China executes man who killed his mum for the money to buy an apartment
- A Guangzhou man who killed his mother so he could buy a flat with the life insurance payout has been executed
- Fu Bailian’s resentment towards his mother and desire to own his own place drove him to kill, a court heard
Fu Bailian, 33, was put to death on February 24, having been found guilty in July 2019 of killing his mother at her home in Zigong, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, in March 2018.
He was sentenced to death by the Zigong City Intermediate People’s Court. The court heard that Fu killed his 56-year-old mother after having harboured resentment over her decision to live in Zigong, almost 1,500km away from his home in Guangzhou, southern China, making her unavailable to look after his child.
Legal documents tendered to the court showed that Fu lacked the funds to buy a flat that he wanted and had taken out a personal accident insurance policy on his mother, worth 400,000 yuan (US$62,000), in November 2017, months before he killed her.
China’s top court, the Supreme People’s Court, ordered the execution after he lost an appeal against the sentence in June 2020.
The court in Zigong heard that, in March 2018, Fu took a flight from Guangzhou to Chengdu, then a taxi to his mother’s home in Zigong. He coaxed her into having a massage with an electronic device, then attached exposed wires to both her hands and electrocuted her. Still conscious, she was beaten repeatedly by Fu on the head and face with a wooden stool until she passed out, the court heard.
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Fu put her body on the kitchen floor and placed a hairdryer plugged into a burned power board under it, before fleeing. When Fu’s older brother called to notify him of their mother’s death later that day, Fu pretended he was still in Guangzhou.
The court heard that police investigating her death suspected foul play after finding the victim barefoot and her slippers placed neatly to one side. They also found blood on curtains and scratch marks on a wall.
Fu paid for another flight dated after his mother’s death so he could fake a later arrival at his mother’s home. But surveillance camera footage placed Fu in Zigong before that flight, according to a Red Star News report in 2019.
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“Fu Bailian spent a long time planning the murder, searched online many times for murder methods, tools and insurance claims. He cleaned and staged the crime scene, destroyed and hid evidence, showing he had made sound plans with a resolute mind and deep malice,” the Sichuan High People’s Court ruled in an appeal hearing last year.
“His crime is extremely serious and harmful to society. It cannot be tolerated by the rule of nature, the law of the country and the feelings of people,” the court added.
Fu met his family before the execution, a court statement said.
