The killings were placed in Wenzhou, in Zhejiang province, and the ten victims were co-workers in the rubbish trade. The bodies were dismembered. Chen was sentenced to death by a court in eastern China on December 5, 2003. A birth year of 1983 circulates, which would have made him about twenty, and it is not corroborated. Chinese reporting called him the butcher.
A wire report of the sentencing carried on December 15, 2003 is the whole of the accessible record. Chinese courts do not publish judgments in cases of this kind, the victims have never been named in print, no motive beyond robbery is recorded, and no confirmation of the execution has been reported.
The figure of ten is the number the court accepted. Nothing about the investigation or the evidence is available in a form that can be checked, and the entry should be read on that basis.