China censors the Internet more than almost any other country in the world. There, searches are filtered, sites are blocked, unwanted news is deleted, and emails are monitored. And thanks to this strict censorship over the press and the Internet, serial killers and their horrifying deeds rarely make the news.
10. Chen Yongfeng
Chen Yongfeng killed 10 people in Wenzhou in Zhejiang province of China between February and May 2003. His victims were his competitors in the "garbage collecting" trade. They would sift through trash to find any usable material which they could later resell. When business became tough, Chen began luring his competitors to his home, where he murdered and dismembered them before dumping the body parts in different places across the city.
His arrest came by chance—police officers knocked on his door to ask him to move a bicycle parked outside his house. When Chen opened the door, the police officers saw that his home was filled with the blood of his latest victim who, incidentally, was also the owner of the bicycle. News of his murders and arrest instilled fear in the people of Wenzhou, who began looking at outsiders with suspicion. Police recovered 229 body parts from Chen's victims in dumpsters around the province—so many that it took 29 bags to hold them all.
His killings were motivated by theft—he had stolen 10,032 yuan ($1,600) from his victims. He was, however, ordered to pay nine times that amount to the relatives of his victims as funeral expenses. The Wenzhou City Intermediate Court sentenced him to death.
9. Duan Guocheng
Duan Guocheng killed 13 women in Hubei province in Central China. The killing spree began in April 1999 when he attacked, robbed, and killed a 24-year-old university student and took her keys and wallet. All his victims were young women in their twenties. He sexually assaulted some of them, but did not rape any. He initially targeted women walking alone in dark streets and unlit alleys, but soon began attacking them in their homes.
The first woman he attacked in her home was found with more than 30 stab wounds. While the killings lasted in the city of Wuhan, women began cutting their hair and stopped wearing red dresses because there were rumors that the killer targeted women fitting that specific profile. This earned Duan the name "The Red Dress Killer."
Duan had been sentenced to five years imprisonment for robbery in the '90s, and he spent most of his teenage years in a juvenile home. Police believe his killing spree was the result of his lonely teenage years and physical weakness.
8. Wang Fang
Wang Fang killed eight people, seven of whom were members of her extended family. She used a potent rat poison called dushuqiang, which has been banned in China since 1991. The killings were motivated by jealousy. The killing would have stopped much sooner, but Wang's family members never reported the murders to the police because they believed that the house in which they were living was haunted. She killed one of her nieces in 1996 by putting poison in water and asking her to drink it because she felt her mother-in-law preferred the girl to her own daughter. She poisoned another niece two months later because she felt that the girl's mother belittled her and her husband.
Another boy faced her wrath in 1999 because his father—who was a relative—had quarreled with her earlier, and she went on to poison four other family members, including her parents-in-law. Wang was finally caught after she poisoned her 57-year-old lover. She killed him because, according to her, he always failed to keep his promises.
7. Huang Yong
In 2003, Huang Yong confessed to murdering 25 young men and boys. His motive: He wanted to know what it felt like to be an assassin. He specifically targeted young males, because older men were too vigilant and killing females would make him less of a "hero." He began killing in September 2001 by luring boys from video halls and Internet cafes to his house under the guise of getting them jobs or funding their education. He would tie them to a noodle processing machine he called the "intelligent hobbyhorse" before suffocating them to death with a cloth. He then kept their belts as souvenirs.
