A Chinese man attempted to boil a two-month-old baby in a wok after stabbing her 22-year-old mother to death.

The incident reportedly happened on November 15 in Dandong, Liaoning province. You can watch the news report, above, via Liaoning Satellite TV. The suspect is 35-year-old Sun Chuanjun, who apparently divorced the toddler’s aunt earlier this year, though the exact motive for his heinous rampage aren’t known.

Epoch Times, citing Liaoshen Evening News, has this report:

“When we got to the door, the suspect was on top of Xu Xiaoli; there was blood all over the floor,” the neighbor told Liaoshen Evening News. “Sun Chuanjun threatened to kill us if we approached him. He ran into the house and grabbed the baby girl, placing her between his legs and taking off on a scooter.”

Sun reportedly then took the baby to his father’s house, and put her in a large wok half-filled with water. Then he put a rock on top of the lid, and turned the heat on.

When Sun’s father came home, he heard the child’s cries coming from the kitchen, and rescued her from the pot.

The child suffered severe burns on her arms and legs, and muscle damage. Here’s a picture of her — alive, thankfully — from the Liaoning Satellite TV report:

And the wok she was supposedly thrown into:

Got nothing else.

(H/T Alicia)

A 37-year-old mother, Li Qiaozhen, and her four children, ages 9, 7, 5, and 1, were stabbed to death inside their home on Saturday night in Brooklyn, New York. At least one of the victims may have been decapitated.

The murderer has been identified as Chen Mingdong, 25, reportedly an illegal alien from China who was staying with the family. (He is apparently Li’s husband’s cousin.) The New York Post reports that, according to a police source, Chen said he killed the family because they “had too much.”

“The family had too much. Their income (and) lifestyle was better than his,” the source said.

More disturbing details:

Inside, cops found a house of horrors in which all five victims were hacked to death and one — a 1-year-old boy — was decapitated, the source said.

Chen also assaulted an officer while in custody at the 66th Precinct.

But he became violent at one point during questioning at the 66th Precinct station house, punching a detective while cuffed to a table by one of his hands, a source said.

Earlier, he also threw a pair of eyeglasses at a sergeant who serves as a Chinese-language interpreter, then kicked the table and knocked the sergeant to the ground, the source said.

Li’s cousin said that Chen was “crazy” and that he has stayed before with the victims.

New York’s chief of police Philip Banks III spoke Sunday about the incident. Here’s Metro New York:

Responding officers arrived to find four young children and their mother “cut and butchered with a kitchen knife” in their Sunset Park home, Banks said.

“It’s just a scene that you’ll never forget,” Banks said. He called the killing “an unspeakable act.”

In total, Chen has been charged with one count of murder in the first degree, four counts of murder in the second degree, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, and five counts of weapon possession.

Banks did not confirm whether Chen was staying illegally in the US, nor did he officially reveal any motive.

Officers have been assisting detectives with translation, Banks said.

Banks said the NYPD does not know if Chen had any documented history of mental illness.

“But we believe if you commit such an act like this, you cannot be too sane,” Banks said.

(Image via NY Daily News) (H/T Andrea P.)

On July 23, Han Lei grabbed a 34-month-old baby out of her stroller in Beijing and threw her to the ground, killing her. This fact is not in dispute, as there is apparently surveillance footage of this sequence. Han, who had exited his friend’s vehicle from the passenger side, was reportedly upset at the toddler’s mother, who was standing in a parking space. Yes, a baby died due to a parking dispute.

On Monday, Han offered quite the incredible defense for his actions. “I never wanted to hurt anyone, let alone a child,” the 39-year-old said during a hearing at Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, as reported by China Daily.

He added, “We didn’t want to stop the car at the bus station, but it was the only way to go. So I got out to talk with her, but she wasn’t polite.”

He then slapped the woman.

“I felt ashamed fighting a woman in public, so I transferred my rage to the handcart, throwing it to the ground. I didn’t know what I’d thrown until someone shouted there was a kid.”

Did you get that? His defense is that he didn’t know he had thrown a baby, because he thought the baby was a handcart.

The driver of Han’s vehicle, Li Ming, was charged for harboring a criminal. Hey Li, how do you feel about your friend’s defense?

Not amused, it would seem.

The prosecution is recommending the death sentence for Han, and a two-year sentence for Li.

Han was previously sentenced to life in prison for car theft. I suppose when you’re staring a lethal injection in the face, you too would say anything. His is a hail mary defense; better than going gentle into that good night.

Toddler-death defendant says he meant no harm (China Daily)

UPDATE, 9/25, 12:23 pm: Han Lei was given the death penalty today, according to Xinhua. Li Ming, for harboring him, was given a two-year sentence on top of a prior three-year sentence that he had yet to complete (because he was out on parole).

In a two-paragraph statement to the New York Times, Bo Guagua — the son of Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai, convicted last August of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood — said he has been denied contact with his parents for the past year and a half, and hopes his father gets a chance to defend himself at his trial that is scheduled for Thursday.

Then he dropped a big “however”:

I hope that in my father’s upcoming trial, he is granted the opportunity to answer his critics and defend himself without constraints of any kind. However, if my well-being has been bartered for my father’s acquiescence or my mother’s further cooperation, then the verdict will clearly carry no moral weight.

It’s a sly remark. In Bo Guagua’s view, his father is not being “tried” for bribery, corruption, and abuse of power, but persecuted, like Ned Stark, and only through the noble, self-sacrificing gesture of bargaining for his son’s well-being will he acquiesce to his accusers.

What else is a son to think?

The second of the two paragraphs is interesting, too:

My mother, who is now silenced and defenseless, cannot respond to the opportunistic detractors that attack her reputation with impunity. She has already overcome unimaginable tribulation after the sudden collapse of her physical health in 2006 and subsequent seclusion. Although it is of little comfort to my anxiety about her state of health, I know that she will continue to absorb all that she is accused of with dignity and quiet magnanimity.

Opportunistic detractors? You’d think he doesn’t live in the US, judging by how little he understands the way media works. Look on the bright side though: if Gu Kailai had been tried in the US, Jay Leno would still be cracking jokes. Or is Guagua, perhaps, talking about the Heywood family demanding millions as compensation to the death of Neil? As if that weren’t standard operating procedure.

Anyway. Again, what’s a son to do?

Bo Guagua’s Statement (NY Times)

With each day that we still wait for the trial of Bo Xilai to begin, it becomes a little easier to forget what this is all about. Politics, economics, how it affects Xi Jinping’s reforms, and shuanggui, yes, all very interesting, but at the heart of the matter is a murder — the poisoning of British businessman Neil Heywood — and a high-level cover-up that has already resulted in two people — former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun and Bo Xilai consort Gu Kailai — being given (essentially) 15-year sentences.

Just today, Ann Heywood, the mother of Neil Heywood, has issued a statement to remind everyone of this little inconvenient fact: that Chinese politics is important and all — “not wanting to cause unnecessary embarrassment to the Chinese authorities,” she wrote about refusing all media requests until now — but you know what else would be nice? Justice.

The full statement is below, but it’s the final paragraph that matters:

It is now more than 1½ years since my only son Neil died suddenly in Chongqing, China, at the age of 41. Until now, I have refused all requests from the media to comment on Neil’s death, not wanting to cause unnecessary embarrassment to the Chinese authorities. However, circumstances now compel me to break my silence.

In the months following Neil’s death, it gradually became clear, from media reports and from official Chinese statements, that Neil did not die from natural causes but was murdered. It also became clear that prominent Chinese officials, including a member of the Communist Party’s politburo and a number of senior policemen, were connected with the murder and involved in a systematic coverup.

While struggling to come to terms with my own grief, my overriding concern has been for the security and well-being of Neil’s two children. Now aged just 8 and 12, they are particularly vulnerable to the hurt and horror of their father’s murder and, since Neil was the family’s sole breadwinner, to uncertainty and insecurity, there being no financial provision for their future.

Given the circumstances of Neil’s murder, I have been surprised and disappointed that, despite repeated discreet approaches to the Chinese authorities, there has been no substantive or practical response. I hope and trust that the leaders of this great nation, which Neil loved and respected, will now show decisiveness and compassion, so as to mitigate the consequences of a terrible crime and to enable my family finally to achieve some kind of closure to our ongoing nightmare.

Essentially, a “let’s get it on already.” It’s as if high-level negotiations of Bo’s fate — after all this time — continue behind closed doors, with powerful opinions split on how to move forward, leaving the rest of us in lingo. “Senior Communist Party officials worry that Bo’s core constituency – conservative leftists as well as the economically dispossessed – will be inflamed by a harsh verdict: the death penalty or even life in prison,” reports Reuters. It continues:

The risk is that Bo’s supporters could remain a brake on the reforms that favor private businesses and greater reliance on market forces.

“Bo Xilai still has many supporters and sympathizers in the party, the government and the military,” said a party source, requesting anonymity due to the political sensitivity of the case.

…”It will be difficult to please both factions regardless of how heavy or light the sentence is,” the source with ties to the leadership said.

In a sign of just how deep the ideological rift runs, a recent commentary in state news agency Xinhua’s online edition called for officials and party members to close ranks.

The commentary, published the day Bo was indicted last month, urged officials to “resolutely uphold the central (government’s) decision, not to be afraid, shrink back or hesitate once the order (verdict) is out the door.”

So what do we tell Mrs. Heywood? Sorry? Alas, the murder of Neil Heywood long ago stopped being about him.

UPDATE, 8/13, 10:33 am: Hmm:

The family of a British businessman whose 2011 murder led to the downfall of Communist Party highflier Bo Xilai is seeking compensation of at least 30 million yuan (about $5 million) for his death, according to people familiar with discussions on the matter.

Yesterday evening at 8:30, BJC contributor Alicia was passing the Jingkelong Supermarket at Xindong Lu near Sanlitun when she saw a crowd of people gathered outside. Curious, she paused and looked in. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. A minute later, cops attired in black, with black boots — that’s how you know they’re serious — walked up and asked people to disperse. Some lingered of course, but no one quite knew what was happening.

Apparently there had been a fatal stabbing inside that store just 90 minutes prior.

Reports are that a Jingkelong store manager was killed by an employee at 7 pm over a pay dispute, according to People’s Daily.

Valentina Luo of That’s Beijing provides a good summary of the situation:

The victim reportedly managed the security team at the Sanlitun Jingkelong, according to the Beijing Times.

The news outlet also reported that it had learned that the unnamed suspect was a disgruntled former employee who had been in previous disputes with his supervisor, the victim, for deducting his wages.

Witnesses report a frenzied attack. Netizens on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like messaging service, say the suspect “kept stabbing the man’s body even after he had killed him already.”

Luo went back to the scene this morning to find that all had been cleaned up, with no one wanting to talk.

Yet this morning, all seemed jolly with staff doing a brisk trade. There was no mention of the shocking event, and the usually gossipy sales assistants claimed to know nothing of the case.

“I didn’t hear about it,” said one. “Sorry, I was on morning shift yesterday,” said another, a claim made by several.

(It sounded almost as if they had been handed a sheet with three stock denial answers from which they chose to reply randomly. No one looked surprised, no one looked even curious about what I was talking about: an explosive account of tragic violence that had occurred right at their workplace.)

All has returned to normal. Until the next attack, of course.

Photos that follow are from Sina Weibo:

Frenzied Knife Attack in Sanlitun Leaves One Dead, No One Cares (That’s Beijing)

Three people are dead and five injured after a knife attack in Shenzhen this morning. Reports Xinhua:

Police received a call at 9:45 am Monday saying that a man was randomly attacking passersby with a knife on the side of a road in the city’s Luohu District.

The suspect is a 40-year-old surnamed He who has a history of mental illness. He is originally from Jieyang, Guangdong province.

He allegedly left his apartment Monday morning while experiencing a mental disturbance, rushed into a roadside restaurant, seized a knife, injured the restaurant’s owner and then attacked passersby, according to the investigation.

Ifeng has some graphic pictures here. The above video shows police detaining the man.

There have been a spate of knife attacks in the past week and a half. In Beijing on July 18, a mentally unstable man killed two people outside a mall, prompting discussion about whether China is providing adequate support for those who suffer from serious mental health issues.

(H/T The Nanfang)

Last night around 8:50 pm at Wudian Road in Beijing’s Daxing district, a man assaulted a woman after a parking dispute, puller her two-year-old baby out of her stroller, and threw her onto the ground, killing her, reports Beijing Times.

The details:

It was reported that the woman pushing her sleeping baby stopped at a bus stop to check on her child when a car trying to pull over near where the woman stopped.

The surveillance footage nearby showed that the man sitting on the passenger seat got out and beat the woman after a heated quarrel. Then, the man lifted the baby girl in the stroller and smashed her to the ground.

All of this was captured on camera, footage of which we’re not looking forward to seeing.

The mother reportedly rushed her child to the nearest hospital. The baby was pronounced dead en route to a second facility.

The man was soon arrested and identified as a 42-year-old surnamed Han, recently released from jail for theft. The investigation is ongoing.

(Image via Beijing Times of the scene of the incident)

UDPATE, 8/26, 4:09 pm: The killer, Han Lei, is reportedly “begging” for the death penalty. Via chinaSMACK:

Recently, while being interrogated by the prosecution, Han Lei expressed that ever since the incident, “it has been particularly painful these past 20-some days, I really don’t want to live anymore.”

…According to Li Ming, “as soon as I saw there was a stroller in the parking spot, I thought to myself that I mustn’t hit it,” but just as he was thinking about how to park his car, Han Lei was already arguing with the woman next to the stroller about parking. At first, he “didn’t see any sign of anger or anything,” but a moment later, “when I looked again, they had already came to blows.”

In was during these few short minutes that the baby girl in the stroller was lifted high above Han Lei’s head and was slammed onto the ground.

UPDATE, 9/17, 9:30 pm: He’s apparently not begging for the death penalty anymore, since his defense is essentially, “I thought the baby was a shopping cart.

UPDATE, 9/25, 12:23 pm: Han Lei was given the death penalty today, according to Xinhua. Li Ming, for harboring him, was given a two-year sentence on top of a prior three-year sentence that he had yet to complete (because he was out on parole).

Adapted with permission from Hug China.

It sounds like a Hollywood thriller: 33 crew members start off on an ocean voyage on the Shandong No. 2683 trawler; when the fishing boat returns eight months later, only 11 men are left, with 20 killed and two missing.

On June 20, a Weihai court in eastern China’s Shandong province convicted all 11 of the men for murder, reports Xinhua News Agency. Five of the men received death sentences, one was given a suspended death sentence (life imprisonment, basically), and the other five were given 4- to 15-year sentences.

The Shandong trawler massacre was reportedly engineered by 28-year-old Liu Guiduo, who was unhappy with his salary and perceived injustice on the boat. The men on board were to be paid 45,000 yuan ($7,200) per year, plus commission, for two years of service at sea.

Under the leadership of Liu, a gang plotted to hijack the vessel and hold it ransom as it was sailing near Chile in June 2011. Those who tried to foil the plot were stabbed to death or forced to jump into the ocean.

On December 27, 2010, the Lu Rong Yu 2682 trawler (Shandong province, Rongcheng city No. 2682 fishing boat) started off from Shidao Fishing Port, Weihai city, Shandong province, the largest fishing port in northern China, with Li Chengquan as the capitain.

Among the 33 onboard, only 10 had experience on the ocean. Eighteen were missing the relevant legal certificates.

On June 16, 2011, while refueling on the Chilean coast, Liu Guiduo reportedly teamed up with Bao De and several other men to hijack the boat. An injured captain Li was forced to steer the trawler back to China.

The next morning, kitchen chef Xia Qiyong, carrying a knife, asked to see the captain. In the ensuing tussle, one of Liu’s men stabbed Xia, and Liu’s gang threw him overboard. Chief officer Fu Yizhong was taken hostage.

By July 20, the boat had reached western Hawaii. Liu Guiduo, Bao De and their accomplices plotted to kill six crew members suspected of revolt. Those six — plus three others — were dispatched that day, and another man, a college graduate named Ma Yuchao, went missing that night.

The killings terrified the remaining crew. Captain Li, crew member Cui Yong and Duan Zhifang asked to join the gang.

On July 24, with the trawler 1,000 miles east of Japan, Liu Guiduo received secret information that Bao De and friends were conspiring against him. That night, Liu set a trap and killed Bao and five others. Most were stabbed or forced to jump into the sea.

Finally, on July 25, the trawler took on water, and captain Li was forced to telephone Shandong for help. Four men tried to escape on a rubber raft, but — horrifically — it drifted back to the boat. Liu Guiduo, Li Chengquan and other survivors stoned those on the raft and watched most of them drown.

One man, Song Guochun, was pulled aboard, only to be summarily executed. He was bound with iron and thrown into the sea.

On July 29, the agricultural department of China ordered China Fishing Administration Boat No. 118 to pull Lu Rong Yu 2683 back to China. On the morning of August 12, the trawler returned to Shidao Fishing Port, where it had started off eight months prior. On the day of arrival, the 11 men onboard were immediately detained.

Death voyage across Pacific Ocean… (Hug China)

A man from Yishui, Shandong province fatally stabbed two people yesterday around 5 pm in front of Chaoyang Joy City, a mall near downtown Beijing. He was apprehended at the scene by unarmed police in dramatic fashion — first, slowly backed into a corner, then surrounded, then taken down. You can watch all of this happen in the above video.

The footage was first uploaded to Youku by user Kevin_Lena. The amazing part happens at the 2:25 mark: while the suspect has his back turned, an officer races forward to corral him, but loses his footing on the sloped lawn. The suspect raises his weapon above his head and appears to strike, causing a woman behind the camera to shriek. But others quickly swarm the knifeman and wrestle him to the ground before bludgeoning and kicking him.

All the while, the assailant’s two earlier victims lay bleeding.

“Attend to the people, damnit,” one man says.

“Long dead,” his female companion informs.

She must have gotten a good look at their wounds. Both who were stabbed — one of them a foreigner — indeed died of their injuries.

UPDATE, 7/18, 2:48 am: We’re reminded of the previous knife attack in Beijing just this May, when a man from Heilongjiang killed two people before being suppressed by police.

The previous time a foreigner was killed in a random act of street violence was in July 2012, when an American was fatally stabbed in Xicheng district.

At around 5 pm today, a mentally deranged man from Yishui, Shandong province fatally stabbed two people outside Chaoyang Joy City shopping mall in Beijing. He is currently in custody.

Among the dead is a foreigner. UPDATE, 7/23: An American, the US Embassy has confirmed. No other details are currently known.

More information as it becomes available. In the meantime, disturbing pictures of the scene are beginning to appear on Sina Weibo, which you can check out below.

(H/T Derrick Sobodash)

UPDATE, 7/18, 2 am: Here’s how unarmed police took down the suspect:

UPDATE, 7/18, 2:48 am: We’re reminded of the previous knife attack in Beijing just this May, when an attacker from Heilongjiang also killed two people before being suppressed by police.

The previous time a foreigner was killed in a random act of street violence was in July 2012, when an American was fatally stabbed in Xicheng district.

A newborn in Harbin was thrown out a second-floor apartment window on Thursday and run over by an SUV. There’s, um, video of that happening, above.

Reports AFP:

The mother – an 18-year-old hair salon worker surnamed Zhang – gave birth on Tuesday in the bathroom of a second-floor apartment she shared with nearly 10 people, the official provincial Shenghuo Newspaper said.

In her weakened state she walked upstairs to a window between the second and third floors, and tossed out her daughter.

It was not clear whether the baby was killed hitting the ground, or by the impact of the car.

She was no longer breathing by the time a security guard noticed the bloodstained bag and called police.

The mother is being held for homicide.

Horror as mother tosses newborn from building into path of car (AFP via SCMP, h/t Shanghaiist)

We desperately don’t want this to be true, but Tsinghua’s famous three-year-old cat, who had been adopted as the university’s unofficial mascot, may have been brutally killed last week.

This is bad. Reports That’s Beijing:

The man responsible for discovering the dead feline – librarian and unofficial catsitter Mr. Li – appeared to confirm students’ worst fears when he revealed that the Curator’s lifeless body had been found in a pool of lukewarm water. This was not the first time such an incidence has occurred either; the Curator had survived previous attacks in which boiling water was inexplicably thrown over it.

That’s the implication alright: Curator has boiling water thrown on him and was scalded to death.

At least one Sina Weibo user has claimed Curator has been doused with sulfuric acid before as well. Goddamnit, folks.

The candles are out on Sina Weibo, along with sad elegies written from the cat’s point of view, and messages such as, “Heaven doesn’t have bad people.”

Students have been paying respect to Curator under a gingko tree on campus, where he’s buried. A plaque may be dedicated in his honor, which is nice gesture, we suppose, but will hardly cause anyone to forget the cruelty that killed him. The moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, yadda yadda, but it’s the assholes that cause it to be crooked in the first place.

This Week in Animal Abuse (That’s Beijing)

I’m going to leave this here and back away, because I don’t even –

The body of woman, who was beheaded by a man on Friday morning, June 28, 2013 outside a supermarket in Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province, is seen lying on the ground. The attacker has been held by police, while the victim has not been identified. [Photo: Sohu.com]

China Radio International has a couple more pictures, and one of them is very graphic. Proceed carefully.

Meanwhile, Hainan continues its efforts to replace Henan as China’s most fucked-up province, with this story following ones like this and this.

(H/T Stuart Wiggin)

It doesn’t get much more disturbing than this. Two girls were found starved to death on the fifth floor of an apartment in Nanjing, Jiangsu province last Friday. According to the Telegraph, the mother Ms. Le, was arrested on Sunday.

Also:

During one recent visit to the family’s home, Mr Zhang said he had seen “the younger daughter lying on her stomach by the lavatory, totally covered in faeces.” Another neighbour, 55-year-old Shi Chunxiang, said she had also heard banging and screaming coming from the apartment.

It was not clear why neighbours had not raised the alarm.

This story comes on the heels of other explosive articles involving children, specifically child abuse. The Telegraph points out there were recently reports of “an 11-year-old girl from Guizhou province whose mouth was sewn together with fishing line by her father.”

There was an eight-year-old who burned to death in her locked room earlier this month, and of course who can forget the woman who flushed her baby down a toilet.

Let this serve as a somber lesson: if you don’t have your shit together, don’t bring a child into the world.

(Image via)