At 7:15 in the morning of Monday, March 4, 2013, Mr. Xu parked his gray Toyota RAV 4 near the supermarket where he worked. He ran into the building, turned on the heat and returned to the parking lot. To his horror Mr. Xu discovered that someone had stolen his SUV along with his two-month-old baby who was in the backseat. The car thief probably didn't know the vehicle was occupied.
The distraught father called the police department in Changchun City, a sprawling megalopolis of 8 million people in northeast China's Jilin Province. Mr. Xu also called a local radio station which broadcast periodic bulletins that included descriptions of the stolen car and the missing baby. Eight thousand police officers were alerted as well as thousands of taxi cab drivers. All of these people, including listeners of the radio station were on the lookout for the stolen Toyota and its infant passenger, a baby named Xu Haobo.
Almost immediately a variety of Internet social media sites picked up on the ongoing story. Most people following the case assumed that once the car thief realized he had inadvertently abducted the car owner's child would deposit the infant in front of a hospital or some other public place.
The next day the car had not been recovered and the baby was still missing. Perhaps the car thief was also a kidnapper seeking a ransom. At five in the afternoon of Tuesday, March 5 a man named Zhou Xijun turned himself in to the Changchun police. According to the 48-year-old resident of Gongzhuling City, about an hour after he took Mr. Xu's car he strangled the baby to death. Mr. Xijun said he buried the corpse in the snow alongside a country road.
While the Xu Haobo story was widely circulated in China's Internet social media, Xinwenhua News, the official Jilin Province newspaper, did not report the murder. According to an independent journalist who uses the name "Yingshidian," the Communist run Provincial Propaganda Department had censored reportage of the case. The story was suppressed because it lent credence to concerns that criminals in China were losing all respect for human life. Stories like this were bad for tourism as well.
A relative of the murdered baby, on a Chinese web site similar to YouTube, criticized the police for not finding the car thief before he murdered Xu Haobo. The relative accused the police of gross negligence in the case. (Reportedly, the baby was killed an hour after the car theft which rendered this criticism unreasonable.)
Like all high-profile murders, the Xu Haobo case spawned a lot of rumors. One story that went around was that Zhou Xijun, the man who confessed to the car theft and murder, was covering for his son, Zhou Lei. Rumor had it that the son murdered the baby and was on the run from the police.
The senseless murder of the baby in the stolen car became one of the most talked about crimes in China's recent history. The murdered infant's mother was treated for a mental breakdown.
Public outrage led for calls that the baby's killer be punished with "lingchi"--the slow dismemberment of the prisoner's body.
In May 2013 a judge in Changchun, China found Zhou Xijun guilty of murder. The convicted man was hanged six months later.
The distraught father called the police department in Changchun City, a sprawling megalopolis of 8 million people in northeast China's Jilin Province. Mr. Xu also called a local radio station which broadcast periodic bulletins that included descriptions of the stolen car and the missing baby. Eight thousand police officers were alerted as well as thousands of taxi cab drivers. All of these people, including listeners of the radio station were on the lookout for the stolen Toyota and its infant passenger, a baby named Xu Haobo.
Almost immediately a variety of Internet social media sites picked up on the ongoing story. Most people following the case assumed that once the car thief realized he had inadvertently abducted the car owner's child would deposit the infant in front of a hospital or some other public place.
The next day the car had not been recovered and the baby was still missing. Perhaps the car thief was also a kidnapper seeking a ransom. At five in the afternoon of Tuesday, March 5 a man named Zhou Xijun turned himself in to the Changchun police. According to the 48-year-old resident of Gongzhuling City, about an hour after he took Mr. Xu's car he strangled the baby to death. Mr. Xijun said he buried the corpse in the snow alongside a country road.
While the Xu Haobo story was widely circulated in China's Internet social media, Xinwenhua News, the official Jilin Province newspaper, did not report the murder. According to an independent journalist who uses the name "Yingshidian," the Communist run Provincial Propaganda Department had censored reportage of the case. The story was suppressed because it lent credence to concerns that criminals in China were losing all respect for human life. Stories like this were bad for tourism as well.
A relative of the murdered baby, on a Chinese web site similar to YouTube, criticized the police for not finding the car thief before he murdered Xu Haobo. The relative accused the police of gross negligence in the case. (Reportedly, the baby was killed an hour after the car theft which rendered this criticism unreasonable.)
Like all high-profile murders, the Xu Haobo case spawned a lot of rumors. One story that went around was that Zhou Xijun, the man who confessed to the car theft and murder, was covering for his son, Zhou Lei. Rumor had it that the son murdered the baby and was on the run from the police.
The senseless murder of the baby in the stolen car became one of the most talked about crimes in China's recent history. The murdered infant's mother was treated for a mental breakdown.
Public outrage led for calls that the baby's killer be punished with "lingchi"--the slow dismemberment of the prisoner's body.
In May 2013 a judge in Changchun, China found Zhou Xijun guilty of murder. The convicted man was hanged six months later.
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