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Justice after two decades as killer convicted over double murder in China

  • Police trace bloody palm print left at crime scene in 1998 to man responsible for death of woman and her young daughter

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A court in eastern China has sentenced a man to death for the decades-old murder of a woman and her young child. Photo: Thepaper.cn.

A man in eastern China has been sentenced to death for the decades-old murder of a woman and her young child during a violent robbery in which he only managed to steal the equivalent of a few US dollars, the Qianjiang Evening News reported on Monday.

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The sentence was handed to the 41-year-old surnamed Wang by Shaoxing Intermediate People's Court in Zhejiang province on Monday morning.

Wang was 21 years old when he stabbed the woman, surnamed Chen, and her four-year-old daughter to death during a confrontation at their home in a small town outside Shaoxing on April 20, 1998.

The court said the crime was “extremely cruel” with serious consequences, and that Wang showed little repentance.

Originally from the nearby city of Shengzhou, Wang went to Shaoxing in search of work and broke into the victims’ second-floor flat to steal something. Found by the woman in her bedroom, Wang attacked Chen and her young daughter with a pair of scissors, before stealing a 20-yuan note beside their bed. Wang then escaped the scene on Chen’s bike.

Since Wang had worn gloves during the attack and left no other evidence besides a partial, bloody palm print, police were unable to successfully trace the murderer's identity until last year, when they linked the palm print to Wang, who served a six-month jail term in 2009 for illegal possession of firearms.

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