Case process
At 12:25 PM on February 18, 2017, near Wuchang Railway Station in Wuhan, Hubei Province, a serious criminal case occurred. The suspect, Hu Zedong (22 years old, from Xuanhan, Sichuan), due to a verbal dispute, held a kitchen knife at a noodle restaurant and decapitated the restaurant owner, Yao. The police responded quickly and arrested the suspect at the scene.
The massacre occurred near the east square of Wuchang Railway Station, in Wunan Village No. 1, which is an urban village. The village has many small hotels and small restaurants, mainly serving travelers from other places.
According to the recollections of multiple witnesses, Hu Zedong and Yao had a dispute before the incident. Since there was no surveillance at the scene, there are two different accounts of the details at the time of the case. Some citizens told the media that Hu was suspected of having a dispute with the owner over ‘being charged a few extra yuan for noodles.‘Another version is that Hu committed the act after failing to get a job at the noodle shop.
Witnesses said that after the altercation, Hu Zedong entered the kitchen and rushed out with a knife, first slashing the arms and legs of the boss surnamed Yao, and then chasing him outside. At the door of the noodle restaurant, Hu Zedong slashed several times, brutally cut off the head of the noodle restaurant owner, and threw it into the trash can.
After the incident, the criminal suspect was taken into police custody. Authorities revealed that the suspect has a level 2 mental disability, and the forensic appraisal concluded that Hu should have limited criminal responsibility.
Case handling
Case Notice
At 4:11 p.m. on February 18, 2017, the Wuchang District Public Security Bureau of Wuhan City, Hubei Province officially released a message: At 12:25 noon on February 18, a vicious criminal case occurred near Wuchang Railway Station in Wuhan City. The suspect Hu Zedong (22 years old, from Xuanhan, Sichuan), cut off the head of Yao, the owner of the noodle restaurant, with a kitchen knife at the entrance of a restaurant due to a verbal dispute.
Court hearing
On December 15, 2017, the case was heard in the Intermediate People’s Court of Wuhan City, Hubei Province. The trial began at 9:15 a.m. and lasted until around 2 p.m.; in court, the victim’s family requested compensation of 1 million yuan. The defendant Hu Zedong stated that he was willing to compensate the victim’s family to the best of his ability.
It is understood that during the trial, the results of the public security investigation and witness testimonies confirmed that Hu Zedong did not have a dispute with Yao over the price of noodles, but it was related to job applications. Before applying at Yao’s noodle shop, Hu Zedong had also applied to another shop and had threatened the staff there with a knife.
Hu Zedong’s defense lawyer Yu Qiu stated that the prosecution and the defense have different understandings of the cause of the case, and he is not convenient to reveal the specific reason. The lawyer representing the victim’s family, He Chunbo, stated that at the time of the incident, Hu Zedong was dissatisfied because his job application was rejected, and the victim Yao had not done anything special.
First-instance verdict
At 10:00 on June 27, 2018, this case was adjudicated in the first instance at the Intermediate People’s Court of Wuhan City, Hubei Province. The final judgment determined that Hu Zedong was guilty of intentional homicide and sentenced him to death with a two-year reprieve. For the crime of theft, he was sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment and fined 1,000 yuan. The sentences for multiple crimes were combined, resulting in a death sentence with a two-year reprieve and a fine of 1,000 yuan. At the same time, the court imposed restrictions on sentence reduction and ordered Hu to pay the victim’s family over 25,000 yuan in funeral expenses, rejecting other claims.
Previously, Yao’s family had filed a lawsuit seeking 1 million yuan in compensation from Hu Zedong.
Suspect
The criminal suspect Hu Zedong is a person from Group One, Longhu Village, Sandun Tujia Ethnic Township, Xuanhan County, Dazhou. Sandun Tujia Ethnic Township borders Wanzhou, Chongqing, and belongs to a karst landform mountain area. Most young and able-bodied local farmers go out to work. Hu Zedong’s family moved to Paifang Township, Dazhu County, many years ago, and bought a house to settle there.
According to Hu Zedong’s mother, Ran Xiaofang (pseudonym), Hu Zedong had a bad temper and was hot-headed. He attended junior high school at Sandun Township Middle School, but dropped out before graduating due to poor academic performance and began working outside at the age of sixteen or seventeen. Previously, he had worked on the railway with his cousin. On a job application form, Hu Zedong listed the position he was applying for as an auto mechanic. However, Ran Xiaofang said that Hu Zedong did not know how to repair cars and had no other technical skills.
On October 25, 2010, the Xuanhan County Disabled Persons’ Federation issued a disability certificate to Hu Zedong, with the disability category being ‘mental’ and the disability level being ‘Level 2’. His guardian was his father, Hu Daping. ‘His illness is sometimes good and sometimes bad; when it flares up, there is no way to manage it,’ said Hu Daping. In 2015, while at a construction site in Fujian, Hu Zedong injured his father, and it took several months just to recover from the wounds.
In December 2016, Hu Zedong was sent by his family to a psychiatric hospital in Xuanhan County, where he stayed for more than a month, spending several thousand yuan, and his condition seemed to improve. However, afterwards, Hu Zedong refused to go out to work with his father and cousin.