Chinese couple, Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen executed for throwing man’s 2 toddlers out window to start new family after mistress insisted the children were an inconvenience to their new life.
A Chinese couple were executed this week for murdering the man’s two children from his previous marriage so they could start a new family together.
Zhang Bo and his girlfriend Ye Chengchen are believed to have died by lethal injection on Wednesday after China’s top court recently approved their death sentences, China Daily reported.
Zhang was convicted of throwing his two children out a high-rise apartment window from the 15th floor of a residential tower in southwest China’s Chongqing in 2020.
‘Despicable and brutal’
Ye was also convicted after the court determined she forced Zhang to kill the young children, a 2-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy, as she saw them as an ‘obstacle’ and helped stage their deaths as an ‘accidental’ fall, the Independent reported.
The pair were sentenced to death in 2021 but were only executed days ago following a lengthy appeals process that resulted in a second trial for Zhang and Ye, China Daily stated.
The Chongqing High People’s Court upheld the original ruling and said the sentences handed down to Zhang and Ye were appropriate.
Its ruling was submitted for approval to the Supreme People’s Court, which found both their roles and overall influence were equivalent, with each playing a primary role and being principal offenders.
The court determined their motive was ‘despicable’ and the means ‘brutal,’ warranting severe consequences in accordance with the law, according to local media.
Zhang had started having an extramarital affair with Ye without telling her he was married and had two kids.
‘I couldn’t imagine what my kids experienced…’
But after he divorced his then-wife, Chen Meilin, in February 2020, Ye urged Zhang to kill his two children, whom she ‘regarded as obstacles’ to their getting married and a ‘burden on their future life together,’ the court heard.
After throwing his daughter, Zhang Ruixue, and son, Zhang Yangrui, to their deaths in November 2020, videos of Zhang after the incident appear to show him grief-stricken at what he had just done.
The man was seen banging his head on the wall and sobbing uncontrollably, the Express reported.
At the time, Zhang claimed he was asleep when the children ‘fell’ and said he woke up to people shouting downstairs.
The children’s mother said Zhang had asked to take care of his daughter on the day he killed them both.
‘The moment I heard my kids were actually thrown out of the 15th floor by their father and the mistress, I couldn’t find any words to describe my feelings,’ she said.
‘I couldn’t imagine what my kids had experienced from the 15th floor to the ground. Were they desperate? Were they afraid?’
Capital punishment in China
Zhang and Ye were arrested on November 10, nine days after the incident. They were found to have been plotting the murder for nine months.
Zhang cried in court and apologised for his actions while his girlfriend denied accusations against her many times.
Zhang and Ye’s crime sent shockwaves across China for its ‘cold-blooded’ premeditation, as well as the age of the victims, the Daily Mail reported.
Their executions quickly rose to the top of a list of trending topics on Chinese social media site Weibo on Wednesday, receiving nearly 200 million views.
‘Today is truly a good day,’ read one widely liked comment under a related post by state news agency Xinhua.
‘The punishment fits the crime,’ wrote another.
The children’s mother posted online today that the court had informed her of the executions and said she would comfort her children in heaven.
Of note, China has the highest amounts of capital punishments in the world, more than the next states who carry out the death penalty, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the USA combined. In 2022, China carried out 825 executions according to Amnesty International.
