Murder in the late afternoon: safety debate over killing of Chinese woman out on a keep-fit walk
- Court in Sichuan province hands down death sentence to man who killed a woman for her gold jewellery
A man who robbed and killed a woman two years ago while she was exercising has been sentenced to death, a court in southwest China said on Monday.
In a statement on its microblog, the Leshan Intermediate People’s Court in Sichuan province said Li Jian encountered the woman, surnamed Wang, at about 5pm on December 14, 2017, while she was walking along a road.
Li saw that Wang was wearing a gold bracelet and forced her to hand it over. As Wang left, Li saw her reaching for her phone and thought she might be calling the police. He chased her, took her phone and forced her onto a smaller, more secluded road, according to the court statement.
To keep her from calling the police, Li returned the phone and gold bracelet to Wang and let her leave. But when he saw her running towards the main road, he worried again that she would call the police and chased after her. He hit Wang on the back of the head multiple times until she fell into the grass and then buried her, leaving the scene with her phone, headphones, gold bracelet, gold ring and three gold earrings, the court said. The police caught Li in his rented flat a week later.
The court said Li did not express regret at the trial, and sentenced him to death with a fine of 15,000 yuan (US$2,234).