Medium.com 31 May 2022
“I’ll marry you when the kids are gone. Why not murder both since you intend to kill anyway?”
Outrage on the Chinese internet has erupted over the case of a father accused of brutally murdering his two infant children. In the Chinese province of Sichuan, two young children, ages one and two, were cruelly murdered by their vicious father. The father threw his two children off the roof of the apartment building where he lived because his new girlfriend did not want him to have children with another woman.
On November 2, 2020, Zhang Bo murdered his daughter, who was two years old, and his son, who was one year old, by hurling them out of a bedroom window from the 15th story of their apartment in the city’s district of Nan’An.
According to the police investigation, Zhang Bo and the child’s mother, Chen Meilin, married in 2017 and had a daughter and a son in 2018 and 2019. Zhang filed for divorce in April 2019 on the grounds of conflict and hid his marital history.
Zhang started dating Ye Chengchen in August. By the end of 2019, Ye had discovered through others that Zhang had children but still maintained her relationship with Zhang.
Zhang and Chen concluded their divorce on February 26, 2020, and it was decided that Zhang would take care of their boy up until the age of six, while Chen would be responsible for the upbringing of their daughter.
In spite of the fact that Zhang was already divorced, Ye allegedly informed him on multiple occasions that she and her parents could not tolerate the fact that Zhang had children and that she could not be with Zhang if he was unable to get rid of the children.
It is said that Ye put a great deal of pressure on Zhang to get rid of his children, even going so far as to threaten Zhang with having her wrists cut.
After that, Zhang and Ye began their plot to murder the two children around February 2020 and carried it out through both in-person meetings and conversations on WeChat.
They agreed to murder the children through “accidental falling.”
In November 2020, Zhang carried out the act by inviting his daughter to his home under the guise of purchasing clothes for her.
Chen, the mother of the children, stated, “During that time, Zhang was on video phone contact with Ye.” She slashed her wrists, and then Zhang became terrified. After that, he slammed the phone on the ground and “picked up the two children and threw them from the balcony.”
He immediately hurried downstairs and appeared grief-stricken, even screaming and slamming his head against a wall at the sight of his kids — daughter Zhang Ruixue and son Zhang Yangrui. The girl died immediately, while the son died from his injuries at the hospital a short time later.
When the suspect’s ex-wife found out that her children had been thrown from the 15th floor by their father and his mistress, she was speechless. “I could not fathom what my children had endured from the fifteenth story to the ground. Were they desperate? Were they afraid?”
Zhang initially claimed he was asleep when the children fell from the window, but the lie was eventually exposed in court. He finally admitted to plotting to kill the children, whom he and Chen shared custody of after they got a divorce.
Local media say that the father admitted that he and Ye had planned to kill the children so that they could start a new family without the children from his first marriage.
According to court documents, Ye constantly pressured Zhang to get rid of the children, reportedly telling him in one conversation, “I’ll marry you when the kids are gone. Why not murder both since you intend to kill anyway?”
The court that imposed the couple’s punishment was cited as saying:
“The conduct of the two defendants violated the most fundamental principles of law and morality; the reason for the crime was especially disgusting; and the means of committing the crime were extraordinarily cruel.” The case has had a devastating impact on society and should be punished severely in accordance with the law.”
The trial began in July 2021 at the №5 Intermediate People’s Court in Chongqing.
Zhang was reportedly sentenced to death on December 28, 2021 for murdering his children. His girlfriend was also given the death sentence because she pushed the father to commit the crime.
It’s unclear whether they’ll file an appeal.
