Fa Ziying and Lao Rongzhi

Fa Ziying (Chinese: 法子英; pinyin: Fǎ Ziyīng; 1 October 1964 – 28 December 1999) and Lao Rongzhi (Chinese: 劳荣枝; pinyin: Láo Róngzhī; 25 December 1974 – 18 December 2023) were a pair of Chinese serial killers and robbers born in Jiujiang, Jiangxi. Between 1996 and 1999, after becoming a romantic couple, Fa and Lao committed a series of crimes, including kidnapping, robbery, and murder in Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui. A total of seven people were killed and a total of over 100,000 yuan were stolen by the couple (roughly ¥30,000 through property theft and ¥70,000 through kidnapping ransom). Fa was arrested on 23 July 1999 when a ransom handoff was interrupted by police and subsequently sentenced to death, deprived of political rights for life, and fined 100,000 yuan, the same amount stolen in total from the pair's victims, by the Hefei Intermediate People's Court. On 28 December 1999, Fa was executed by being shot.

Lao, who had been on the run since 1999, was captured and arrested on 28 November 2019 in Xiamen, Fujian. Lao appealed in court, and the trial opened at the Jiangxi Provincial Higher People's Court on 28 August 2019, and announced on November 2019 of the same year that the death sentence was upheld. Although Lao admitted to being an accomplice to Fa, she claimed to have only done so in fear of her own life, as Fa had physically and sexually abused her throughout their relationship. On 9 September 2021, she was sentenced to death by the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court for her deliberate crimes that she had committed. On 18 December 2023, upon the endorsement from the Supreme People's Court, Lao was executed.

Crimes

• July 1996 in Jiujiang: Fa was implicated in a non-fatal harpoon stabbing. Fa and Lao flee Jiujiang for Nanchang, where Lao takes the name Chen Jia from a stolen identity card and began working as a hostess for night locales. Lao also moonlighted as a sex worker, which was a guise to scope out rich men and rob prospective clients before any service could occur.
• 28 July 1996 in Nanchang: Posing as an escort at a dance hall, Lao lured 35-year old businessman Xiong Qiyi to the home she and Fa, where Fa ambushed Xiong, tied him up and forced him into divulging his address before killing him with a knife and dismembering his body. Using Xiong's keys, they then gained access to his flat. Fa and Lao's confessions vary whether they entered the flat one or more times, but in the evening, the pair found Xiong's wife, identified by her surname Zhang, and two-year old daughter (officially listed as three after Chinese age reckoning) sleeping. Fa robbed Zhang at knifepoint before fatally strangling both her and her daughter with a belt before burning down the apartment. The couple ended up getting away with 20,000 yuan (sometimes falsely reported as 200,000). It was alleged at Lao's trial that she was the one to suggest the fire, though Lao insisted it was just to "eliminate fingerprints". The next day, the Public Security Bureau of Nanchang open a robbery and homicide investigation, eventually identifying Fa and Lao as the perpetrators, issuing a wanted notice on 18 August that same year.
• October 1997 in Wenzhou: After spending over a year moving across East China, typically staying for no longer than 10 days at a time in each city, Fa and Lao settled in Wenzhou, where they broke into the flat of 22-year old Liang Xiaochun. The pair forced Liang at knifepoint to empty her bank account, then forced her to call over another woman, 27-year old Liu Suqing when they found the money they got from her insufficient. Fa tied Liang and Liu up before strangling them to death to get rid of any witnesses. Both had met Lao through their shared workplace at a KTV club, where they were waiting staff (Lao and Liang as waitresses, Liu as a maître d'), though it was later uncovered that Lao and Liang worked with an escort agency on the side.
• 1998 in Changzhou: Lao abducted a man only identified by his surname Liu, who met Lao at a KTV club, took 5,000 yuan off his person and had Fa non-fatally stab Liu in the chest. They tied him up and ordered Liu to call his wife, then demanded ransom from her, threatening to kill both her and her husband. When Liu arrived with the money, they tied her up as well, as Fa was now entertaining the idea of killing the couple anyway, though he eventually relented. The pair received 70,000 yuan, whereupon their hostages were released. Although Fa confessed to the kidnapping while in custody, there was insufficient evidence to charge him, as the victims did not alert the authorities, though by the time Lao's confession allowed police to identify the Liu couple as victims, they were called upon to testify in Lao's second trial.
• 22 – 23 July 1999 in Hefei: Using the identity of Shen Lingqiu, Lao met 35-year old Yin Jianhua, a local businessman, while working as a bargirl at a dance hall on 21 June 1999. A month later on the evening of 22 July, Yin was invited to her and Fa's new apartment, where he was taken hostage and locked in a repurposed dog cage the couple had prepared for him, with intent to extort Yin's wife Liu Bing for money. To intimidate Yin, Lao called a repairman named Lu Zhongming under the pretense that they needed a window fix, then has Fa murder and behead Lu in front of Yin. Lu's body was stored away in a freezer the couple bought the same day. Growing impatient, Fa left Lao to watch over Yin while he went to Yin's home, where he threatened Liu with a home-made gun. Yin's wife convinced Fa to wait while she would leave to collect the money from friends and colleagues. Instead, she told them to notify police, who raided the location with three riot teams. After negotiations failed, tear gas was deployed, leading to Fa exiting the flat and opening fire upon the officers. The standoff and subsequent fire exchange was filmed by a news crew. Fa was apprehended after being wounded, but refused to reveal the location of Yin and did not indicate that he had a partner, despite having referred to one in the ransom note. Yin was located weeks after Fa's arrest, when neighbors noticed the smell of his decomposing corpse. Due to the state of his body, it is unknown whether Yin had starved to death or been killed by either Fa or Lao, who had escaped, although it is reported that Fa ended up confessing that he had strangled Yin before he went to collect the ransom. His death was counted as a homicide by the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court.

Early life events before crime

Fa Ziying

Fa Ziying
法子英
Born	(1964-10-01)1 October 1964 Jiujiang, Jiangxi, China
Died	28 December 1999(1999-12-28) (aged 35) Feixi County, Hefei, Anhui, China
Cause of death	Execution by gunshot
Height	5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)
Conviction(s)	Murder, kidnapping, robbery
Criminal penalty	Death
Details
Victims	7
Span of crimes	1996–1999
Country	China
Date apprehended	23 July 1999

Fa Ziying was born on 1 October 1964, in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, (his ancestral home is in Henan, and his family lives in Xunyang District). Some reports say that the Fa family had been formerly wealthy, but by the time of his birth, Fa Ziying's family was poor. His father worked as an auto rickshaw driver, and his mother was a tea saleswoman. The family lived next door to the block's public toilet, the area of the house having been only about 7 square meters, and they had to collect cinder and waste wood to maintain heating every winter. His parents had four sons and three daughters, and Fa Ziying was the youngest and thus last to be born, hence the nickname "Fa Seventh-Eldest". Compared with several of his siblings who worked in the business department, Fa Ziying did not like to read, had very poor academic performance, and dropped out after three years of primary school, but he liked to play football and was the captain of the junior football team. Other sources report that Fa Ziying graduated from junior high school in 1979 and briefly held an apprenticeship at the local power plant. In 1977, Fa Ziying's father died in an accident while swimming in the Yangtze River. Later, his mother suffered a car accident which left her paralyzed from the waist-down. According to reports, at the age of 15, Fa Ziying was sentenced to three years of labor re-education for armed robbery and hooliganism. According to the verdict, he was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Jiujiang Intermediate People's Court for robbery and intentional injury (it was also reported that Fa Ziying was initially sentenced to 10 years in prison at that time, which was later commuted to eight years in 1981. Some sources state that that sentence then ended up being reduced to five years). After being released from prison, Fa Ziying began legitimate work as a business owner and married a woman surnamed Miao, whose daughter was born before 1993. Before meeting Lao Rongzhi, he and his wife agreed to divorce. Miao changed her mind midway as she concluded that divorce would be "dishonorable", cancelling the divorce procedures, and instead opting for marital separation. Fa Ziying paid his wife 8,500 yuan in compensation and moved out of the house they shared.

Lao Rongzhi

Lao Rongzhi
劳荣枝
Lao Rongzhi in 2021
Born	Lao Mozhi (1974-12-25)25 December 1974 Jiujiang, Jiangxi, China
Died	18 December 2023(2023-12-18) (aged 48) Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
Cause of death	Execution by lethal injection
Other names	Chen Jia Shen Lingqiu Xue Li
Height	5 ft 4 in (1.63 m)
Conviction(s)	Murder, kidnapping, robbery
Criminal penalty	Death
Details
Victims	7
Span of crimes	1996–1999
Country	China
Date apprehended	28 November 2019

Lao Rongzhi was born on 12 December 1974 (the date of birth registered in the household registration is December 25) in Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province. Both parents are originally from Huanggang, Hubei. The Lao family worked for the Jiujiang Petroleum Branch and lived on company premises in the Petroleum Family Home on Binjiang East Road. Her father was in charge of the protection of the oil depot at the Jiujiang Petroleum Branch while her mother was a family worker of the Jiujiang Petroleum Branch. Lao Rongzhi's parents have three daughters and two sons, and she is the youngest in the family. Lao Rongzhi was named Lao Mozhi when she was a child, and took the school name Lao Rongzhi when she was in elementary school. At 12, Lao Rongzhi graduated from junior high school with excellent grades.

At that time, the state assigned jobs to graduates of normal schools, and the admission line of Jiujiang Normal College (which was merged with the Jiujiang College of Finance and Economics, Jiujiang Medical College and Jiujiang Education College into Jiujiang University in 2006) was higher than that of Jiujiang No. 4 Middle School, a key local high school. Lao Rongzhi did not choose the path of high school and university, but chose to study secondary school and was admitted to the preschool teacher major of Jiujiang Normal College. Her alumni recalled that at the time of Lao's graduation from junior high, there was only one kindergarten teacher class at Jiujiang Normal College, and only students with excellent appearance, figure, and character could be selected for the kindergarten teacher class. In 1989, Lao Rongzhi graduated and was assigned to the Jiujiang Petroleum Branch Children's School as a primary school Chinese teacher. By then, the school had declined, and the original junior high school and high school had been closed, leaving only the elementary school in 1992. After teaching at her children's school for about two years, Lao Rongzhi remained without pay (a resignation). Her classmates recalled that at that time, it was rumored that the children's primary school was about to be disbanded, and the teaching union was arranged to work at the gas plant, which made Lao Rongzhi feel depressed. According to her brother, it was around this time she first began associating with Fa Ziying, but the family initially disagreed, and she had a fight with her mother. However, in the end, her family allowed her to leave home to keep in contact with Fa Ziying.

In 1993, while still working at the primary school, Lao Rongzhi met Fa Ziying at the wedding of the vice principal's son, though others like Lao's brother claimed that they had met earlier at a birthday celebration. According to Lao Rongzhi's testimony in her second trial, she met Fa Ziying, who owned a company, through a friend. Lao was aware of Fa's criminal past and that had served a prison sentence for fighting, but the two still began dating. That same year, she came home too late after a date, she was raped by Fa Ziying, resulting in an unwanted pregnancy. Fa forced Lao to have a drug-induced miscarriage and according to Lao, she continued to be raped by Fa, and as a result, she became pregnant again four months later. This time, she went to get an abortion, accompanied by Fa Ziying's sister. She claims that she had no romantic experience before she met Fa Ziying. Fa Ziying once told his defense lawyer that on the night of the banquet when the two met, he rode Lao Rongzhi home on a motorcycle, which greatly moved her. Lao's attraction to Fa was supposedly partially a result of hybristophilia, to the point she began to engage in "hero worship" of Fa Ziying in a codependent manner. Despite this, during the second trial, Lao Rongzhi flatly denied that she and Fa Ziying were in a relationship, saying that she was "controlled and coerced" by Fa Ziying and that she was "mentally distracted" when they were together. Fa on the other hand covered for Lao no less than seven times during his interrogation, provided false information about her whereabouts and claimed most of the responsibility during the five months before his execution.

Lao Rongzhi said at the first instance that after leaving her post without pay, she left Jiujiang with Fa Ziying with 6,000 yuan and went to Shenzhen and Shanghai to start a business; the venture was unsuccessful and soon ran out of money. They returned to Jiujiang in 1995 to spend the New Year, and after the New Year, they went to other places again to earn a living in 1996. It is reported that this was done as a result of Fa Ziying attempting to evade a charge for injuring people with a harpoon during a group fight in Jiujiang. Lao Rongzhi said that the two had a large living expenses, spending about 15 yuan a day, but they had no stable source of income. Due to the lack of money, Lao Rongzhi began working at dance halls as a waitress and bargirl to make money, looking for robbery targets by the way.

2019 arrest

When Lao was discovered in November 2019, she had been living in Huli District, Xiamen under the name Xue Li (a transliteration of the English name Shirley) and was working as a watch vendor at Dongbai Caitang Plaza. She had a boyfriend at the time, to whom she apologized for hiding her past from in court. In court, Lao acknowledged her guilt, but contended that none of the murders were premeditated, despite evidence showing that she and Fa had constructed a cage to imprison Yin Jianhua and bought a freezer with the intent of storing a human body in it, as when Lu Zhongming was found, no spoilt foods normally held in cold storage could be found in the apartment. She also said that she felt threatened to stay with Fa and assist him in his crimes, stating that "[Fa Ziying] often beat me, choked me and tortured me. He threatened my family if we broke up... I didn't want to kill anyone. I just wanted to live," in a report by the People's Daily. Lao apologized to the surviving victims and families of the deceased, including Zhu Dahong, the widow of Lu Zhongming, who was left to raise three children by herself and financially support five more relatives, including Lu's mother, who had reportedly "cried so much she went blind". According to Beijing Youth Daily, Lao claimed that she felt "relief" after being caught, despite the fact that she had put great effort into changing her appearance through surgery. She also offered to recompensate the money stolen during the crimes; Lao only had 30,000 yuan on her bank account at the time of her arrest and the lawyer representing Lu's family stated that she sought 1.3 million yuan from Lao in damages.

Two of Lao's siblings gave interviews to reporters, describing how in the 20 years their sister had disappeared, during which time their father died and their mother would cry over Lao's actions on an almost daily basis, supposedly to the point her hair turned white, she had never once tried to contact them. Lao's brother also said that he did not believe Lao's story that she had been with Fa unwillingly, recalling that he overheard Lao constantly swoon over her new boyfriend, even when scolded, and had naively fallen for Fa, who had apparently been locally known as a "bad boy", something that Lao not only found attractive, but actively encouraged. Before Lao's execution, she was granted the right to a final visitation with her immediate family.