Chen Yongfeng was 20 years old when he was arrested in Wenzhou, a coastal city in China's Zhejiang province, on the afternoon of May 24, 2003. Within two days he had told police that he had killed ten people that year, all of them people who, like him, made a living buying and selling scrap and waste. In December 2003 the Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to death for the ten killings. The court and the press that covered it described a series of robberies carried out over about three months, against people chosen because they worked in cash and moved around the city alone.
The case drew attention well beyond Zhejiang. The Beijing Evening News reported at the time of his arrest that the killings had left Wenzhou gripped by fear, with residents eyeing outsiders with suspicion. When the sentence came, it was reported by Chinese state media and carried abroad by Agence France-Presse and the Taipei Times.
Chen came from Qingtian County in Zhejiang. His home village sits on a hillside more than 200 meters up, according to Youth Times (Qingnian Shibao), whose reporters went there on May 28, 2003. The village then had fewer than 300 registered residents. Most had left to find work elsewhere, and fewer than 100 were living there.
The reporters found the village talking about little else. An elderly man, close to 80, asked them whether it was really true that Chen had killed people, and said he could not imagine it of such a quiet young man. A cousin described Chen as withdrawn as a child, a boy who hardly spoke. He said Chen had left school after primary school, and that because the cousin had also gone away to work, the two had seen little of each other.
Another older villager told Youth Times that Chen had been disobedient and somewhat odd as a boy, kept to himself and did badly in school, but that he worked hard and was good at farm work such as planting sweet potatoes and transplanting rice seedlings. Village officials showed the reporters the family house. It was run down and empty: villagers said nobody had lived in it for four or five years, because the whole family had moved to Wenzhou to work.
Chen's older brother, reached by telephone on May 29, told the paper that Wenzhou police had informed him of the arrest and that his first reaction had been disbelief. He said he had had little contact with his younger brother. Chen had left home after primary school, while the brother had studied away from home and then served in the military. Chen had gone to Wenzhou to work. The brother's general impression was of a withdrawn young man who might have psychological problems. He declined a longer interview, saying the family could not cope; their parents were in tears and had barely eaten for days.
By 2003 Chen was working in Wenzhou buying and reselling scrap. The Taipei Times, summarizing Chinese reports in December 2003, described him as a rubbish recycler who made his living picking through waste and selling whatever could be recovered, a trade that drew poor migrants to the city. The Dushi Kuaibao newspaper of Hangzhou, reporting the arrest, described his victims as scrap buyers and junk pickers. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, carrying the AFP report of the sentence, called them his co-workers; the Taipei Times called them his competitors.
The man found dead on the day of the arrest, police said, was from Anhui province.
According to the reports of the sentence, the killings ran from February to May 2003. Youth Times put the start in late February and said he had killed ten people in about three months.
How the victims died was not reported, and none of them was named publicly. The figure the court accepted was ten. Youth Times, writing on May 31, 2003, said that since February nine scrap buyers in Wenzhou had been reported missing and that police had merged the cases into one investigation.
The motive, as the court and the press described it, was money. AFP, citing the Beijing Star Daily, reported that he took a total of 10,032 yuan from the ten people he killed. Youth Times, on May 31, 2003, gave smaller figures: about 5,000 yuan from the first killing and about 9,000 yuan in all. The paper said each killing had been recorded, without saying by whom.
The disappearances were noticed before anyone knew they were connected. Dushi Kuaibao reported that from late April 2003 the Lucheng District police had been receiving reports that scrap collectors and junk pickers had gone missing, seven of them by the time of the arrest, and that the cases had been drawing close attention.
The arrest came by chance. At about 3 p.m. on May 24, 2003, according to the Dushi Kuaibao report, which drew on local Wenzhou media, several auxiliary officers from the Lucheng District public security sub-bureau were patrolling on a three-wheeled motorcycle when an old bicycle belonging to a scrap collector blocked their way. A migrant worker nearby told them the owner lived there and went inside to fetch him. He came back and called the officers in.
The officers found Chen, and a man from the scrap trade, from Anhui, had been killed. Chen told them the man had owed him money and that this was why he had killed him. The Taipei Times, citing the Beijing Evening News, gave the same account in short form: police had knocked on his door to ask him to move an old bicycle parked outside. That evening, while he gave a statement at the criminal investigation unit, Chen sat calmly and smiled at his landlord, who was also there, according to the landlord's account to Youth Times.
The Wenzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau's criminal investigation detachment and the Lucheng sub-bureau set up a joint task force. Investigators compared the way the May 24 killing had been carried out, and the kind of person who had died, with the run of missing-person reports from the scrap trade. Within 48 hours, Dushi Kuaibao reported, Chen had confessed that he had killed ten scrap buyers and junk pickers in Wenzhou and elsewhere that year.
Police told the paper that a case of this kind was rare in China, that Chen had been placed in criminal detention, and that because inquiries and the gathering of evidence were continuing they could not release details. The Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department sent a telegram congratulating the Wenzhou police.
Neighbors gave reporters a plain picture of the man they had seen. One woman described him to Youth Times as about 1.7 meters tall, dark-skinned and short-haired, dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans. A young man who knew him described him as introverted, good-looking and always alone.
Chen was tried by the Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court. In December 2003 the court sentenced him to death. The China News Service report summarized by the Taipei Times on December 10, 2003, said the 20-year-old had been sentenced to death "on Monday" for murdering ten people. The AFP report carried by ABC News on December 15, 2003, said he had been sentenced at the Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court for the killings, which it dated from February to May 2003.
A civil claim was heard alongside the criminal case. AFP, citing the Beijing Star Daily, reported that in this separate civil action Chen was ordered to pay the victims' relatives funeral expenses amounting to about nine times the money he had taken from them.
The reports of the sentence placed the case among a run of multiple-murder cases that had shaken public confidence in China's ability to keep order. The Taipei Times paired it with the death sentence passed the same week in Henan province on Huang Yong, convicted of killing 17 young men.
The Taipei Times reported on December 10, 2003, that Chen was planning to appeal his conviction. The outcome of any appeal has not been reported. In mid-December 2003 he was under sentence of death.
The ten people Chen was sentenced for killing were scrap buyers, collectors and junk pickers working in Wenzhou in the first months of 2003. The coverage did not print their names or ages, and it said little about who they were beyond their trade. One of them, the man killed on May 24, came from Anhui province. The civil judgment that accompanied the sentence ordered Chen to pay funeral expenses to their relatives.
The motive found was money: the reports of the sentence said he robbed them, and the Taipei Times noted that the trade drew poor migrants. Some of the victims had been reported missing to the Lucheng District police from late April 2003, before anyone was suspected; the connection was made only after the arrest of May 24.
In Wenzhou, the Beijing Evening News, as quoted by the Taipei Times, described residents looking into the eyes of outsiders with doubt and fear. In Qingtian, the news reached Chen's home village within days and left his family, in his brother's words to Youth Times, unable to take it in.
Several details in the contemporary reports do not agree.
The money. AFP, citing the Beijing Star Daily at the time of sentencing, gave 10,032 yuan as the total taken from the ten victims. Youth Times, a week after the arrest, gave about 9,000 yuan in all, with about 5,000 yuan from the first killing.
The number of missing people before the arrest. Dushi Kuaibao reported seven missing-person reports from late April; Youth Times reported nine scrap buyers missing since February. Both reports agree that Chen confessed to ten killings, and ten is the number on which he was sentenced.
The date of sentence. The Taipei Times, in its issue of December 10, 2003, said he had been sentenced "on Monday". ABC News, in a report dated December 15, 2003, said state media had reported the sentence "on Monday". The two reports leave the exact date of judgment unclear.
The spelling of his name. Youth Times printed the given name both as 勇锋 and as 勇峰 in the same article; Dushi Kuaibao printed 陈勇锋. The Taipei Times romanized it as Chen Yong-feng and ABC News as Chen Yongfeng.
The appeal. No record confirms the outcome of the appeal he was said to be planning, or what became of him afterward.
Late February 2003: the first killing, according to Youth Times; the series ran from February to May 2003, according to the reports of the sentence.
Late April 2003: Lucheng District police begin receiving reports of missing scrap collectors and junk pickers.
May 24, 2003, about 3 p.m.: auxiliary officers asking about a bicycle find Chen; a man from Anhui province has been killed; Chen is arrested.
Within 48 hours of the arrest: Chen confesses to killing ten people in the scrap trade that year.
May 28, 2003: Dushi Kuaibao reports the case; Zhejiang provincial police congratulate the Wenzhou force.
May 28 to 29, 2003: Youth Times reporters visit his home village in Qingtian County and speak to his brother.
December 2003: the Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court sentences Chen to death for the ten killings and, in a civil action, orders him to pay funeral expenses to the victims' relatives.
December 10, 2003: the Taipei Times reports that he plans to appeal.
December 15, 2003: ABC News carries AFP's report of the sentence.