Woman stabbed to death over money demands

A man who stabbed his girlfriend to death after she threatened to break up with him if he didn't give her money has been arrested for murder, prosecutors in Minhang District said on Thursday.

Prosecutors said the man had borrowed large sums so she could travel and buy a cellphone and cosmetics.

Minhang District People's Procuratorate said the man, Yu, was a librarian earning about 3,000 yuan (US$436) a month. After they began a relationship in 2016, the girlfriend had taken some 170,000 yuan (US$24,743) from Yu for her own use and demanded 2,000 to 3,000 yuan from him every month.

Yu had to borrow money from bank and microfinance companies to support her and felt under great pressure, prosecutors said, which made him later bear a grudge against her.

In March this year, she again asked Yu for money and it was then that he decided to kill her, they said. 

When she fell asleep at his home, Yu stabbed her in the throat several times with a knife.

After killing her, Yu called his father and the police.

Yu's father told prosecutors that after he learned the girlfriend had been repeatedly asking for money from his son and threatening to break up with him, he had asked her to return some of the money. She had agreed and wrote a letter saying she would return 72,000 yuan in six to seven years. She then paid Yu 1,000 yuan every month.

However, Yu said that money was all given by him to her in advance and was then transferred back to his account to cheat his parents because he didn't want her to leave him.