TWO murders in China caught the attention of netizens recently, with the makings of a good movie script where love turns into hate and results in the death of two women in separate incidents.
Both cases have one thing in common – the victims were killed by their husbands.
What caused the relationship of two people, very much in love, to turn so ugly that they could take the life of their other half?
About 30 years ago, a young couple was forced to break up after the woman’s parents strongly opposed to the relationship.
Soon after that, the woman married a man from the same village in Hangzhou city arranged by her parents and they were blessed with a daughter.
But cupid did not give up on bringing the woman, Lai, together with her first love, Xu.
They met again a decade later after their forced separation. Xu too already had a family of his own.
Their relationship rekindled and after keeping their courtship a secret for a while, Lai ran away to live with Xu in Shanghai where he operated a duck farm.
She filed for divorce twice, giving custody of her daughter to her husband while Xu forced his wife to sign divorce papers and left their son under her care.
The couple finally got married in 2008 and returned to Hangzhou after Xu closed down his duck farm following a slump in business.
He became a truck driver and she found work as a cleaner.
Their daughter was born the following year, but this fairy tale did not end with “and they all lived happily ever after”.
On the night of July 6, Xu, 55, lodged a police report, claiming his wife had gone missing for 36 hours.
He told the cops that Lai, 53, was still sleeping next to him when he got up to use the toilet after midnight on July 5. He only found her missing when he woke up again five hours later.
A search for Lai was immediately launched.
Mysteriously, all the surveillance cameras around the neighbourhood showed no signs of her since she returned home around 5pm on July 4. She just “vanished” into thin air.
The case caught intense attention from the media, which went all out to get material, including interviews of Xu, Lai’s family, their ex-spouses, neighbours and even villagers from their hometowns.
Netizens also turned into Sherlock Holmes, launched their own probes and generating a heated online discussion with their theories.
Police believed Lai’s home was the core area as no evidence showed she left the place.
They conducted a carpet search at the apartment vicinity, looking for clues at the parking lots, corridors, balconies and even the sewage and piping system.
After over two weeks, clues gathered led investigators to a nearby septic tank, where traces of Lai’s body were detected.
In a surprise twist of events, police revealed that they had arrested Xu on July 23.
The man, who appeared extremely sad and calm during media interviews, was suspected of murdering his wife while she was asleep, dismembering her body and then discarding her body parts around the neighbourhood.
The reason for the murder was family conflict – a common problem that no household can avoid.
It was reported that the couple had argued about who should inherit one of their two properties, with Xu wanting to give it to his own son while Lai wanted to give it to her daughter from her first marriage.
After the murder, tenants at the crime scene moved out one after another, saying they were not comfortable with the place.
They told local media that they were psychologically affected by the events.
Some revealed that they were afraid to walk in the compound at night and some said they dared not even use their own toilets.
The tenants who were unable to move out have conducted ritual ceremonies in the area, which others consider a nuisance.
“I can hear the sound of people chanting, smell the candles and joss papers burning almost every alternate day. It is eerie, ” said a resident.
Disturbances from curious outsiders who went to check out the place after the murder and live-streaming fans who trespassed on the vicinity were among other reasons they chose to move out.
In Anyue county, Sichuan province, a man, 30, was also arrested for killing his wife, 27.
He lodged a police report claiming his wife went missing on July 20.
After investigations, he confessed to killing his wife while she was sleeping. He was taken into custody on July 25.
Surveillance cameras captured the man pulling a roller luggage out of his home and walking out of the apartment compound.
Police have yet to reveal more details, saying the case is still under investigation.
