News

Huang Yong Sentenced to Death in China for Luring 17 Teenagers and Young Men to Their Deaths

In a single day's hearing in Pingyu county, Henan, the court convicted the former soldier, who told it he had wanted to be an assassin since childhood.

Published

Illustration of an empty county courtroom with blue seats and a raised judges' bench in a small Chinese town. Not an actual scene from the case.

Huang Yong told the court he had wanted to be an assassin since he was a child. On December 9, 2003, after a single morning's hearing in Pingyu county, Henan, he was sentenced to death for killing 17 teenagers and young men.

The trial opened at about 8:20 a.m. in the Pingyu county courthouse, with more than a thousand victims' relatives and townspeople waiting outside. Prosecutors told the court that from September 2001 Huang had lured young people from internet cafes, video halls and game rooms to his home with offers to find them jobs, pay for their schooling or take them on outings, and then killed them. Of the 17, 12 were students and 11 were under 18; the youngest was 15 and the oldest 22. One young man survived and went to the police, which led to Huang's arrest in November 2003. At noon the court convicted Huang of intentional homicide and sentenced him to death, with lifelong deprivation of political rights.

Huang, 29, had served in the army and worked as a migrant laborer. Relatives repeatedly interrupted the hearing, and the mother of one victim, Liang Zhenwei, cried out her grief outside the court. The father of Huang's first victim, Lu Ningbo, said that even a death sentence would not appease the families. When asked for his final defense, Huang asked whether letting the last young man go counted as making amends to society.

Huang did not appeal. After review by the Henan Higher People's Court, he was executed in Pingyu on the morning of December 26, 2003.

Reports of the trial said Huang began luring victims in September 2001, while the state news agency's report of his execution dated the killings from March 2001.

Sources

Related News

In the Archive