received 20 years in prison, two more were sentenced to 15 and 14 years. The court rejected all appeals, and six bandits were executed on January 28, 2000.
Yang Xinhai: Monster Killer
Yang Xinhai was the fourth child in a peasant family. He was born on the outskirts of Zhumadian City in Henan Province. His parents lived in terrible poverty. Little Xinhai, according to the recollections of his relatives, was a smart but reserved boy. At the age of 17, he dropped out of school and, deciding not to return to his home, went to travel around the country, doing odd jobs.
Life was difficult for Yang Xinhai. He served two terms in prison for theft. In 1996, he went to prison for attempted rape and was released two years early in 1999 for good behavior. After leaving prison, he met a girl, but soon broke up with her - after she found out why he went to jail.
And after that, Yang Xinhai began to kill. Over three years, 67 people became his victims, 23 women were raped along the way. At night, Jan entered peasant houses and killed everyone he found inside - old people, women, small children. As a rule, he used axes, hammers and shovels as murder weapons. Each time he wore new clothes and shoes a couple of sizes larger to confuse the police. He buried the instruments of the crime, and threw clothes with traces of blood into the river.
Yang Xinhai. Frame: YouTube video
In October 2002, Yang killed a man and his six-year-old daughter with a shovel and raped his pregnant wife. The woman suffered severe head injuries but survived. However, from the shock she experienced, she forgot all the circumstances of what happened. After this incident, and because he raped the corpses of his victims, the press dubbed him a “monster.”
Yang was detained by accident: he became nervous during a routine police check of visitors to entertainment establishments in Cazhou in Hebei Province, and this seemed suspicious to law enforcement officers. Ian almost immediately confessed to all the crimes, DNA analysis confirmed his guilt. A medical examination showed that he is sane. Doctors also discovered that Yang had contracted HIV from one of his victims.
Initially, the press portrayed Ian as an antisocial type, angry at society and acting out of revenge. At the trial, he denied these speculations: “I took pleasure in killing people. This pushed me to commit new murders. I don't care if they deserved to die or not. I don't care. I don’t want to be part of society, it doesn’t bother me either.” In 2004, Yang Xinhai was executed by firing squad.
Long Zhimin: frugality and frugality again
If Yang Xinhai killed for pleasure, then Long Zhimin - according to strict calculation.
Long, a farmer from the outskirts of the city of Shanluo in Shaanxi Province, was known as a man of exceptional thrift. In his youth, according to some information from Chinese social networks, he was a Red Guard and until the end of his life he retained respect for Chairman Mao (this is not mentioned in the results of the official investigation).
Lun began killing in 1983. Over two years, 48 people became victims, mostly peasants with mental disorders or dementia. Lun lured them to his home, offering to earn extra money - to help harvest turnips or dig a cesspool. He killed them, as a rule, while working - by hitting them on the head with a heavy object or piercing their throats with a sharp stick, and his wife, Yang Shuxia, illuminated them with a lantern to make it more convenient.
Sometimes, however, Lung allowed the victims to live a little longer. If they were young and strong, he forced them to copulate with his partially paralyzed wife, to whom he had not felt sexual attraction for a long time. If they had even a little money, Lung forced them to write promissory notes and then killed them. He did not make a fortune from this: for the entire time, the couple of killers received only 573 yuan - 195 dollars.
Lun approached murders with true peasant thoroughness and frugality. He wore the clothes of his victims, carefully washed by his wife, and cut off and sold their hair. He carefully buried the corpses in a cesspool, one layer on top of the other, to save space on the site.
Luna was also caught because of his greed: after killing a fellow villager, he went to the victim’s brother, to whom he presented a promissory note. Brother Lun seemed suspicious. Unfortunately for the criminal, a group from a neighboring village wandered into the village, who were just looking for a missing fellow countryman. Together, Luna was tied up and handed over to the police.
Psychiatrists declared Luna and his wife sane. When asked why he killed the poor, Lung replied: “Well, how would I lure a rich man into my shack? I could only deceive those who had almost no money. You have to take what you can take."
The Lean Killers were executed by court order in 1985.
Huang Yong: inventor with a childhood dream
Since childhood, Huang Yong wanted to be an assassin. As he later admitted, “I dreamed of becoming an assassin as a child, but I never had the right chance.” According to Juan, he was greatly influenced by films and television series that contained scenes of violence.
When Huang Yong grew up and served in the army, he finally decided to fulfill his childhood dream. With the money he earned from his side jobs, he bought a noodle-making machine and made a number of changes to its design. He affectionately called the resulting unit—essentially a giant meat grinder—a “smart horse.”
Huang Yun. Photo: China Photo/Reuters
Juan found victims mainly in rural areas - usually in video stores, Internet cafes and arcades. He was exclusively interested in boys: as the criminal himself explained, he considered violence against women “less heroic,” and adult men were too cautious and distrustful. Juan lured his victims to his home, promising to help them get a well-paid job, pay for education or a tourist trip. He mixed drugs into their drinks, and when they lost the ability to resist, he tied them up and raped them.
When he woke up, the victim found himself tightly tied to the “clever horse.” Huang Yong strangled her, wrapping her head in a rag, after which the converted noodle machine began working, destroying traces of the crime. Juan took the belts of the dead as souvenirs, amassing an impressive collection.
Juan acted from September 2001 to November 2003. His career was ended by 16-year-old Zhang Liang. The maniac drugged him and raped him several times, but the young man, who received serious injuries, managed to break free and escape literally at the very last moment. Law enforcement officers did not immediately believe Zhang, but in the end they raided Huang’s place and found a “skate” in his apartment, a collection of belts and the victims’ clothes.
According to Zhang, Huang Yong told him: “I have killed at least 25 people, and you will be the 26th.” However, only 17 episodes were proven, but that was enough: the maniac was executed in December 2003.
It is customary for us to use the name Chikatilo to scare people. Among bloodthirsty maniacs, Jack the Ripper, who was never found, also comes to mind. Meanwhile, history has many examples of how the cunning, resourcefulness of a criminal and the apathy of the authorities made it possible to commit dozens of murders. The acts of these bloodthirsty maniacs continue to shock even now. And they themselves, fortunately, are reliably isolated from society.
John Wayne Gacy Jr. (1942-1999). This maniac rampaged for only 6 years, but during this time he managed to rape and kill at least 33 young men. Gacy's involvement in the remaining murders remained unproven. After the gunman was arrested, police found 27 dead bodies in the basement of his Illinois home. The rest of his victims were found in the river a little later. Some of them were in obscene positions, with dildos or penises in their mouths. The maniac loved to earn extra money at children's parties, dressing up as a clown in a red wig. For this, Gacy was nicknamed “Pogo the Clown” and “Killer Clown.” The series of murders was based on a sexual motive. In 1980, the criminal was sentenced to death, but the sentence was carried out only 14 years later by lethal injection.
Theodore Robert Bundy (1946-1989). The criminal was executed in 1989 using the electric chair. But memories of his brutal activities, which began back in 1974, still terrify. When the maniac was caught, he confessed to more than thirty murders. But the investigation suggested that the number of victims could be more than a hundred. At the same time, the maniac not only cold-bloodedly and quickly killed his victims - he liked to first strangle people doomed to death. Bundy also raped the people he captured, and he did not know any prohibitions in his sexual activity. His sexual contacts were made not only with living people, but also with those already dead.
Sergei Tkach (born 1952). This case turned out to be quite difficult for investigators. After all, Tkach once served in the internal affairs bodies. From 1980 to 2005, he raped and then killed 29 girls and young women. Several rape victims are lucky to be alive. The maniac himself claims that he took the lives of 80 to 100 people. For the crimes he committed, they were convicted and served prison term several people. In 2008, Tkach was sentenced to life imprisonment. The maniac blames his ex-wives for his aggression towards women, who turned him into a monster. The killer's extraordinary cunning helped him remain unpunished for a long time. For example, he carefully hid his tracks, and left the crime scene along the sleepers so that the dogs could not pick up his trail.
Donald Harvey (b. 1952). Harvey is currently serving his life sentence in the North Idaho Colony. And before going to prison, he worked in a hospital. The maniac nicknamed himself “Angel of Death.” After all, over twenty years of work in medicine, he helped 87 of his patients die. So he claims, and the investigation attributes 36 to 57 murders to Harvey. The orderly killed people using cyanide, insulin and arsenic. As a result, the victims died long and painfully. At the same time, the killer did not limit himself in the ways of committing violence. He strangled some of his victims, and sometimes even pierced their insides with the sharp end of a hanger, infected them with hepatitis and turned off life-sustaining machines.
Moses Sithole (born 1964). This maniac received the nickname “South African Strangler” for his bloody activities. He was sentenced to a total of 2,410 years in prison. In his secluded hideout, Sithole was able to torture and kill 38 people. The criminal also committed 40 rapes. It is clear that the killer will not be able to serve the entire term in prison. And he won’t live to see old age. After all, he was diagnosed with AIDS in 2000, which will significantly shorten his life span. The short interval between his crimes brought the maniac notoriety. He accomplished all of them in just a year. In 1994, Sithole was released from prison and was imprisoned there again in 1995. This time it's forever.
Bell Sorenson Gunness (1859-1908). It's not just men who become maniacs. This woman operated for several decades, during which time about 40 people became her victims. Born Brynhild, she became a real symbol of female madness and cruelty. She herself did not spend a single day at work, and received money for her living from insurance companies. They compensated her for the death of her loved ones, not suspecting who skillfully killed them. Bell herself was a very impressive lady, weighing 91 kilograms and 173 centimeters tall. She calmly started her business with her husband and children, then potential suitors began to fall into her clutches. In those days, such body shapes were considered quite attractive by men, as evidenced by the number of victims of the cold-blooded killer. Bell herself received the nickname "Black Widow". But her death is shrouded in mystery. One day she simply disappeared, and the police discovered her headless corpse some time later. It is still unclear whether it was the criminal herself or whether she faked her death. After all, at the time of the examination, the DNA material was not enough to confirm the death of the bloody killer.
Ahmad Suraji (1951-2008). This Iranian herder has confessed to killing 42 women. They were all of different ages, and the bloody chain lasted for 11 years. The maniac first tracked down his victims and then energetically killed them. At the same time, he used his own cruel ritual. Suraji buried the women up to their necks in the ground and then strangled them with a piece of cable. The killer was assisted in his actions by three wives, who were also convicted. Ahmad himself said that he was pushed to commit such atrocities prophetic dream. In it, his father appeared to him, who predicted the glory of a healer if a man kills 70 women and tastes their saliva. The son was unable to doubt these words and more than half accomplished his plan. In 2008, the authorities shot the criminal.
Alexander Pichushkin (born 1974). After the trial, the media dubbed the maniac “The Chessboard Killer.” The fact is that the maniac intended to kill exactly 64 people, according to the number of squares on the chessboard. After each victim, one of its cells was closed. According to the killer, he almost accomplished his plan, taking the lives of 61 people. At the trial, Pichushkin’s involvement in 48 murders was proven, which was enough to sentence the maniac to life imprisonment. He committed his first murder at the age of 18; the victim was Alexander’s classmate. The maniac’s psyche finally took shape after the trial of Chikatilo, Pichushkin realized that he wanted to be like him and even surpass him in the number of victims. The killer launched his activities on the territory of the Bitsevsky forest park. He lured homeless people and alcoholics into the area, promising them free drinks, and then smashed their heads in with a bat. Soon the maniac began to hunt his acquaintances, since it was especially pleasant for him to kill them.
Gary Leon Ridgway (b. 1949). This maniac, nicknamed “River Man,” claims that he was able to kill more than 90 women in Washington state over 16 years. As a result, the court was able to prove 48 murders, and the criminal confessed to committing them. The methods he used were truly cruel. First of all, he satisfied his sexual passion and tortured the victims, then he strangled them with ropes, cable or fishing line. He even used necrophilia. If the maniac did not have time to take possession of the victim during the life of the victim, then he would have sexual contact with the corpse. In 2003, Ridgway fully confessed to his crimes, and his death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment.
Anatoly Onoprienko (born 1959). The maniac nicknamed “Terminator” admitted that during the six years of his hunt for people he killed 52 people. Onoprienko calculated that the points of his acts on the map of Ukraine should form a cross. According to the maniac, all his actions are controlled by certain voices heard in his head. When Onoprienko was arrested, they found on him a gun that was involved in his early murders, and personal belongings of the killed people. He himself attacked people on highways and in remote houses. The court sentenced the maniac to death in 1999, but it was soon commuted to life imprisonment.
Andrei Chikatilo (1936-1994). This maniac is also of Ukrainian origin. For his actions, he received the nicknames "Red Ripper", "Rostov Butcher" and "Rostov Ripper". The killer operated from 1978 to 1990, during which time he killed 52 people. Most often the victims were women and children. Chikatilo tried to rape them, but this was not always successful. But he received sexual pleasure from watching the suffering of dying people. The maniac brought death to his victims by trying to have sexual intercourse with them. In 1994, the killer got what he deserved - a death penalty ended his life with a shot in the back of the head.
Pedro Alonso Lopez (born 1948). This Colombian killer still continues to scare people because he has remained uncaught. His whole life is a complete drama. Lopez himself was a victim of molestation, had sex with his sister, and visited a pedophile's den. When the boy grew up, he himself began to beat, rape and molest, as if in revenge on life. Also in adolescence Lopez became a killer, his first victim was his owner. The killer also flayed him, as well as his other three clients. As a result, the number of victims of the maniac exceeded all known cases. He was nicknamed the "Monster of the Andes." During interrogation, Lopez indicated the burial places of 110 of his victims, claiming that he had killed more than 300 people in total. But in Ecuador, where the trial took place, there is no death penalty. As a result, Lopez served 16 years in prison, being released in 1999. His current whereabouts are unknown. Lopez even got into the Guinness Book of Records as the most bloody maniac in the world.
Yang Xinhai (1968-2004). This Chinese maniac was able to kill 67 people over the 4 years of his activity. Xinhai's criminal life began as a petty thief, but he soon moved from theft to violence and murder. The maniac often entered residential buildings and massacred entire families. His weapons included a saw and an axe. Yang killed children and raped pregnant women, and because of his inhumanity, the Chinese gave him the nickname “Monster Killer.” He traveled around the country by bicycle. When Xinhai was arrested, he said that killing gave him pleasure. According to a court verdict, the maniac was shot in 2004.
Pedro Rodriguez Filho (born 1954). This maniac is called "Little Pedro the Killer." After all, he killed more than a hundred people in his life. Most of them were in prison with Filho, being prisoners like himself. In 2003, the killer went to jail after confessing to killing 70 people. Among them was the father of the maniac. The court sentenced Filho to a total of 128 years in prison, but Brazilian laws will not allow a maniac to be behind bars for more than 30 years.
Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614). This woman went down in history as the “Bloody Duchess.” The Duchess operated with her four assistants. The court found her guilty of murdering 600 women. Moreover, most of them were virgins. Bloodlust appeared in Bathory after her husband died from battle wounds. The Duchess was personally found guilty of murdering 80 women, but was never officially brought to trial. The noble family decided not to bring the matter to public hearings, simply imprisoning Elizabeth in the dungeon of her own castle. Four years after the hearings, the Duchess died. But it was not possible to hush up the matter; the fame of the bloody tormentor spread throughout Europe. She began to be counted among the successors of the work of Count Dracula. Many legends about Bathory immediately appeared. So, they said that she loved to bathe in a bath filled with the blood of virgins. The Duchess believed that this would help her rejuvenate. As a result, Bathory went down in human history as the most brutal female killer.
Javed Iqbal (1956-2001). This maniac chose to commit suicide. In 2001, his body was autopsied in a Pakistani prison, and his body showed signs of numerous brutal beatings. At one time, the court found Iqbal guilty of raping and murdering more than a hundred children. But the matter is far from over. After all, after the death of the maniac, it turned out that many of the victims attributed to him were alive. Iqbal himself confessed to killing hundreds of children. The criminal said that he first strangled them and then cut the corpses into pieces, destroying evidence in acid. At the crime scene indicated to the investigation by the maniac, the remains of bodies, their photographs and belongings were found. Given the method used by the killer, it is impossible to accurately determine the number of his victims.
Tag Behram (1765-1840). It is believed that this maniac killed a thousand people. He operated in India from 1790 to 1840. Behram was the leader of the brutal Tagi Cult gang. This bloody community attacked weary travelers and strangled them with a special, ritual piece of cloth. The bandits believed that only after performing such a deadly ritual would it be possible to rob the dead.
Louis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos (born 1957). The maniac received a very eloquent nickname - “The Beast”. He is now serving time in Colombia, the court sentenced him to 22 years in prison. In 1999, the criminal admitted that he had committed 140 rapes and then murders of boys. And according to rumors, the actual number of victims was twice as high. But Cubillos cooperated with the investigation and indicated the location of the remains of his victims, and also provided evidence of his crimes. That is why the maximum term under local laws of 30 years was reduced by 8. But the country recently adopted changes in criminal law, which makes it possible to increase the duration of a maniac’s imprisonment. I must say that there are all the prerequisites for this. After all, the police believe that Cubillos committed many more murders than was previously proven.
Gilles de Rais (1404-1440). This nobleman, marshal and alchemist also went down in history as an ally of Joan of Arc. It is believed that it was he who served as the prototype for the fairy-tale character “Bluebeard”. The judges accused Gilles of killing two hundred children, whom he allegedly sacrificed to the devil. De Rais was excommunicated, hanged, and his body burned. It should be noted that historians have doubts that it was de Rais who committed the alleged murders. After all, he refused the charges until the very end, confessing only under the threat of torture.
Harold Frederick "Fred" Shipman (1946-2004). This criminal had the longest list of proven murders. He is rightfully considered the bloodiest serial killer in history. The court proved 218 murders he committed, but the exact number could be much higher. Shipman was once an ordinary family doctor, respected in the area. But later he turned into "Doctor Death". The killer gave his patients lethal injections of heroin, most of the victims were women. Although Shipman was sentenced to life imprisonment, he decided not to wait for his natural death. The killer spent only 6 years in the cell, after which he hanged himself. After the high-profile case, significant amendments were made to the legislation of England in the field of medicine and health protection.
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