CHINA: A 12-year murder spree which claimed nine women, including karaoke bar hostesses, prostitutes and housewives - ended yesterday when a Chinese court sentenced three men to death in the northern city of Xi'an.
It's a case which has shocked people in China, where violent killings of this nature, which were almost unknown in the years immediately after the communists came to power in 1949, have become more frequent as society opens up. Many of the victims worked in the karaoke bars and hair salons which often act as fronts for brothels in modern China.
The three murderers - Yin Xiaomin, Cao Ying and Hu Yuelong - used a variety of methods to find their victims and only one woman managed to escape during the 12 years.
Their first victim, in 1993, was a prostitute working in a hair salon near the train station in Xi'an. She was raped, murdered and dismembered, then robbed of €2.50. Her remains were dissolved in two large vats of acid, a method which the killers used frequently to dispose of bodies.
The next victim worked in a karaoke singing club, where hostesses often work as prostitutes on the side. She too was killed and robbed and her skin turned into a vest, the Wen Wei Po newspaper reported. In the intervening years the three men killed another seven women, many of them sex workers.
Their final victim was a middle-aged housewife surnamed Wong. Since 2000, Cao claimed to be a private detective investigating extramarital affairs to lure his victims and Ms Wong went to a rented room to view the evidence. There they tied her up and suffocated her.
Xi'an police discovered six withdrawals from her bank account on the day she went missing and used triangulation technology to track her mobile phone, which led them to Hu, who confessed to the crimes and gave the names of his accomplices.
When police raided Yin's home they found medical books about anatomy, psychology and a grisly display of photographs taken of him with the women.
The Shaanxi province high court upheld death sentences handed down to the three men by the intermediate people's court.
Asked by a journalist after sentencing if he regretted his crime, Yin said: "Yes, a little bit. If society cared about me a little more than it did I don't think I'd end up like I am today. Sentencing me to death is a just decision."