Duan Guocheng

Case overview

Duan Guocheng, 28, was arrested at a hotel in the Wuchang district of the city in Hubei province and confessed to a series of murders and robberies.

Police matched footprints at the scene of four murders carried out in Wuhan between May and June this year to shoes in the hotel room where Duan was captured. Police charged him with stabbing 13 young women to death in central China. He carried out four murder-robberies in the middle of the night in dark streets or alleyways. The victims were unaccompanied young women in their twenties. Police also charged him with wounding three other women in knife attacks and carrying out a series of robberies in the city.

One woman was hacked to death with up to 38 thrusts of the knife.

Duan was also wanted by Hubei police for the 1999 murders of nine young women and some 50 robberies in the province's Qiuyang region, where Duan was born.

Timeline

• 1999 — Hubei police wanted Duan Guocheng for the murders of nine young women and some 50 robberies in Qiuyang region.
• Age 13 (seven years earlier) — Duan Guocheng was sent to a juvenile corrections institute for seven years.
• Mid-1990s — Duan Guocheng was sentenced to five years in prison for robbery.
• 2001 (between May and June) — Four murders were carried out in Wuhan; footprints at the scenes matched shoes in the hotel room where Duan was captured.
• May 7 — A young woman was stabbed to death after midnight on her way home from work.
• Early June (2001) — Three women, including Wang Guiyu, were killed and another three survived nearly identical attacks, all within a few kilometers of one another.
• June 4 (after midnight) — A waitress at a Sichuan restaurant was attacked after entering the front gate of her apartment building; she was stabbed repeatedly in the chest, stripped, and her breasts were cut off.
• August 10 (2001) — Wuhan's police sent a bulletin to nearby cities, including Yueyang, describing the cases.
• Three days later (2001) — Wuhan's police found a Hu Cheng registered at the 719 Aerospace Institute Inn, a military-run guesthouse minutes from Zhang's police station.
• Three months after the killings in their city began (2001) — Wuhan's police finally sent the bulletin.
• Aug. 15, 2001 — Duan Guocheng was arrested at a hotel in the Wuchang district of the city in Hubei province and confessed shortly after police found him.
• Aug. 15, 2001 (capture day) — The news blackout was lifted and the front page of Wuhan's main newspaper hailed the nabbing of the “Psycho Killer” accused of murdering 13 women.
• Dec. 16 (year stated as trial began on Dec. 16) — Duan's trial began.
• Expected to end sometime in February — Duan's trial was expected to end sometime in February.

Background

In Yueyang, police paid a call on Duan Guocheng’s apartment in February 2001.

One morning after the officers paid the call, Duan came home, peeked in through the window, and took flight. The officers chased him into a vegetable market, but Duan escaped.

Police broke the news to Duan's family that they suspected him of murdering nine women, most of them dressed in red at the time of death.

Duan lived with his parents. His father, Duan Shengqing, was a trash collector. Duan was estranged from his father and blamed him for the family's poverty. Duan’s father recalled:

• “He'd say other people's dads earned money, but that I can't read and can't do anything,”

Duan’s mother, Hu Yunxiang, doted on him as her fourth and final child. Duan used to confide in her about his frustrations over women. Hu recalled:

• “We'd talk about this often,”
• “But only once did he bring a woman home. "She saw we had no money, so she left him.””

Convinced that Duan had fled, the police in Yueyang locked his mother in a cell with prostitutes and drug addicts for a week in hopes that she would tell them his whereabouts. She did not. So they sent a bulletin on the nationwide police-computer network with Duan's particulars.

Wuhan's police received the notice but routinely ignored bulletins from other provinces. A source who had seen the Wuhan police reports described that this meant:

• “they didn't pay much attention”
• “they lost their best chance to crack the case early.”

On the run, Duan checked into a series of $5-a-night hotels in Wuhan using his mother’s surname.

Duan was described as a dandy, fond of neatly pressed Western-style suits. He had twice been sentenced to jail for robbery.

The offence

Duan carried out four murder-robberies in the middle of the night in dark streets or alleyways in Wuhan. His victims were unaccompanied young women in their twenties.

Police charged him with stabbing 13 young women to death in central China and wounding three other women in knife attacks.

A woman was hacked to death with up to 38 thrusts of the knife.

The murders in Wuhan involved victims who were described as being dressed in red. A rumor arose that the killer targeted victims because they were dressed in red.

A woman selling tomatoes in Wang's neighborhood recalled:

• “Everybody was so terrified of the Red Dress Killer,”

She also recalled their reaction:

• “that we started wearing a lot of blue.”

The case narrative described the first attack after Thursday-night mah-jongg. After her regular Thursday-night game of mah-jongg, Wang Guiyu headed on foot for her home in Wuhan. She cut through a busy night market and turned down a long, narrow road called Jinshui Alley. It was midnight and the street was dark.

An attacker struck her from behind, smashing her head with a brick. Wang Guiyu stumbled, screamed, and struggled to get inside an apartment building but did not make it.

The attacker spun her around and plunged a watermelon knife into her chest seven times, then fled as neighbors peered out from above.

Six months earlier Wang Guiyu had stopped wearing gold jewelry whenever she had to take this walk.

A 20-year-old woman from neighboring Hunan province was lured to Wuhan by its employment possibilities only three weeks earlier. She was headed home at 3 a.m. from a night market where she had been washing dishes. A neighbor discovered her corpse on the building's stairs at dawn. The neighbor said:

• “She had just started climbing when he stabbed her,”

She had 38 stab wounds.

The narrative also described an attack on a waitress at a Sichuan restaurant after entering the front gate of her apartment building. Neighbors who saw police photos said the attacker stabbed her repeatedly in the chest, stripped her, and sliced off her breasts. The attacker acted just meters from her door, which had a poster featuring the Chinese character for fortune.

In early June, attacks were described as nearly identical and occurring within a few kilometers of one another.

Investigation

An investigation team in Wuhan was formed in early May. It eventually grew to more than a thousand cops. Team members worked overtime and cancelled their vacations. Young female officers walked empty streets at night as bait.

The narrative described police slip-ups and lost opportunities as contributing to the killer continuing to strike despite the rising body count.

Wuhan's police did not check with neighboring cities, including Yueyang, for similar cases. Inspector Zhang Dehua admitted that his officers did not check the cheap hotels in his area.

Local reporters covering the cases had their stories spiked and the reports were distributed internally to city officials. The news blackout choked off possible leads from ordinary citizens and kept potential victims clueless as to the dangers of walking home from work at night.

Yao Ping, the truck-driver husband of victim Wang Guiyu, said:

• “If we'd known there was a killer around, we would have been more careful,”
• “But nobody told us.”

On Aug. 10, Wuhan’s police finally sent a bulletin to nearby cities, including Yueyang, describing the cases.

Yueyang’s police responded with information on Duan Guocheng, including his alias Hu Cheng.

Police found a Hu Cheng registered at the 719 Aerospace Institute Inn, a military-run guesthouse minutes from Zhang's police station.

Arrest

Wuhan's police found Duan Guocheng using his alias. Zhang and two other officers burst through Duan’s door and found him standing in the room in his underclothes.

Duan attacked the officers. Zhang said it took all three of them to hold him down.

The officers asked Duan if he knew why they had come. Duan replied:

• “I robbed people,”

In a drawer, they discovered bloodstained shorts and a pair of shoes that matched a print taken from the last murder.

Police said Duan confessed to the killings a few hours later.

Trial and sentencing

At present, Duan was confined in the Wuhan No. 2 Detention Center, a quiet prison surrounded by two-story walls.

His trial began on Dec. 16 and was expected to end sometime in February.

The narrative stated: “In all likelihood he will be convicted and swiftly executed.”

On Christmas Eve, Duan’s mother went to the prison to bring him some clothes. She received a receipt signed by her son—the only form of contact the family had been permitted. The family did not even know if he had a lawyer.

Aftermath

After Duan’s capture, the news blackout was lifted and the front page of Wuhan's main newspaper hailed the nabbing of the “Psycho Killer” accused of murdering 13 women.

A photo showed Hubei's top cop, Chen Xunqiu, handing $20,000 in reward money to Inspector Zhang and a handful of colleagues involved in the investigation.

Chen Xunqiu said:

• “This is a typical example,”
• “of successfully breaking a case using high-tech methods and strategies.”