A serial killer known as China’s ‘Jack the Ripper’, who killed 11 people – the youngest being only eight years old – has been executed, a Chinese court has announced.

Gao Chengyong, a married father of two who ran a grocery store in Baiyin, China, killed his victims (women and girls) between 1988 and 2002. He received the gruesome nickname for the way he mutilated the bodies of his victims.

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The killer targeted young women wearing red and followed them home, where he would rob, rape, and murder them. In several cases, Gao also cut off parts of his victim’s reproductive organs. His youngest victim was eight years old.

Dating back 30 years, the string of murders was left unsolved until police were literally handed the evidence they needed to crack the case.

Gao was unmasked after his uncle provided a DNA sample to police while being processed for a minor crime. The sample revealed that he was related to the elusive killer, and a subsequent investigation led to Gao’s arrest.

In March 2018, the Baiyin City Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Gao to death after he was found guilty of homicide, robbery, rape, and dishonoring corpses.

In a statement released after his sentencing, the court denounced Gao’s “perverted desire to dishonour and sully corpses” and described his actions as “despicable.” It’s not clear how the execution was performed, although China typically uses lethal injection or a firing squad to carry out death sentences.

The original Jack the Ripper is believed to have murdered and mutilated at least five women in east London in 1888. The string of heinous killings was never solved.

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