A serial rapist and killer in Baiyin, Northwest China's Gansu Province was arrested on Friday, 28 years after he committed his first murder in 1988, the Ministry of Public Security announced on its official website on Saturday.
Baiyin police identified the 52-year-old suspect as Gao Chengyong, who had allegedly raped and murdered 11 females - the youngest of whom was 8 - between 1988 and 2002 in Baiyin and in the city of Baotou in neighboring Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. He has confessed to his crimes, the police announcement said.
All the cases showed Gao targeted young women wearing red, followed them to their homes in daytime and raped them before or after killing them, according to The Beijing News. Police said Gao also cut off parts of the victims' reproductive organs and tissues, local news site gansudaily.com reported.
The Baiyin police finally admitted that there was a criminal at large in the city in 2004, when they offered a reward of 200,000 yuan ($29,964) to anyone who could provide clues to the killer's identity.
However, there were no major breakthroughs in the investigation for several years.
In March 2015, provincial police resumed the investigation armed with stronger investigative methods, and comparisons of the suspect's fingerprints and DNA led to the final identification, gansudaily.com said.
Gao led such a quiet life during the intervening years that his wife and neighbors had no idea why he was arrested by the police, an insider was quoted by The Beijing News as saying.
