Man, girlfriend sentenced to death in China after his two children are thrown down from 15th floor
Two toddlers fell to death from a high floor at an apartment complex in the Chinese city of Chongqing last November.
Their father was seen rushing downstairs and crying beside their bodies.
At first the fall of the two-year-old girl and one-year-old boy was believed to have been accidental.
But when police investigated, something more sinister came to light. A story of marital discord, an affair and a conspiracy, ending in a horrific double murder.
On Tuesday (Dec 28), the father, Zhang Bo, and his girlfriend, Ye Chengchen, were sentenced to death by a court in Chongqing.
Zhang was married to the children’s mother, Chen Meilin, but they got divorced in February last year.
That wasn’t enough for Ye, with whom he was already having an affair.
The businessman had not told her about his children, but she found out. And she insisted that neither she nor her family could accept the children, and he should “get rid of them”.
The court heard evidence that the two had then conspired to kill the children and make it look like an accident.
After the divorce, the mother was taking care of the girl and the boy was with the father.
And Zhang got his daughter also to join him on that day, apparently on the pretext of buying clothes for her.
According to evidence from Chen, who was not present at the time, Zhang was on the phone with Ye, who was talking of cutting her wrists when he flung the kids out from the 15th floor window.
It was not immediately known if the two would appeal against the death sentence.
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