Police snare ‘China’s Jack the Ripper’

Police believe they have captured a serial killer dubbed China’s “Jack the Ripper” for the way he mutilated several of his 11 female victims, state-run media reported yesterday, nearly three decades after the first murder.

Gao Chengyong, 52, was detained at the grocery store he runs with his wife in Baiyin, in the northwest province of Gansu, the China Daily said.

The paper said he had confessed to 11 murders in Gansu and the neighbouring region of Inner Mongolia between 1988 and 2002, citing the ministry of public security.

Gao allegedly targeted young women wearing red and followed them home to rape and kill them, often cutting their throat and mutilating their bodies, according to reports. The youngest victim was eight years old.

Some victims also had their reproductive organs removed, the Beijing Youth Daily added.

“The suspect has a sexual perversion and hates women,” police said in 2004, when they linked the crimes for the first time and offered a reward of 200,000 yuan ($30,000) for information leading to an arrest.

“He’s reclusive and unsociable, but patient,” they said at the time.