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Zhuang Pinghui

A Chinese woman accused of murdering seven people, including a three-year-old girl, has been captured after 20 years on the run.
Lao Rongzhi, 45, escaped when her boyfriend Fa Ziying was caught by police in Hefei, Anhui province, in July 1999, and had been living under a false identity since then.
Fa initially refused to tell police anything about his girlfriend and later provided false information that helped her cover her tracks.
The 35-year-old eventually confessed to kidnapping and killing seven people and was executed in December 1999.
China’s cold case playground murder nets 19 officials in corruption cover-up
Police said last Friday that Lao had been arrested in a shopping centre where she worked selling watches in Xiamen, a city in the southeastern province of Fujian.
She was arrested as part of Operation Cloud Sword, a national operation targeting fraudsters and fugitives, but police did not say how they had managed to track her down.
Lao, was a 19-year-old primary schoolteacher when she met Fa, who had already served eight years in jail for armed robbery. She soon left her job and is accused of taking part in a series of crimes over a three-year period.
Police say that she posed as a prostitute to lure Fa’s first victim – a man surnamed Xiong – to an address in Nanchang in the eastern province of Jiangxi in 1996.
The couple are accused of stealing his jewellery and forcing him to tell them his home address before killing him.

They are then alleged to have gone to his house and killed his wife and three-year-old daughter before stealing more than 200,000 yuan (around US$28,400 at today’s exchange rate).
The following year they are accused of kidnapping and killing two prostitutes and stealing watches, phones and money from them.
The pair moved to Hefei in Anhui province in 1999, where two more people were murdered.
Police say the pair had built a cage at the property and then lured a man named Yin to the flat and held him for ransom.
Fa then tricked a carpenter into visiting the property, and killed him in front of Yin to force him to hand over a 300,000-yuan ransom.
But when Fa went to collect the money from Yin’s wife she managed to contact police, who cornered the killer and arrested him after a shoot-out in which he was wounded in the thigh.
But by this time Yin had already been killed and Lao was able to cover her tracks and escape.
Bound and gagged Chinese women makes dramatic escape from kidnapper
Fa’s defence lawyer, Yu Xi, told the Chongqing Morning Post on Sunday that “his refusal to cooperate and his cover-up provided time for Lao to escape”.
He said that his client had told him that he always killed his victims – adding that he only felt he was “committing a sin” when he killed the three-year-old girl.
The lawyer added that Fa had refused to offer any defence when he went on trial. “He told me his best ending would be to go straight from the crime scene to the execution site,” Yu said.
Police in Xiamen said that Lao had been transferred to custody in Nanchang, the site of the first three killings, and was expected to go on trial there.


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Chinese ‘serial killer’ caught after spending 20 years on the run

Lao Rongzhi was arrested the shopping centre where she worked as a watch seller. Photo: Weibo

== PICTURE CAPTURED FROM WEIBIO == A woman serial killer who has been on the run for 20 years after brutally murdering seven people for money, including a three-year-old girl, has been arrested in southern Fujian province.Lao Rongzhi, 45, who escaped when her boyfriend and crime partner Fa Ziying was cornered by police in Hefei, Anhui province in July 1999, had been living under false identity. She worked for bars and sold brand watches in a shopping mall when being taken away by police, according to Xiamen police.Photo: WEIBIO

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Yang Xinhai was executed in China in 2004, aged 35, after murdering 67 people in a three-year rampage. File photo: China Foto Press

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Gary Ridgway listens to the plea agreement being read into the record while in court on November 5, 2003 in the King County Courthouse in Seattle. The 54-year-old truck painter pleaded guilty Wednesday to being the infamous Green River Killer and said in a chilling confession read in court that he murdered 48 women because they were prostitutes, he hated them and knew they would not be missed. REITERS/POOL/Elaine Thompson

Hunt for Chinese serial killer ends after prime suspect is found dead

Zhang Juqian, 56, had been on the run for a week before he was found dead. Photo: Weibo

=== PHOTO CAPTURED FROM WEIBO === A man in central China who was suspected of killing five fellow villagers within five days was found dead from poison around noon today, state television reported. Zhang Juqian, 56, had been on the run after he allegedly murdered a villager on Tuesday last week and a family of four on Saturday near his home in Dongkou county, Hunan province, China Central Television reported.  Picture by WEIBO

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Former primary schoolteacher Lao Rongzhi who was wanted for kidnapping and murdering seven people, including a three-year-old girl, was caught at a shopping centre where she worked selling watches
Lao’s former boyfriend Fa Ziying, who was executed in December 1999, refused to cooperate with police, helping her to cover her tracks



Former primary schoolteacher Lao Rongzhi who was wanted for kidnapping and murdering seven people, including a three-year-old girl, was caught at a shopping centre where she worked selling watches.


Crime in China