Missing baby's murder stirs up nationwide anger

Thousands of people gathered in a square in Changchun City, capital of northeast China's Jilin Province, on Tuesday night to mourn the case of a baby who was apparently murdered by a thief who found the two-month-old boy sleeping in a car he had stolen.

A two-day city-wide manhunt in the snow-covered province ended when the suspect handed himself in to local police at about 5 p.m. on Tuesday, confessing to stealing an SUV and strangling its young passenger.

China's Internet has since been lit up by discussion of the tragedy.

Zhou Xijun, 48, told police he had stolen the vehicle on Monday morning, found the baby on the back seat after driving onto a highway, strangled the infant and buried him in the snow, according to the Jilin Public Security Department.

The car belonged to a local resident surnamed Xu.

Xu parked in front of the supermarket he runs and entered the store to turn on a stove, leaving his child in the back seat without shutting off the car's engine.

He came out of the supermarket minutes later only to find that his car had been stolen with the baby still inside. He called the police immediately.

More than 8,000 police were dispatched to hunt the thief. Hundreds of volunteers also joined in the search across Jilin in the past two days after learning the news in local media.

Zhou confessed that he parked the car on the roadside and choked the baby about an hour after he stole the car, and then abandoned the baby's clothes and the car nearby Gongzhuling City.

While police are trying to locate the suspect's burial site, it is not known whether a body has yet been found in the case.

The death of the baby has understandably saddened people in Changchun and much further afield.

"I was shocked when I learned of the death of the baby this morning. I was wondering if the murderer has a child? I thought it was just an accident that the car he stole was carrying a baby, but why did he kill the baby? Why couldn't he leave the kid in a hospital and drive away? You know we care about the child, not the car," a netizen with the screen name "Zouxiaobangdeyequ" wrote on Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo.

"I hope the murderer will be punished severely. Meanwhile, the parents should reflect on their mistakes, because they cannot leave a child alone in a car or anywhere. The parents are also responsible for the incident," a netizen named "Aike917" added on Weibo.

Basketball commentator Yang Yi commented on his Weibo, saying that as a father, he felt heartbroken. "I don't know why a person turned into a monster to kill a baby, but society should eradicate this kind of accident and never repeat the tragedy again," Yang said.

If convicted of intentional homicide, Zhou may be sentenced to death under China's penal code. But such punishments can be mitigated if the suspect surrenders himself to police.

However, netizen "Yuwuxiaowu" summed up the feelings of many people by posting, "What the murderer did was not voluntary surrender. He confessed under pressure from the media and society. His crime would have been found out sooner or later."

"A suspect will be sentenced to three to 10 years in jail if found guilty of stealing someone's property. But Zhou's choking a baby was intentional homicide, for which he can be given life imprisonment or the death penalty," said Prof. Qu Xinjiu of the China University of Political Science and Law.

Lighter or mitigated punishment is not applicable if it is found that a surrendering suspect was forced to turn themselves in, Qu confirmed.