Gong was born in 1973 and lived at Jiamusi in Heilongjiang, in the far north-east of China. He had a previous conviction for offences against a child.
Between March 2005 and February 2006 he abducted six children aged nine to sixteen, held them in a cellar beneath his house, assaulted them and killed them. The bodies were buried in and around the property.
He was arrested on February 28, 2006, and executed by a shot to the head on December 20, 2006, less than ten months later.
The accessible record is Chinese state media reporting of the case and of the execution, and it is more detailed than most such reports because the case was used domestically in a campaign about the protection of children. No judgment is published and the victims are not named. The count of six is the number the court accepted.