Death penalty for former top Chinese student who killed his mother to ‘save her’
- Wu Xieyu killed his mum because he believed she had lost her will to live after her husband died
- The man was on the run for three years and managed to defraud his family out of US$216,000
A court in southeast China sentenced a former top student to death on Thursday after the man was convicted of murdering his mother to “help her”.
The court said he showed “an extremely high degree of malice” because he had plotted the murder for a long time and used a cruel method, according to the verdict published by the Fuzhou Municipal Intermediate People’s Court.
Police said Wu began plotting the murder months before the crime, and had bought knives, meat cleavers, waterproof cloth and a scalpel. He said he killed her on July 10 because the numbers were the reverse of his own birthday, October 7.
After the murder, Wu said he wrapped the body in 75 layers of bedsheets and plastic film and used a deodoriser to cover up the smell of the decomposing body, which was only discovered by police seven months later.