Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen were held accountable for the tragic deaths of a 2-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy who fell from the 15th floor of a residential tower in Chongqing, southwest China. Zhang, the father of the children, engaged in an extramarital affair with Ye, who initially remained unaware of his marital status and children.
Upon discovering Zhang’s family situation, Ye pressured him to kill his own children, considering them as obstacles to their potential marriage and a burden on their future life together, as revealed by the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People’s Court.
In November 2020, Zhang executed the act, throwing his children out of the apartment window in the absence of their mother, with whom he had agreed to divorce. Both Zhang and Ye were convicted of conspiring to stage an “accidental fall” from the 15th floor, according to a report by state-backed China Daily last year.
The death sentences, issued in December 2021, were carried out on Wednesday, coinciding with another high-profile execution on the same day – that of Wu Xieyu, found guilty of murdering his mother by repeatedly striking her with a dumbbell in 2015, according to a statement by a court in eastern Fujian province.
China, known for keeping data on its use of the death penalty confidential, is estimated by rights group Amnesty International to be the leading global executioner, with thousands of executions and death sentences reported annually. Sentences are frequently issued for offenses ranging from drug trafficking to corruption and murder, with lethal injection being the predominant method of execution.
The calculated and heartless nature of Zhang and Ye’s crime, combined with the tender age of the victims, sent shockwaves across China, quickly becoming a prominent topic on the social media platform Weibo on Wednesday, garnering nearly 200 million views. A comment under a related post by state news agency Xinhua expressed, “Today is truly a good day.”
