Chinese family torn apart by stalker killing wins case review after public outcry
- 21-year-old woman just wants her mother and father released in time for Lunar New Year
- Obsessed young man threatened them for months because she wouldn’t be his girlfriend
A young woman is fighting for the release of her parents who are in detention waiting to learn if they will be charged over the killing of a stalker who entered their property in northern China last year and attacked the family with a knife.
Wang Xiaofei, 21, was granted bail but her parents remain in custody as police have refused to accept that they acted in self-defence – against the advice of prosecutors.
After taking her story to the media and attracting widespread public sympathy, Wang Xiaofei is hoping a review of the case will see her reunited with her mother and father in time for the Lunar New Year at the beginning of February.
An official from the Baoding politics and law committee in Hebei province, confirmed that prosecutors and police had been instructed to review the case carefully to ensure it was “fair and just”.
If their plea of self-defence is accepted, the family will walk free without a trial.
Their ordeal began when the young woman, a former second-year university student, became friends with Wang Lei, 26, a waiter who was working at the restaurant in Beijing where she secured a part-time job during last year’s winter break.
In May 2018 he asked Wang Xiaofei to be his girlfriend and, when she rejected his advances, he began a campaign of harassment which escalated to threats that he would kill her, along with her family.
The young woman and her mother were so concerned they left Beijing and returned to their home in rural Leiyuan county in Hebei province but Wang Lei followed them there and the threats continued.
He turned up at their home armed with a knife and an electric baton and, on another occasion, broke into their home and stole hundreds of yuan.
Despite numerous complaints to police, the only advice to the family was to find somewhere else to live.
Then, on July 11 last year, Wang Lei turned up at the house for the final time, climbed over the wall into their yard and shouted for them to come out, while also threatening to kill them.
The young woman’s father, Wang Xinyuan, told his daughter to call the police and went outside, armed with a spade, to confront Wang Lei. Her mother, Zhao Yinzhi, followed.
After calling police, Wang Xiaofei grabbed a cleaver and went out to the yard. In the ensuing scuffle, the young woman was stabbed in the stomach and her parents were also wounded.
Wang Lei died from multiple slash wounds to the neck, which police said had been inflicted by the young woman’s mother.
Police recommended that all three be charged with murder but Wang Xiaofei was granted bail while prosecutors considered the case.
As prosecutors and police failed to agree on whether the charges should be dismissed because the family had acted in self-defence, Wang Xiaofei gave an interview to online news website Red Star News.
“I haven’t seen my father since last July and my mother since last August. I miss them very much,” she said.
Wang Xiaofei said she hoped prosecutors would accept that they had acted in self-defence and release her parents.
“It’s nearly Lunar New Year. I really hope we three can celebrate the new year together,” she said.
More than 60,000 people have commented or forwarded the news, which was also carried by The Beijing News, and have called for the family’s defence to be accepted.
“They must be given the benefit of unlimited self-defence. It is an absolutely normal reaction to slash many times in extreme terror even when the other person has fallen,” one internet user wrote.
“I feel it’s even more difficult to apply self-defence than it is to be an Olympics champion. You must be sufficiently calm, professional, meticulous and with good planning,” another commented.
This is not the first time media attention is believed to have encouraged a review of a murder charge.
In September a cyclist in Kunshan, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, was eventually cleared of criminal responsibility after fatally wounding a drunk driver who had slashed him with a machete in a traffic dispute.
That case also attracted intense media attention and a heated public debate about self-defence.