Li Hao was an enforcement officer with the technical supervision bureau in Luoyang, a city in Henan Province in central China. He was married, and his son was eight months old when he was arrested in September 2011. The court that tried him found that between 2009 and 2011 he held six women in a building in Luoyang, and that two of them died, one in 2010 and one in July 2011. The two deaths were separate events, more than a year apart.
He was convicted of intentional homicide, rape, organizing prostitution, producing and distributing obscene materials for profit, and illegal detention. The Luoyang Intermediate People's Court announced a death sentence on November 30, 2012. The Henan Higher People's Court rejected his appeal on August 5, 2013, the Supreme People's Court approved the sentence, and he was executed in Luoyang on January 21, 2014. He was 36.
Li Hao was born in February 1977 in Xinye County, in the Nanyang area of southern Henan. He was a member of the Communist Party and had a junior-college education. Early in his working life he served in the fire service, and he later moved to enforcement work at the Luoyang technical supervision bureau, where he worked in the bureau's inspection unit; his post is also given as that of a clerk.
Little else of his early life is on record. He was married, and at the time of his arrest he had a young son.
The court found that from 2009 he held women in a building in a district of Luoyang, and that this continued until September 2011. Six women were held over that period.
Two of the six died.
The first death came in 2010. The court found that Li Hao and one of the other women held were responsible. The second came in July 2011, when a second woman died; the court again found that Li Hao and others held with her were responsible. The two deaths were separate events in separate years, with a gap of about a year between them, and the court treated both as intentional homicide. The exact day of either death is not on record.
In the same period the court found him guilty of the further offences on which he was later sentenced: rape, organizing prostitution, producing and distributing obscene materials for profit, and illegal detention.
In the first days of September 2011 one of the women reached police. Officers in Luoyang then arrested Li Hao, who was 34. Police later referred to the matter as the "9.3" case.
On September 26, 2011 the city's public security bureau announced that it had solved a case involving restriction of personal liberty and two deaths, and that all suspects had been arrested.
The case drew public attention across China within days of the arrest. In the last week of September 2011 the Luoyang police chief, who also sat on the city Party committee, apologized in public. Four officers were suspended from duty: the deputy head of one district police branch and the head of its community policing brigade, the deputy head of a case investigation brigade at another branch, and two other officers from that branch.
The bureau announced a city-wide campaign against vice, gambling and drugs, stronger community policing and tighter control of rented housing.
The Luoyang Intermediate People's Court tried the case, and its sentence was announced on November 30, 2012. Li Hao was found guilty on five counts, with these sentences:
Intentional homicide: death, with deprivation of political rights for life.
Rape: life imprisonment, with deprivation of political rights for life.
Organizing prostitution: 12 years, with one year's deprivation of political rights and a fine of 5,000 yuan.
Producing and distributing obscene materials for profit: 3 years and a fine of 5,000 yuan.
Illegal detention: 3 years.
The aggregate sentence was death, with deprivation of political rights for life and a fine of 10,000 yuan.
Three of the other women held were also tried. Each was found guilty of murder (intentional homicide) over the two deaths, and the court showed leniency in sentencing. One of them received a prison sentence of three years; the other two received probation. All three had been sentenced before the Supreme People's Court approved Li Hao's sentence.
The decision drew criticism in China. A lawyer from Changsha who tried to act for the women said they were victims and that local authorities did not allow her to take the case.
One of his relatives, his sister, was also sentenced, to a suspended term for harboring a criminal.
Li Hao appealed. The Henan Higher People's Court held a hearing and on August 5, 2013 rejected the appeal, upheld the first-instance judgment and referred the death sentence to the Supreme People's Court for approval.
In China, a death sentence cannot be carried out until the Supreme People's Court approves it. A panel of the court questioned Li Hao and approved the sentence, finding that the facts were clear, the evidence sufficient, the convictions accurate and the sentence appropriate. The date of the approval is not on record.
Li Hao was executed in Luoyang on January 21, 2014. After the Supreme People's Court order reached the Luoyang court, he met close relatives at the Luoyang detention center before the sentence was carried out, and the Luoyang People's Procuratorate supervised it. An official of the Henan Higher People's Court confirmed the execution to reporters. He was 36.
Two deaths were found by the court. A figure of four killings is also given, but it does not match the court's findings or the 2011 police statement, both of which give two.
Who took part in each death is given in two ways: that he instructed three of the women to kill the other two, or that he and one of the women were responsible for the first death and he and others for the second. The exact day of either death and the date of the Supreme People's Court approval are not on record.
February 1977: Li Hao is born in Xinye County, Nanyang, Henan.
2009: he begins to hold women in a building in Luoyang.
2010: first death among the women held; the court finds he and one of the other women were responsible.
July 2011: second death among the women held.
September 2011: one of the women reaches police; Li Hao is arrested in Luoyang.
Late September 2011: the Luoyang police chief apologizes; four officers are suspended.
November 30, 2012: the Luoyang Intermediate People's Court announces a sentence of death.
August 5, 2013: the Henan Higher People's Court rejects his appeal.
January 21, 2014: after Supreme People's Court approval, Li Hao is executed in Luoyang.