Death penalty upheld for man who killed mother

Xinhua

The death penalty for Wu Xieyu, an academically outstanding Peking University student who brutally killed his mother, was upheld by the High People's Court of Fujian Province on Tuesday.

Wu, 28, was sentenced to death by the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court for murder, fraud and buying others' ID cards in August 2021.

Wu developed the evil intention of killing his mother out of his misperception. He meticulously planned the murder, committed the murder extremely cruelly, scammed money from relatives and friends and squandered it all during his run, showing no signs of confession or remorse, the high court said.

Wu had full recognition and control capabilities when committing the crime. The death sentence was appropriate based on all the evidence, according to the high court.

Wu became pessimistic and suicidal after his father passed away in 2010 from cancer. Wu thought the life of his mother Xie Tianqin had also become meaningless, the intermediate court which heard the first trial said.

He started to consider the idea of "relieving his mother from the pain" of losing her husband by killing her in early 2015 and bought tools online to carry out his plan.

He used dumbbell bars to hit his mother's head several times, causing her death around 5pm on July 10, 2015, the court found. He covered Xie's body with 75 layers of sheets and plastic film stuffed with carbon bags and refrigerator deodorizers to reduce the odor.

He then lied to relatives, claiming his mother would accompany him to study overseas, and borrowed 1.44 million yuan (US$203,040) from them, and subsequently squandered it all.

To evade police, he bought more than 10 ID cards from others during his time on the run.

Wu was not found by police until April 21, 2019, when he was caught on security cameras at Jiangbei International Airport in southwest China's Chongqing. The security check showed his images were a high match for a person wanted by the police.