On the morning of February 19, 2013, at 10 a.m., police in Bao’an District, Shenzhen, received a report. The caller, Mr. Liang, had been unable to contact his sister Ms. Liang, his nephew, and his niece for several consecutive days. Worried that something had happened to the three of them, he called the police for help.

According to Mr. Liang, his sister Ms. Liang, shortly after the New Year holiday, took her son Yang Jun and daughter Yang Ying from Dongguan to Shenzhen to reunite with her husband Yang Fei. After his sister arrived in Shenzhen, Mr. Liang wanted to check on them out of concern, but for several days in a row he could not reach them. Mr. Liang also did not know where his brother-in-law Yang Fei lived, so he could not go looking for them himself.

After receiving the report, the police quickly retrieved Yang Fei’s temporary residence information in Shenzhen from their computer system and located his residence. After knocking on the door for a long time with no response, the police brought the landlord of the rental apartment and successfully opened the door. The police did not find anything unusual inside the apartment, and Yang Fei’s family was not there either. The police questioned the landlord and nearby neighbors, but no one knew where the family had gone.

Just as everyone was puzzled, a brand-new freezer by the wall caught the attention of the investigating officers.

When the officers opened the freezer, everyone gasped. The bodies of Yang Fei’s wife Ms. Liang and the two children, Yang Jun and Yang Ying, were stacked inside the freezer, frozen stiff.

The police immediately sealed off the scene and reported it to superior authorities. Soon, colleagues from the criminal investigation and forensic departments arrived at the scene as quickly as possible.

After examining the bodies, forensic examiners found that all three had died from asphyxiation caused by having their necks constricted with something like a thin rope.

The times of death for the three were as follows:
Ms. Liang (female, aged 41): time of death was February 13.
Yang Jun (male, aged 8): time of death was February 15.
Yang Ying (female, aged 12): time of death was February 17. In addition, during the autopsy, forensic examiners found that 12-year-old Yang Ying had been sexually assaulted before death.

After surveying the scene, the police confirmed that the rental apartment was the primary crime scene. According to witness testimony, the male head of the household, Yang Fei, was seen entering and leaving the scene around the time of all three incidents. After the crimes occurred, Yang Fei disappeared.

According to the salesperson who sold the freezer, on February 14 a man had come with a little girl to buy a freezer. The salesperson identified the buyer through the mall’s surveillance footage as Yang Fei, the suspect in the case.

Using technical means, the police quickly pinpointed Yang Fei’s movements. On February 19, the police arrested Yang Fei, who was hiding in Gaozhou City.

According to Yang Fei’s confession, at about 11 p.m. on February 13, he asked his wife to have sex. Because of the issue of “whether to wear a condom,” the two argued, and then a fight broke out. During the fight, Yang Fei bound her hands and feet with the belt of her pajamas and strangled her to death with another pajama belt, then hid his wife’s body under the bed. Worried that the body would rot and smell and be discovered, Yang Fei took his 12-year-old daughter Yang Ying to an appliance store the next day to buy a freezer.

On February 15, because his son Yang Jun talked back to him over a trivial matter, Yang Fei in a rage tied up his son with a rope. No matter how Yang Jun cried and screamed, Yang Fei had no intention of stopping. He then strangled his 8-year-old son to death with the rope used to tie the air mattress. After the freezer was delivered home on the 15th, Yang Fei put the mother and son into the freezer.

At 8 p.m. on February 17, Yang Fei’s beastly nature erupted. He gagged his daughter Yang Ying’s mouth, tied her hands with a rope, and raped his own biological daughter. He then strangled Yang Ying to death in the same way and put the body into the freezer.

After committing the crimes, Yang Fei fled back to his hometown of Gaozhou City. On the evening of February 19, the police arrested Yang Fei in Gaozhou City.

Yang Fei told the police that the real reason he killed his wife was that she “insulted” him all day long, saying he was useless and could not earn money, and often spoke ill of him secretly in front of the children, which he had overheard several times by accident. Yang Fei also said that he had once seen his wife walking into a residential compound very intimately arm in arm with another man. Because it was nighttime, he did not see the other person’s face clearly, but he was still very familiar with his wife’s back. Yang Fei believed that although he had no evidence to prove his wife had an affair, he felt it was absolutely certain that she had someone outside.

Even more horrifying, on February 19 Yang Fei fled back to the place where he had grown up, intending to kill his stepmother, eldest brother, eldest sister, second sister, and also his father. Fortunately, the police arrested him that same day.

During detention, Yang Fei told the prosecuting prosecutor his life story.

Yang Fei was born on August 20, 1974, but at a very young age he left his biological mother and lived with his father and stepmother. His stepmother was very cold toward Yang Fei. When Yang Fei was of school age, his stepmother often called him home to do chores and beat and scolded him, so he did not receive a good education. His father, who did business outside, simply had no time or energy to pay attention to him as a child.

One day when Yang Fei was 14, his stepmother suddenly drove him out of the house. Yang Fei said, “Because my father was a businessman and relatively wealthy, my stepmother was afraid I would divide the family property in the future, so she treated me this way.”

At 14, Yang Fei was still a child, and thus began a wandering life with no one to rely on. During that time he once returned home, but his stepmother locked the door and would not let him into the house at all.

While working at a factory, Yang Fei met his wife Ms. Liang. Later they fell in love and married, and welcomed the birth of their daughter and son.

Because they had no stable livelihood, the two had to move around looking for work to make a living and began a long period of living apart in two places. Since the children were born, Yang Fei had hardly taken care of them.

Because there was no money, because of poverty, Yang Fei and his wife argued more and more, and their relationship became colder and colder.

Yang Fei said that when facing his two children, scenes of his wife’s infidelity had flashed before his eyes countless times, and the question “Are these two children really my biological flesh and blood?” often arose in his mind. This thought slowly fermented and expanded inside him. He felt that his wife had put green hat on him, and that he had unknowingly raised another person’s children for so many years.

When the police handed him the paternity test report and told him that both children were his biological flesh and blood, Yang Fei burst into tears.

On November 18, 2013, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court held a trial in this case.

On December 18, 2013, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court publicly pronounced the verdict. Yang Fei was sentenced to 6 years in prison for rape and to death for intentional homicide, with deprivation of political rights for life. After concurrent punishment for multiple crimes, Yang Fei was sentenced to death, with deprivation of political rights for life.