China recently executed a man who remained on the run for 17 years after murdering his in-laws in 2003, the Asian country’s court press reported today.
The prisoner, surnamed Zhuo Youting, arrived looking for his wife at his in-laws’ home in western Qinghai province on June 24, 2003, followed by a heated argument with his 73-year-old old father-in-law at that time.
Zhuo ended up hitting his stepfather repeatedly on the head, causing his death.
Immediately afterwards, he went to a room where his sister-in-law (22) and his mother-in-law (65) were, whom he ended up inflicting fatal cuts on the neck with a kitchen knife while by threatening to rape his sister-in-law if she asked for help, a warning that eventually came true.
After the attack, which the sister-in-law survived with minor injuries, Zhuo fled.
According to Rule of Law Daily, due to “limitations in investigative capacity at the time”, Zhuo appeared to “evaporate”.
In May 2020, local authorities offered a reward of 50,000 yuan ($7,300, 6,800 euros) for tips leading to the fugitive’s arrest.
On June 3 of that year, a hunting party discovered that in the sparsely populated town of Yeniugou (west), there was a man named Xiao Liu who earned his living by raising herds of local herders.
On the same day he was arrested and soon after confessed his crimes to the police.
The court that sentenced him to death noted the “particularly cruel” means of the attacks.
Last Sunday, Zhuo was executed after having a final meeting with his relatives, the outlet said.
Chinese authorities do not provide official data on the number of people sentenced to death, but in Amnesty International’s 2021 Capital Punishment Report, the organization notes that “China continues to be the world’s biggest executioner ”, although it continues to consider the data on the executions as state secrets and prevents their independent examination.