China’s Jack the Ripper #truecrime

From 1988 to 2002 a series of brutal homicides took place in Baiyin and Baotou city in China. 11 women would lose their lives to an evil man named Gao Chengyong. He would break into their homes and attack them with knives, and in some cases restrain them with ropes so he could commit his evil acts against them then ransack their homes for valuables and money. His victims ranged from 8 to 29 years old making the crimes of even more despicable. After he was caught his wife would say that Gao disappeared for periods of time, but since he always came back with money she assumed he was working during these absences. What makes these crimes so horrific is the level of brutality involved. Gao would mutilate his victims, removing body parts and organs which is why he earned the nickname, the Chinese Jack the Ripper.

Goa Chengyong was born on the 10th of November 1964 in Yhuhong county in Gansu China. He grew up in Qingcheng, in Northeast China. Gao was considered a good but emotionally distant boy who had to care for his father after he was paralyzed. The boy had wanted to grow up and be a pilot but these dreams were shattered for what he would claim were political reasons.

Even with this dissapointment, Gao seemed to be set to lead a respectable life, getting married in the 80’s and settling in Baiyin. The first of his 2 sons was born in 1988. But this would also be the year he began the reign of terror that he would become known for. Based on this first homicide, it seems that he had been stalking young women long before this. Authorities would say he targeted young women wearing red who lived alone.

On May 26th 1988, 100 years since Jack the Ripper terrorized London, 34 year old Gao perpetrated a heinous crime against a 23 year old woman whom he had followed home from the grocery store he ran named Bai Jie. She was attacked in her home in Baiyin.

Her throat had been slashed and her clothing had been pushed up to expose her breasts and she was naked from the waist down. Much like the original Jack the Ripper had done, Goa stabbed her repeatedly in the torso. The autopsy would identify more than 2 dozen stab wounds.

Perhaps this first homicide was due to the stress of being a new father, but the removal of Ms Bais clothing points to a sexual motive. In any case, Gao would not strike again for more than 6 years. However, many of the subsequent crimes would be even more brutal.

In July 1994, he would attack again in a similar manner, but in this case he stabbed his young victim, 19 year old Shi Jun, 36 times. Some of his victims were not stabbed such as the 21 year old Li Na. On March 28 1997 Gao traveled out of his normal stalking grounds to Bautou. She was found tied up and stripped from the waist down with a broom shoved into her mouth. There were also traces of sexual assault.

This residue left behind would be one of the major ways investigators were able to identify Gao as their suspect. But he was able to commit many more atrocities before he was stopped. In 1998 he would commit 4 vicious homicides.

Gao would not only strangle or slash his later victims throats. In 1998 he would begin removing body parts truly earning the nickname the Chinese Jack the Ripper.

For his first homicide of the year on January 13, Gao removed a flap of skin from the top of a 29 year old woman named Yang Xias head as well as her ears.

Less than a week later on the 19th he broke into a 27 year old woman named Deng Yans home. In this case he once again slashed her throat then in what seems like a frenzy of bloodlust, Gao chewed off her left nipple and removed a piece of skin measuring over a foot long and 9.5 inches wide from her back.

On July 30th 1998, he broke into a home and came across an 8 year old child named Yao Yafen. The creature strangled the poor girl and hid her body in a closet. Once again he left biological residue on her remains. Gao would finish the year with his most horrific crime.

On November 30th he broke into the home of 23 year old Cui Jinping. Not only did he stab her nearly 2 dozen times, but he also removed her hands, breasts, and genitals. This is how she would later be discovered by her mother. This heinous act seems to have satisfied the creatures evil impulses and it would be almost 2 years before he took another life.

On November 20th of the year 2000. Gao broke into the home of 28 year old Luo Luoyang. He would once again cut his victims throat and remove her hands. There would not be another year as bloody as 1998, however in May of 2001, Chengyong would commit 2 homicides back to back.

The first was on May 22, when he broke into the home of a 27 year old nurse named Zhang Jing. Gao tied the young woman up before stabbing her 16 times in the neck. Unsatisfied, he was on the prowl the very next day, when

he entered a Baiyin hotel where he repeated the process as the day before, again using rope to incapacitate 21 year old Chang Lin before stabbing her to death.

Just over a year later, Gao Chengyong would once again enter a Baiyin hotel with criminal intent. 28 year old Zhu Ting was staying on the 3rd floor of the hotel when the creature attacked her. Gao strangled her until she was unconscious before assaulting her then stabbing her.

Somehow Chinese authorities did not connect these 11 crimes until 2004 despite their similarities and close proximity to one another.

As is sometimes the case with ideologically motivated governments, such crimes are concealed. Like the case of the Soviet Union, serial homicide were considered a result of capitalist decadence.
This approach allowed a monster like Andrei Chikatilo to take several dozen lives as authorities were reluctant to admit that such a thing was happening in their communist paradise.

In the case of Gao Chengyong in China, a reward of roughly $25,000 was offered in 2004 for his capture. But this reward did not result in an arrest. There was little for authorities to go on, but they had dna evidence. Everything changed in 2016, 14 years after the last homicide.

As has happened with other cases in recent years a routine DNA swab of a family member showed as a familial match to the killer sought by police.

Chengyong uncle was arrested and as he was processed a sample of his dna was collected.
After reviewing the uncles family members, Investigators soon descended on the now 52 year old Gao at the grocery store he ran on August 26 2016.

The methods used by interrogators were effective and he soon confessed to all 11 homicides. On March 18 2018 the creature was sentenced to be executed. This sentence was carried out on January 3rd 2019.

Crime, true crime, evil, serial killer, China, communism, horror, creepy