A Chinese couple who were executed for throwing two children off a balcony of 15th floor wanted to start a new family together.
Due to the horrifying event that shocked the country, Zhang Bo and his girlfriend Ye Chengchen received stringent punishment. They are believed to have died by lethal injection on Wednesday, more than two years after China’s Supreme Court approved their death sentence, according to China Daily.
Zhang was convicted for throwing his children, out of a high-rise apartment window from the 15th floor in 2020, while Ye was convicted for forcing her boyfriend to kill the children.
Zhang had two children – a two year old girl and a one year old boy. Ye asked him to get rid of his children since she saw them as an “obstacle” in their relationship.
Zhang started an affair with Ye without telling her that he was married and had two children. He divorced his then-wife Chen Meilin in February 2020, but was forced by Ye to kill his children, according to a report in New York Post
Videos of Zhang seeming distraught at what he had just done went viral on Chinese social media. According to the site, he was reportedly observed sobbing excessively and hitting his head against the wall.
Zhang told the police that he was sleeping when the children “fell” and said he woke up to people shouting downstairs. The children’s mother said she was shocked to hear what happened with the children.
“The moment I heard my kids were actually thrown out of the 15th floor by their father and the mistress, I couldn’t find any words to describe my feelings,” Chen was quoted as saying by the Post.
“I couldn’t imagine what my kids had experienced from the 15th floor to the ground. Were they desperate? Were they afraid?” she added.
The crime sent shock waves across China for its cold-blooded premeditation, as well as the age of the victims.
Their executions quickly rose to the top of a list of trending topics on Chinese social media site Weibo on Wednesday, receiving nearly 200 million views.