'Kindergarden killer' sentenced to death
A court sentenced Beijing’s notorious “kindergarten killer” to death for murdering a teacher, a pupil and three others in a crime spree going back three years, it was reported today.
Fu Hegong, 31, was convicted of murder, stealing, rape and molestation, by Beijing’s No 2 Intermediate Court, the city’s newspapers said in front-page coverage of the case.
Fu, who had served two jail terms for theft, sneaked into an infant school on October 21, 2004, to rob it, the Beijing Youth Daily said.
When he was discovered, he killed a teacher by smothering her with a quilt and killed a five-year-old boy by hitting him with a fire extinguisher, the court found.
Fu was also convicted of killing two people in 2002 with bricks and knives after quarreling with them, and of stabbing a security guard to death in 2004 during a robbery.
The kindergarten murders were among a rash of unrelated attacks on schools in China last year, which prompted President Hu Jintao to issue a nationwide order for schools to hire guards and tighten security.
China has suffered rising crime and violence as the government has loosened social controls over the past two decades.
Fu refused showed no remorse as he was sentenced to death, the reports said.
Death penalties in China are automatically appealed to a higher court.
