On the afternoon of December 30, 2003, the Intermediate People's Court of Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, made a first instance judgment on the defendant, Chen Fuzhao, according to law, sentencing him to death and depriving him of political rights for life for intentional homicide and poisoning.
From May 25 to June 27, in just over a month, Chen Fuzhao murdered 17 people in Longgang Town, Cangnan County, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, with beverages that mixed with poisonous "tetramine". Most of the victims were scavengers and beggars, two of whom were teenagers, and only a 57-year-old woman named Ye Yinmei was a local resident.
On June 18, 2004, the Wenzhou Intermediate People’s Court executed Chen Fuzhao according to execution order issued by the President of the Higher People’s Court of Zhejiang Province. Thus, Chen Fuzhao ended his messed-up life at the age of only 30.
Justice had finally been done. However, people still couldn’t suppress their resentment towards those who hid behind-the-scenes to manipulate and instigate Chen Fuzhao to kill.
As to Chen Fuzhao, he got what he deserved. But on the other hand, he himself was also a victim of the “Falun Gong” cult. Chen was misled by Li Hongzhi who claimed to possess “supernatural powers”, and was ruined by Master Li’s fallacies such as “further advancement,” and “Perfection” etc.
Deep in mire
On November 3, 1974, Chen Fuzhao was born in a well-off family in Longgang Town, Cangnan County, Zhejiang Province. As the only son in the family, he had four elder sisters. In 1994, he became a doctor of the dermatology department at a local hospital in Lupu Town, Cangnan County after graduating from the Health Cadre Training School of Jianggan District, Hangzhou City. At that time, his family was so proud of him.
However, at the end of 1996, Chen Fuzhao unfortunately fell into the trap of the “Falun Gong” cult. Back then, he was studying at the Wenzhou Third People’s Hospital. One day, when strolling along the street, he spotted a “Falun Gong” book called Zhuan Falun (Turn the Dharma wheel) on a street stall. He bought it and read it carefully. The more he read the book, the more fascinated he became. Gradually, he grew so addicted to it that he couldn’t break away from it.
After being obsessed with “Falun Gong” fallacies, Chen Fuzhao’s mindset had gone through dramatic changes. The previous young lad who loved singing and dancing was gone, and he became a reticent person, as if only a body without soul. All he thought about was his “Master”, “Dafa”, and the “Falun Gong” cult fallacies such as “leveling up”, “pursuing Perfection”, etc. Later, he even quitted his job in the hospital and became quite cranky. He wouldn’t give response to others or do any household chores. Hidden in the room to meditate, he was muttering to himself all day long.
Seeing his abnormal behaviors, his relatives and friends were all anxious. They patiently tried to dissuade him from his “cultivation”, hoping to bring him back to normal life. But their earnest efforts ended in vain. As the result, his relatives and friends quarreled with him, scolded him, or even beat him when getting angry. Later, he simply treated them with contempt, and turned a deaf ear to their words while remaining silent.
Regain happiness
In early June 2001, Chen Xibao, Chen Fuzhao’s father, voluntarily reported to the government about his son’s illegal activities. In newspapers, television, and other news media, the father had seen too many tragedies in which "Falun Gong" addicts committed suicide, and he was afraid that his son might commit self-mutilation.
After learning about Chen Fuzhao’s situation, local government departments attached great importance to the case and arranged dedicated people to do the deprogramming work. Besides helping him break away from spiritual shackles, they also provided meticulous support in his daily life. After a period of time, Chen Fuzhao got back to normal life, he even started dating girlfriend.
In January 2002, Chen Fuzhao had his own small family and went back to work in the Lupu Town hospital. With his life returned to normal, he seemed to fully come back to his sense. Colleagues once said, Chen had become “a different person” who even liked to make jokes, willing to get along with others and discuss medical problems with colleagues.
In 2003, Chen Fuzhao’s daughter was born. But unfortunately, he failed to do his duty as a father…
Go astray again
Deep down in his mind, his expectation of “Perfection” always existed and found an echo with selfish desires that settled in heart, which made him go astray once again. As his soul got trapped in fallacies of the “Falun Gong” cult, he was addicted to “cultivation” again and he would even have “conversations with his Master” from time to time during work hours.
Gradually, Chen Fuzhao fell into despair because he could not "achieve positive results" for quite a long time. At this point, instead of sobering up, he became more paranoid about finding a way out from the "Fa principle," developed a stronger sense of dependence on his "Master," and was eager to find a "shortcut" to "Perfection" in a mad way. After a period of “hard cultivation”, he finally could “communicate telepathically” with his “Master” as if he had “opened his heavenly eyes”.
According to his statement, on the morning of February 17, 2003, when he was on duty in hospital, he suddenly felt that he received “instructs of enlightenment” from his “Master” who, from a subspace, instructed him to do the “reverse cultivation”, because he could hardly achieve any “further advancement” as his current “cultivation” had reached an extremely “high level”. His “Master” explained to him that he would “make progress” or even “reach Perfection” quickly by cultivating in a reverse way. The so-called “reverse cultivation” referred to discarding the tenet of “Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance”, and starting to “cultivate” in the opposite direction, which meant “no Truthfulness, no Compassion and no Forbearance”.
Upon being “enlightened” by the “Master”, Chen Fuzhao quickly developed an obsession of “killing living beings”.
Chen Fuzhao confessed that, his killing practice began with flies and mosquitoes, then dogs. The first dog he killed was a black one. After he tied bricks to the dog and made it drown in the river, he immediately felt that his “Gong Powers” increased a lot. Afterwards, he poisoned a white dog of his parents-in-law with the rodenticide “tetramine”. Again, he felt that his cultivation had made “another progress”.
Brutal crimes
After killing the third dog, and “in order to make progress more quickly”, he went so far as to murder people. This was how he justified his motivation for murdering people with “theories” of the “Falun Gong” cult: it was like a win-win situation, on the one hand, I could “make progress in my cultivation” or even “achieve Perfection” by the killing; on the other hand, the killed could also benefit from being murdered because “their karma was eliminated” with my help.
In May and June 2003, Chen Fuzhao purchased a total of 170 packets of rodenticide “tetramine” (about 1.25 grams per packet) and 11 bottles of pesticide “methamidophos” in four times at the “Dongyi Plant Clinic” in Longgang Town. At that time, as a doctor who once took an oath to heal the wound and rescue the dying, he used his medical knowledge as a lethal weapon to kill people. Chen Fuzhao who received professional medical education should fully understand that it would only take 15 milligrams of rodenticide “tetramine” to poison an adult to death. After purchasing the rodenticide, he did experiment on dogs to find out the sufficient amount of dose to cause people dead. In the meantime, he thought over various plans about how to do the poisoning and how to choose his victims. In the end, he made a decision that it was safe to slip the poison into beverages and give them away, and that the best targets would be beggars or scavengers.
Longkou Town was a large town with a population of 200,000. It was on May 25, 2003 that Chen Fuzhao firstly committed murder, and the victim Ren Kouming was a 66-year-old beggar from Anhui Province. In the detention center, Chen Fuzhao gave an account of what happened that day as follows, “One day in late May, I left home after 9 am and went by a light motorcycle to buy five or six packets of rodenticide from a pesticide store on Longzhou Road, Longgang Town (Dongyi Plant Clinic, 385 Longzhou Road). Afterwards, I rode to a cake store (Cake Shop, 1356 Longxiang Road) near the Longgang third vegetable market and bought a bottle of beverage there. Then, I rode to the Longgang Xiabu Park. In a pavilion inside the park, I slipped all the pesticide into the beverage and shook the bottle well. After the preparation was done, I rode to the intersection of Gonghou Road and Zhenqian Road in Longgang Town at around 11 am that day. Then I spotted an old beggar about 70 years old, coming from south to north along the Gonghou Road. So, I put that bottle of poisonous drink on the stairs in front of a house (140 Gonghou Road) located in the southeast corner of the intersection. When passing the house, the beggar picked the bottle up from the stairs and put it in his pocket, which made me quite relieved and satisfied. At that moment, I felt I got an instant leveling-up and I was also convinced that my ‘Master’ was enlightening me. Therefore, I prayed silently, ‘Dear Master’, please bless me! And let the beggar drink it up. I hoped so because I really wanted him to die so that I could improve my Gong Powers.”
It should be noted that, as he was completely “unaware” of his brutal crimes, Chen Fuzhao described the story with a smile on his face.
In June 2003, Chen Fuzhao engaged in more frenzied poisoning activities. On June 5, he poisoned 66-year-old Li Yuanlu in front of a cell-phone store on Xinjian Road in Longgang Town and poisoned 81-year-old Zhou Denglai at the intersection of Hongkou Road and Renmin Road, both of whom were beggars from Anhui Province. Later, he poisoned Li Qisheng who lived in Xiabu Street, Longgang Town. On June 20, he poisoned 65-year-old Lu Zhisan and 54-year-old Zhao Yulan (female) on the street of Longgang Town, both of whom were scavengers from Anhui Province. On June 24, another three scavengers were poisoned to death by him on the street of Longgang Town, and they were 12-year-old Liu Pengfei, 15-year-old Liu Yingying and 64-year-old Wei Jinyu respectively.
On June 26, in order to “make further advancement” more quickly, Chen Fuzhao’s madness reached its peak. From 12:00 to 16:35 in a single day, on the street of Longgang Town in less than 5 hours, he poisoned seven beggars and scavengers to death, and names of the victims were as follows: Wu Baofu, Chen Zongli, Chen Jiazhang, Zhang Wenying, Niu Zhubin, Hu Xiufu, and Li Shouyu.
On June 27, the local government took emergency measure to protect scavengers and beggars with a centralized resettlement. Unable to find easy targets, Chen became so desperate that he sneaked into the Longhua Temple in Longgang Town and put the pesticide into water of the thermos bottles at a kitchen, as the result, Ye Yinmei, a female villager in Hedigao Village, Longgang Town, died from poisoning after drinking water from those thermos bottles.
During the investigation, the police also found out that, on June 11, Chen Fuzhao stopped four pupils on their way to school, and handed out bottled pesticide “methamidophos” to them, saying the liquid inside was “oral nutrient solution”. On the afternoon of July 8, the reporter interviewed with two of those four pupils: Pupil A surnamed Chen in Grade Four, and pupil B surnamed Wu in Grade One. The 8-year-old Wu recalled, “I chucked it away right after I opened the bottle, it’s smelly.” The 11-year-old Chen said, “I didn’t dare to drink it because I had no idea what it was. So, I put it in my backpack and handed it over to Mom after I got home.” His mother added, “There was an awful smell in the bottle, so I gave it to my uncle who was growing vegetables. And he immediately recognized that it was the pesticide ‘methamidophos’.”
When being asked why he distributed pesticide to pupils, “doctor” Chen still gave the same answer: “I killed to achieve a leveling-up. So, I would give the bottle to any one I ran into, without exception.”
Belated awakening and deepened hatred
On July 1, 2003, based on the evidence obtained during the investigation, the public security organ summoned Chen Fuzhao in accordance with the law. During the interrogation, Chen Fuzhao confessed all his crimes. But he showed no remorse for his brutal killing; on the contrary, he even smiled from time to time. Talking about the day on June 26, 2003, when he poisoned 7 people in five hours, he explained, “When I was practicing, my ‘Master’ Li Hongzhi instructed me to follow his order, almost every day, to ‘kill living beings’. The dosage should be increased to guarantee a successful killing. And the time interval between poisonings should be shortened, to ensure more people being killed. It is conducive to the advancement of my cultivation.”
He also claimed, he would continue to kill if the police didn’t arrest him.
During the trial, it wasn't until he saw the tragic photos of his victims that Chen Fuzhao began to fully realize what he had done. On the 11th day of the trial, he wrote down the following words of remorse at the detention center.
"When the prosecutor delivered the indictment, I listened to the reading and felt deeply guilty and regret. Now, I hate the evil ‘Falun Gong’ to guts. It made me go astray, had my family broken, and caused me to make irreparable mistakes. After the judge announced the adjournment, I suddenly saw my father and Xiaoling sitting in the aisle seats. When the three of us looked at each other, I saw the mixed emotions of love, despair, pain and helplessness…Seeing you were holding a baby girl in your arms, I thought to myself, ‘It must’ve been my cute little daughter! Oh, I’m so sorry, my baby girl! No matter how sincerely I repented, what’s done can’t be undone. It’s too late for me to make up for it!”
The reporter did an exclusive interview with relatives of both Chen Fuzhao and the victim Ye Yinmei. Chen Fuzhao’s old mother cried in tears, “My son was taken in by Falun Gong…The beast of Li Hongzhi! You deserve a sudden death.”
At Ye Yinmei’s place, her daughter, Ms. Gao Sufen, hugged her late mother’s portrait tightly to her chest and sobbed with tears, “Thinking of the crimes committed by Chen Fuzhao and the ‘Falun Gong’ cult, our whole family gnash our teeth in hatred. Debts of blood must be paid in blood. We call on the people and our government, to completely eradicate the cult.”
Ms. Gao Sufen expressed the heartfelt wish of common people: only when the evil cult “Falun Gong” was rooted out, could innocent people be protected from its harms.
