CHINA: STUDENT EXECUTED OVER HIT-AND-RUN MURDER

Yao Jiaxin

07 June 2011 :

China executed music student Yao Jiaxin, 21, for stabbing 26-year-old mother Zhang Miao to death after hurting her in a car crash on October 20, 2010. The high court in north China's Shaanxi province turned down his appeal over the April 22 death sentence, China Central Television reported. The execution was also approved by China's Supreme People's Court, which noted the "extremely despicable and odious" nature of the crime.
Zhang, who was riding her bike, only suffered minor injuries in the accident but instead of helping the woman, Yao stabbed her eight times with a knife as she eyed his car number plate.
Yao, a student at the Xian Conservatory of Music, fled the scene but was later caught and, according to an earlier Xinhua report, confessed that he killed her because he feared the "peasant woman would be hard to deal with" over the accident.
The crime has prompted hand-wringing over the country's so-called "rich second generation."
The term is applied to the wealthy offspring of people who have prospered with China's economic opening of the past 30 years -- youths seen as expecting privilege and sometimes lacking in morals.
 

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