Police detain Gao Chengyong, a suspected serial killer, in Baiyin, Gansu province, on Aug. 26. [File photo]

Gao Chengyong, dubbed "China's Jack the Ripper," raped and killed 11 women and girls between 1988 and 2002 at his victims' homes in Baiyin, Gansu Province and Baotou, Inner Mongolia. He often mutilated his victims, cutting off their breasts, ears, vagina and hands. The youngest victim was only 8 years old.

But Gao, now 52, managed to evade justice until Aug. 26, when he was arrested at a retail store at a local school in Baiyin.

He tried to escape, but police captured him. When officers asked him if he knew why he was arrested, he said it was because he'd killed people. Then he tried to kill himself in the interrogation room, banging his head against the bump positions of his chair. He needed three stitches for the wounds.

After the alleged killer calmed down, he confessed all the details of the 11 cases with a blank expression. He could even remember the precise time of each murder case. When asked if he ever felt regret and remorse for victims and families, he shook his head.

The only emotional moment was when he asked, "My cases, will they affect my children?"

The city of Baiyin has been immersed in the shadow of these murder cases for 28 years. When Gao was arrested, citizens started to talk on the street and firecrackers were set off in celebration.

The first victim, 23, a worker at the Baiyin Non-Ferrous Metal Company, was killed on a May afternoon in 1988. Gao said he was caught during a theft and decided to kill the homeowner. In that year, Gao's first son was born.

In 1994, another victim, 19, was killed at a power supply bureau in Baiyin. A policeman said the victim was stabbed 43 times and that a whole wall was covered in blood. The killer even washed his body in a public laundry room in the staff dorm before he left.

Four years later, an 8-year-old girl was killed in the same dormitory and her body was thrown into the cabinet, her parents said. Gao said he even drank a cup of tea at her home after the killing.

In 1998, Gao killed a woman he met at a dancehall. Police began investigating local criminals, but came away with nothing.

Gao said in his interrogation that he felt a desperate need to kill in 1998. In that single year, he killed four people, often mutilating their bodies afterwards.

The suspect said he threw all the organs into the Yellow River.

A rumor spread that there was a serial killer in Baiyin who killed women with long hair wearing red clothes. Shortly after, there were few local women with long hair or red clothes.

The most regrettable moment was in 2001 when the police almost captured the suspect. On May 22, the police received a call from a victim saying she was being murdered. Her murmur before death didn't give specific details of her addresses, so police could not get there.

Later the policemen found out that the crime scene was just a block away from their police station and only had one exit. If the police had moved in after the call, they could have caught the murderer.

The killer killed his last victim in 2002 and then stopped for 14 years. Gao explained that he grew old and found himself physically not strong enough to kill people. Another reason was his two children were at school, and he went to Inner Mongolia to be a construction worker to earn money for them.

But everything he did had become part of the collective memory of the city of Baiyin.

The police tracked Gao through DNA tests and fingerprints after a relative of Gao was arrested for a separate bribe case. The policemen found the relative's DNA was similar to the suspect's in the murder cases, so they collected evidence and pinpointed the killer.

"If you saw what the bodies looked like, you would want to catch the guy and put him in jail," said a policeman who had pursued the case for two decades.

"I felt ashamed rather than happy," another retired policeman said. "I can't believe the real killer has been living under our nose for so long while we targeted other groups of people. The cases confused me and colleagues for so many years. "

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