A Boy's Escape Leads Police in Jiamusi, China, to Gong Runbo and the Bodies of Missing Children
Gong, a convicted child rapist released in 2003, lured children from internet cafes to his rented apartment. He was arrested at a cafe nearby.
Published
A boy who escaped from a rented apartment in Jiamusi led police to Gong Runbo. On February 28, 2006, officers found four bodies in the apartment and arrested Gong at a nearby internet cafe.
Children had been disappearing in Jiamusi, in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, since 2005, and families' reports had gone unsolved for lack of leads. The 14-year-old who escaped had been lured to the apartment and held overnight before he got away and went to police. The bodies found there were badly decomposed. Gong, a laid-off worker, had been sentenced in 1996 to eight years in prison for sex with a 13-year-old girl and was released in 2003. He rented the apartment about 330 feet from an internet cafe where, according to later accounts, he found most of the children.
In July 2006 the Jiamusi Intermediate People's Court convicted Gong of murdering six children aged 9 to 16 between March 2005 and February 2006, and of molesting five others aged 12 and 13. He did not contest the charges, and the court sentenced him to death. He was executed on December 31, 2006, at the age of 33.
The authorities reported six children killed, but Sing Tao later reported that 32 pairs of children's shoes found at the apartment led to public doubts about the true number.
Sources
- China. Man executed for rape, murder of children, Hands Off Cain (citing the Press Trust of India)
- 奇案解密︱佳木斯「林过云」肢解6童水泥藏尸, Sing Tao Headline