Neighbors killed over pet dog

A man has been sentenced to death and his wife to three years in prison for killing two of their neighbors who beat their pet dog with a broom, the Beijing Morning Post reported.

On May 28, 2013, Wang Yanmei saw her neighbor used a broom to beat her dog. When she tried to intervene, the neighbor insulted her. She called her husband Xu Yonghua for help. Xu and Wang used a fruit knife and iron pipe to fight their neighbors, killing a father and son and seriously injuring a third person.

The ruling was handed down by the Beijing Third Intermediate People's Court. The family of the bereaved pushed for the death penalty after Xu and Wang only offered 90,000 yuan compensation for the killings, instead of the 2 million yuan the family demanded.