A couple has been executed in China for throwing two children from the 15th floor of a high-rise apartment in Chongqing. The execution of Zhang Bo, and his girlfriend, Ye Chengchen was carried out on January 31. The heinous crime committed in 2020 had drawn nationwide condemnation. The couple killed Zhang's two-year-old girl and one-year-old son as his girlfriend would seem as "obstacles".
Zhang was having an affair with Ye whom he met online. He did not tell her that he had two kids. It is because Ye had told him that she would not stay with him if he had children. He had agreed for a divorce from his wife and kids' mother, Chen Meilin. However, she eventually learned about Zhang's kids and told him that they would be a "burden on their future life together", according to court documents.
In early 2020, Zhang and Ye had began planning to kill his kids. The had discussed how to carry out the killings on WeChat, a popular Chinese messaging service. They had decided that they would stage the deaths as an accident. In November 2020, Zhang threw his children out of the window of the apartment in the absence of their mother.
Murder Trial
In December 2021, a court in Chongqing sentenced Zhang and Ye to death after finding them guilty of intentional murder. The couple had challenged the verdict. Eventually, the Supreme People’s Court, China's highest court, upheld the death sentence and the couple was executed on Wednesday, January 31.
An old photo of Zhang "grieving" after his kids' death went viral on social media after the couple's execution. Chinese social media site Weibo was flooded with people's reactions to Zhang and Ye's execution.