A man was captured after allegedly killing nine women and injuring three others, police said yesterday in Yangquan, Shanxi Province.

Officers identified the suspect as Yang Shuming, formerly a worker with a magnetic materials company under the Shanxi Yangquan Coal Mining Group. Yangquan is about 100 kilometers east of Taiyuan, the provincial capital.

Police said the killing spree started in 1993 and ended in 2004. Yang killed nine woman and assaulted three others at night or on rainy and snowy days in the Majiaping mine area, police told reporters.

Officers identified Yang this year and detained him.

Two notorious serial killers have been executed in the past few years. Yang Xinhai, a farmer from Zhumadian, Henan Province, killed 67 people during robberies across Henan, Anhui, Shandong and Hebei provinces since 2000 when he was released from jail. Yang Xinhai was caught in Hebei in November 2003. He was executed in February 2004 at the age of 36.

Another Henan native, Huang Yong, lured 17 students from Internet cafes to his home in Pingyu County. He killed and dismembered them over a two-year span. Huang was executed in December 2003.