SHIJIAZHUANG: A 13-year-old boy is awaiting sentencing in North China's Hebei
Province after he confessed to killing his grandmother, his aunt and a younger
cousin on August 24.
According to police in Pixian County, the boy whose identity is protected by
law said he used techniques that he learnt from movies and TV programmes to kill
them.
The boy whom police have given the alias Xiaohua said he strangled his
younger cousin, chopped up his aunt and grandmother, and burnt the corpses to
destroy the evidence, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
His motivation was the hatred he felt towards his aunt after his mother
repeatedly criticized her in front of him, said Yang Zhitong, a senior official
of the county's public security bureau.
While his aunt was out working in the field, Xiaohua prepared gloves, ropes
and other tools, police said. He then strangled his cousin and waited for his
aunt his father's sister-in-law to come home.
When she arrived, the boy covered her head using a bed sheet and chopped her
17 times using a cooking knife, police said.
Xiaohua's grandmother accidentally walked in on the scene and was terrified.
The boy slashed her to death. Later he set fire to his aunt's house with the
three bodies inside.
Xinhua reporters were allowed to interview Xiaohua, who told them that
detective TV dramas and movies were his favourite, and that all his murder ideas
had come from those.
The case has aroused extensive attention from various circles.
"Parents should not show hatred in front of their children," Tong Lihua,
director of the Underage People's Protection Committee of the All China Lawyers'
Association, told China Daily yesterday.
"Excessively violent scenes on TV, on websites and in movies have caused many
criminal cases among the young."
Zhou Yongping, director of the China Youth Development
and Policy Research Institute, said: "If parents and schools can be well
informed about what kind of new information children have acquired and give them
a positive direction, many children would probably not (become criminals)."