A Chinese couple who were executed for throwing two children out of the window of an apartment building wanted to start a new family together. The horrific incident caused nationwide outrage, causing the stringent punishment for Zhang Bo and his girlfriend Ye Chengchen. They believed to have died by lethal injection on Wednesday, more than two years after China's Supreme Court approved their death sentence, according to China Daily. Zhang was convicted for throwing his two children out of a high-rise apartment window from the 15th floor in 2020, while Ye was convicted for forcing her boyfriend to kill the children.
Zhang had a two-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy. The woman asked him to get rid of them because she saw them as an "obstacle" in their relationship.
New York Post said in a report that Zhang started an affair with Ye without telling her that he was married and had two children. He divorced his then-wife Chen Meilin in February 2020, but was forced by Ye to kill his children.
Videos surfaced on Chinese social media that showed Zhang grief-stricken at what he had just done. He was also seen banging his head on the wall and sobbing uncontrollably, according to the outlet.
Zhang told the police that he was sleeping when the children "fell" and said he woke up to people shouting downstairs. The children's mother said she was shocked to hear what happened with the children.
"The moment I heard my kids were actually thrown out of the 15th floor by their father and the mistress, I couldn't find any words to describe my feelings," Chen was quoted as saying by the Post.
"I couldn't imagine what my kids had experienced from the 15th floor to the ground. Were they desperate? Were they afraid?" she added.
Zhang and Ye's crime sent shock waves across China for its cold-blooded premeditation, as well as the youth of the victims.
Their executions quickly rose to the top of a list of trending topics on Chinese social media site Weibo on Wednesday, receiving nearly 200 million views.
