Police in Gansu Arrest Gao Chengyong After a 28-Year Hunt for the Baiyin Killer
A relative's DNA led detectives to the man behind the counter of a small shop, who police said confessed to 11 rapes and murders.
Published
For 28 years the police in Gansu had a fingerprint, a DNA profile and no name. On Friday, August 26, 2016, officers walked into a small shop at the Baiyin Industrial School in Baiyin, in China's northwest, and took the man behind the counter into custody. The next evening the provincial police announced who he was: Gao Chengyong, 52, born on November 10, 1964, from Yuzhong County outside Lanzhou. They said he had confessed, at his first questioning, to 11 rapes and murders committed in Baiyin and in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, between May 1988 and February 2002. Eleven people had died.
The killings had frightened Baiyin for years. According to China Daily, the police alleged that the killer followed young women home, raped them and killed them, often by cutting their throats, and mutilated their bodies. Many women in the city would not walk the streets alone without a man from the family beside them. The case was placed under national supervision in 2001. In December 2004 the Baiyin police offered a reward of 200,000 yuan for information, the first time they had publicly linked the crimes.
What finally broke it was a relative. The provincial police said they had reopened the investigation in March 2015 and concentrated on two kinds of evidence, the fingerprints and the DNA; China Daily reported that the Ministry of Public Security's criminal investigation bureau had launched a fresh review of the biological evidence in March 2016. A DNA expert told the paper that a relative of Gao's, held over a minor offense, had his DNA collected and tested, and the Y-chromosome result told investigators that the man they had hunted for 28 years belonged to the same family. Detectives screened its men. Further DNA and fingerprint comparison settled on Gao.
Cui Xiangping's sister, Cui Jinping, was killed in her home on November 30, 1998. Their mother found her. He told Beijing News that he had come to believe the case would never be solved, and that when word of the arrest came, his mother could not stop crying.
What this story covers. The date and place of the arrest, Gao's age, birth date and home county, the confession at first questioning, the 11 killings in Baiyin and Baotou, the national supervision of the case, the 2015 reopening and the DNA and fingerprint work come from the Gansu police announcement as carried by CCTV and Sina News on August 27, 2016. The killer's methods as police alleged them, the fear in Baiyin, the 2004 reward, the relative's DNA, the 2016 review and Cui Xiangping's account come from China Daily on August 29, 2016. These were police allegations at the time of the arrest, not findings of a court. Gao's later trial, conviction and execution are reported separately.
Sources
- 甘肃系列强奸杀人案历时28年告破 嫌犯信息公布, Sina News (CCTV, relaying the Gansu police announcement)
- Police capture suspected serial killer in Gansu, China Daily