Photo: Sina Weibo

The Chinese man who made multiple media appearances tearfully begging for information after he murdered his wife and chopped up her corpse in 2020, was executed in Hangzhou, East China’s Zhejiang Province, on Tuesday. 

The man named Xu Guoli was given a death penalty for murder by Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court on July 26, 2021. The Supreme People’s Court reviewed and affirmed the original sentence after Xu lodged an appeal. 

The Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court made an arrangement for Xu to meet with his relatives before the execution, which fully guaranteed the legal rights of the executed criminal. 

According to the court trial, Xu bore a grudge against his wife named Lai Huili, 51, because of conflicts related to emotional and financial reasons. He bought sleeping pills and cutting tools and planned the murder. 

On the evening of July 4, 2020, Xu put sleeping pills into Lai’s milk and sealed Lai’s mouth with sticky tape and put the pillow over her face to suffocate her during her lethargy. Later, Xu dismembered her body in the toilet using a cutting tool he had purchased.

After the murder, Xu fabricated false information and claimed that Lai went missing in an attempt to evade police’s detection. 

On July 22, 2022, the local police found part of Lai’s human tissue in their community’s septic tank which they had drained for searching, and arrested Xu the next day. 

During the progress, Xu, then 55, made headlines in China for offering a 100,000 yuan ($14,542) reward for information about his missing wife, whom he claimed had left their apartment while he slept.

Lai's mysterious disappearance went viral on the internet since none of the surveillance cameras around her residence provided any clue to her whereabouts, causing heated debate online. 

The local police spent weeks combing through the couple's apartment and their residential compound by watching 6,000 hours of surveillance footage before coming to the conclusion that Lai didn't leave the complex after returning home the day before she vanished. 

The police officers spent 25 hours extracting the waste in the community’s septic tank and transported it to a lab with 38 trucks. Lab workers identified suspected human tissue in the refuse and the DNA analysis tied the remains to the missing woman. 

The court decided that Xu committed the murder with clear facts and sufficient evidence. 

Besides, Xu behaved normally and expressed himself clearly and logically. He had a realistic motive for murder and systematically committed the crime. He even fabricated false information after committing the crime to avoid detection. He showed no sign of mental illness, according to the court. 

Xu’s extremely brutal means of crime had great harms to the society and should be severely punished in accordance with laws, the court ruled. 

Global Times