A Chinese woman who reportedly killed seven people, including a little girl, and then spent twenty years on the run, was finally taken to court this week.
Lao Rongzhi appeared in the Nanchang Intermediate People’s Court in Jiangxi Province before the start of her trial and tearfully apologized to the families of the victims by offering the little money she had in her bank account as compensation, Yahoo News reported.
The 46-year-old claimed she had no intention of hurting anyone but was stuck in an abusive relationship with then-boyfriend Fa Ziying who forced her into the crimes, the outlet said.
“Fa Ziying often hit me, strangled me and tortured me,” Yahoo News reported, citing local media. “He threatened my family if we broke up … I didn’t want to kill anyone. I just wanted to live. “
Lao added that while she was with Fa, she had four abortions and was assaulted by him, the outlet said, referring to local news reports.
Lao – who had lived under a different name for decades and had been doing odd jobs for decades – was arrested in November 2019 at a shopping mall in Xiamen where she sold watches after a police database helped identify her as the fugitive they were looking for.
She is charged with murder, kidnapping and theft because she lured businessman Xiong Qiyi – whom she met in a nightclub – to a rented apartment in 1996, where he was murdered. Lao and Fa then reportedly robbed his home and killed his wife and daughter, the news outlet reported.
She is also being charged with her alleged involvement in the murder and robbery of nightclub workers Liang Xiaochun and Liu Suqing a year later, the report said.
In July 1996, Lao and Fa reportedly murdered two more men in an attempt to get a ransom from one of them, Yin Jianhua – another businessman who met Lao at a nightclub and was allegedly lured to his death, the outlet reported.
In July 1999, Fa was executed for murder, kidnapping and theft after he was caught collecting ransom from Yin’s wife, who managed to call the police when the duo thought she got the money, the news site reported.
Yin was found dead in an apartment after a neighbor reported an odor, but it was unclear if he had been killed or starved, as Fa repeatedly changed his story to the police, the outlet reported.
Fa – who met Lao in 1993 when she was a primary school teacher – helped Lao avoid capture after lying to police when he was arrested.
The widow of another victim, carpenter Lu Zhongmin, was in court on Monday, Yahoo News reported.
The widow’s lawyer, Liu Jingjie, told the courtroom that the carpenter’s mother cried so much that she went blind.
The murders changed the fate of the family. The three kids were all very smart, but none of them could finish school, ”the lawyer said, according to Yahoo News.