China executes notorious female ‘serial killer’ Lao Rongzhi: Report

China’s notorious female serial killer Lao Rongzhi was executed by death penalty on Monday morning in Nanchang, East China’s Jiangxi Province, for a series of crimes, including the brutal murders of seven people, according to state-run Global Times. Between 1996 and 1999, Lao Rongzhi reportedly engaged in a series of crimes, including robbery, extortion, and the brutal murder of seven individuals, one of whom was a child, added the report. The Jiangxi Provincial High People’s Court upheld Lao’s death sentence last year, a verdict originally pronounced by the Intermediate People’s Court of Nanchang, Jiangxi, almost a year prior. Her appeal was heard in August, during which the high court affirmed the severity of her involvement in the deaths of seven people. Aside from facing capital punishment, Lao had her political rights revoked, and all her assets were seized as consequences for her participation in a range of criminal activities, such as robbery and kidnapping. The high court concluded that Lao and her ex-boyfriend, Fa Ziying, deliberately and unlawfully took the lives of others, utilised violence or threats to unlawfully acquire property, and kidnapped individuals to extort money or valuables. The woman conspired with her ex-boyfriend, Fa Ziying, to kidnap, rob and murder seven people in four different cities including Nanchang, Wenzhou, Changzhou and Hefei, all in southeast China, between 1996 and 1999, the court said. Lao was mainly responsible for looking for targets, while Fa committed the violence. Lao was directly involved in the killing of five of the victims, and held responsible for the death of two others, according to the court. In one case in 1996, they murdered a couple and their three-year-old child before robbing their home. Fa was apprehended in 1999 when collecting a ransom at the home of the last victim and executed later that year. Chinese media reports suggest that Lao selected targets at entertainment venues. Lao managed to elude authorities for approximately 20 years, adopting various aliases until her apprehension in Fujian province in 2019. In August 2020, she was formally charged with intentional homicide, robbery, and kidnapping. With inputs from agencies