Man sentenced to death for serial killings
A former construction worker who killed 14 women over the past three years in Beijing has been sentenced to death, state media in China said today.
Hua Ruizhuo, 28, lured victims to the outskirts of Beijing, beat them to death and buried their bodies at building sites and rubbish dumps, according to newspapers and the Xinhua News Agency.
The reports said Hua’s killing spree began in July 1998, after he was enraged to discover that his girlfriend was a prostitute.
Hua said all his victims were prostitutes, though the newspaper Beijing Morning Post said most bodies were too badly decomposed to be identified.
‘‘Prostitutes aren’t good people. If I kill one, that’s one less,’’ the newspaper Beijing Youth Daily quoted him as saying.
Hua was sentenced by the Second Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing, the reports said.
Death sentences in China are automatically appealed to a higher court.
Most are upheld.
