Man, 30, confesses he killed wife, hid her body

A man confessed in court on Wednesday to killing his wife and hiding her body in a refrigerator for three months.

Zhu Xiaodong, 30, had been accused of strangling the woman, Yang Liping, 30, over a dispute on Oct 18, 2016, at their home in Shanghai’s Hongkou district.

After killing her, he wrapped the body in a red quilt and hid it in a fridge on the balcony for 105 days, during which time he posed as his wife on social networking sites and through text messages to her parents and friends, Shanghai’s No 2 Intermediate People’s Court heard.

Zhu turned himself in to police on Feb 1 after inviting his parents over for dinner and confessing his guilt.

In court, Zhu confessed and said he was “willing to accept all punishment in line with the law”.

Yang’s family believed it was a premeditated murder and has demanded justice, calling for the most severe punishment.

“He didn’t kill my daughter on impulse, he plotted it,” Yang Gailian, the father of the victim, was quoted as saying outside the court by online news portal Eastday.com.

After Yang’s death, the family discovered that the couple, who registered for marriage in December 2015, had filed for a divorce in August last year. In the two months before Yang’s death, Zhu bought books about death and murder, and purchased the refrigerator that was later used to store Yang’s body. He claimed he bought it to store meat for his pet reptiles.

By October last year, the couple had decided not to divorce after all.

Zhu told Yang that he had been promoted to a position in Hong Kong and wanted to relocate there with her, but he was actually jobless at the time. She subsequently quit her job as a primary schoolteacher.

Yang wrote in her resignation letter that Zhu had persuaded her to quit. But in court, Zhu denied pressing her to resign, saying that she simply didn’t like her job.

During the hearing, Zhu admitted to having two extramarital affairs.

After Yang’s death, Zhu was also found to have used her credit card for luxury goods, daily expenses and trips in China and abroad amounting to nearly 200,000 yuan ($30,000). A police investigation showed he had also used Yang’s ID card to check in at hotels, accompanied by different women.

Police found that Zhu had transferred money on Oct 17 last year, not Oct 18, as he had previously testified. He said that he only transferred money after his wife’s death, and that he might have actually killed her on Oct 17.

The court did not hand down a sentence on Wednesday.