China Executes Notorious Female Serial Killer Lao Rongzhi For Murdering 7 People

China's notorious female serial killer Lao Rongzhi was executed by death penalty on Monday in Nanchang, East China's Jiangxi Province, Global Times reported. A statement posted by the Jiangxi High People's Court said that it finished the execution on Monday morning after receiving the Supreme Court's approval. The statement added that the 49-year-old woman was given the right to meet her family members before the execution, China Daily reported. 

Notably, Lao Rongzhi had been on the run for 20 years after being engaged in a series of crimes, including robbery, extortion, and brutal murder of seven people, between 1996 and 1999.

She was arrested by police in Xiamen, Fujian Province, on November 28, 2019. Jiangxi Provincial High People's Court last year upheld her death sentence as it heard her appeal. During the trial, she claimed her involvement in the crimes stopped at kidnapping and robbery and blamed her ex-boyfriend, who had been executed in 1999, for the murders, South China Morning Post reported. 

The court said that Lao conspired with her ex-boyfriend, Fa Ziying, to kidnap, rob, and murder seven people in four different cities including Nanchang, Wenzhou, Changzhou, and Hefei. In one case in 1996, they murdered a couple and their three-year-old child before robbing their home.

The court also rejected Lao and her lawyer's claims that she played a minor role in the series of crimes and only assisted her boyfriend. 

During the trial, she also tearfully apologized to the victims' families and offered compensation

According to Chinese media, Lao targeted victims while providing services at entertainment venues, while Fa killed them. Fa was apprehended in 1999 when collecting a ransom at the home of the last victim and executed later that year. Lao then fled Hefei in 1999 and used false identities while on the run for two decades. 

In November 2019, she was arrested at a shopping centre in Xiamen, where she was selling watches. She was charged with the crimes of intentional homicide, robbery, and kidnapping in August 2020.  She also had her political rights revoked, and all her assets were seized as a consequence of her participation in a range of criminal activities.