Peng Cheng (; 1962 – 25 September 1995) was a Chinese serial killer and dog breeder who killed six people in Yinchuan from 1988 to 1995, occasionally with the help of three accomplices. He is best remembered for the fact that he fed some of his victims' remains to his dogs, one of which was featured in the 1993 film An Old Man And His Dog (), directed by renowned Chinese director Xie Jin, in which Peng himself was also cast as a body double to lead actor Xie Tian.
Peng and his main accomplice, Shao Xiaodan, would later be jointly convicted of the crimes, for which they were both sentenced to death and executed.
Early life Peng was born in 1962 in Yinchuan to a family of cadres originating from Jingbian County, Shaanxi. Due to his father's position, he grew up in a relatively privileged background and was well cared for by both of his parents. However, Peng himself proved to be a problematic child, as he was expelled from junior high school for beating a teacher who had scolded him for bullying other children. Through his father's contacts, however, he was given a job at the Lin Ke Forestry Institute, where he proved to be unpopular among his colleagues due to his rude demeanour and overspending. Due to his dissatisfaction with his salary, Peng would eventually start stealing various items from his workplace.
In 1982, he was arrested for stealing a TV and sentenced to two years imprisonment, since his father refused to bail him out despite having the money to do so. After his release in 1988, he was allowed to return to work, but due to his parents' demands, he was forced to marry a college student who was a year older than him in May of that year. This was done ostensibly so his new wife could possibly change his behaviour, but due to the nature of her work, she was rarely at home, allowing Peng to do whatever he wanted most of the time.
In mid-August, he went on a three-day trip to Lanzhou, and while riding the train back home, he noticed 24-year-old Ms. Hu, a native of Shizuishan who was visiting some relatives in Yinchuan. He engaged her in conversation. After arriving at their destination, he gave her his phone number and left. Eventually, the pair started dating, with him taking advantage of the fact that his wife was away from home most of the time. However, as their relationship deepened, he began to plan her demise.
Crimes First murder After spending the night with Hu at his house, Peng began to worry that his wife might return home soon and thus urged his mistress to leave. She was still sleepy and overall unconcerned about the problem, preferring to do her makeup instead, with Peng's complaints just angering her. At some point, he noticed a pipe wrench placed behind the door, and while Hu was not looking, he picked it up and hit her on the head, killing her instantly. In order to get rid of the body, he removed the clothes and then placed the body in the bathtub, where he dismembered it with a machete and then buried the remains in the backyard, and burned the clothes.
Formation of gang Following Hu's murder, Peng developed an interest in dog breeding, buying a large fence around his and later his neighbour's yards, which served as an impromptu dog farm where he kept between 20 and 30 different wolfdogs. However, due to the expensive nature of this hobby and the low wage he earned at his job at the forestry institute, he came to the conclusion that the quickest way to make money was to organize a small gang and start robbing various establishments.
The first person he recruited was his cousin, Shao Xiaodan, who had coincidentally been hired as a temporary worker at the Lin Ke Forestry Institute. When approached with the offer, he immediately accepted, and the two men now planned on how to acquire firearms. Eventually, he learned that on 18 October 1990, a subsidiary of the institute had bought a batch of products he believed to be weaponry, so he and Shao snuck inside one of the warehouses and searched through a few of the boxes before locating one that stored several shotguns. They took eight of the shotguns and brought them back to Peng's house, where they sawed off the barrels and stocks of two of the weapons to make them easier to carry, while the remaining six were hidden on the roof of a shed. In order to practice his aim, Peng would shoot at chickens and ducks in the courtyard, whose corpses he would later use as food for his dogs. As he did this often, his neighbours had grown used to it, which would aid him in some of the later murders.
For the next few months, Peng and Shao stole small items around the institute, mostly consisting of food, furniture, plants, and occasionally money, all of which amounted to around 10,000 yuan. Eventually, he started searching for more accomplices. In December 1990, he found a potential candidate in his younger friend, Yu Dawei, an employee of the Yinchuan Great Wall Trading Company who complained that his manager, Mr. Li, was withholding a big payment of money. Utilizing this, he promised Dawei that he would help him and would collect the debt from Mr. Li. After Dawei left, he started planning a way for him and his accomplices to acquire a car.
Murder of Mr. Yang On 22 December 1990, he and Shao took their shotguns and went to the train station, where they planned to select a driver who would drive them to Mr. Li's offices, then kill the driver and steal his vehicle. In the end, they found their target in a man named Yang, who drove a white minivan. Peng approached him and asked whether he could drive them to a casino in Yongning County, to which he agreed. Yang then drove them to a kiln farm, where Peng asked him to stop, ostensibly to go to the toilet, but Yang said it would be better to stop at a public toilet further along the road. At that moment, Peng winked at Shao, indicating that he should shoot him, but owing to his nervousness, he missed the shot and instead hit one of the car doors, knocking it wide open.
To their benefit, Yang thought that the noise came from a flat tire and stopped to check it, finding a small bullet hole in the door instead. At that moment, Peng shouted that somebody was shooting at them, making the frightened man jump back right into the car and drive away at full speed. Eventually, at Peng's request, Yang drove them back to the former's house, where he was invited to have some tea. On his suggestion, Yang entered first, giving an opportunity for Shao to take out his shotgun and shoot him in the back of the head, killing him on the spot. They then dragged the body to one of the room's corners, wrapped it up in a canvas, and drove to Dawei's house to pick him up, but as he was not home at the time, they drove back to his house.
Once they returned, the two men took off their victim's clothes and then dismembered his body with machetes, some parts of which Peng fed to his dogs. The remaining parts were put in a sack, which they planned to bury in an isolated area in Xishawo, but as the pair grew afraid that somebody would find the remains, they abandoned this idea. Instead, Peng and Shao dug a hole in the backyard and buried the remains there, leaving only the clothes and Yang's head, which Peng disposed of in the institute's boiler room. And since the minivan had been damaged, the pair decided it would be best to get rid of it, with both of them driving to a parking lot in Yinchuan, where they abandoned it and left.
Murder of Mr. Zhang For about half a month after the murder, he and Shao laid low to avoid any possible inquiries from the police. On 8 January 1991, Dawei visited Peng to ask him if he was ready with the payments, to which, after treating his guest to dinner, he said that they would go to Mr. Li and ask for the money. After finishing their meals, he called Shao, and the three travelled to the Nanmen bus station. There, the trio entered the beige FSO Polonez taxi of a man named Zhang, who immediately started driving them to the Yinchuan nursery farm. After approaching the area and confirming that there was nobody around, Peng asked him to pull over.
Unbeknownst to Zhang, Shao had been aiming at his head, but the sudden brake made him lose balance and miss his shot, punching a hole through the car's windshield. This frightened Zhang, who quickly got out of the car and started running away, shouting that they were attempting to kill him. Panicked that they were going to get caught, the trio got out of the car and started chasing him, with Peng firing several shots in Zhang's direction, making him slow down and allowing his pursuers to catch up with him. Zhang then knelt and begged for them to spare him, only for Peng to sneer at him and hand over his gun to Dawei, instructing him to kill the man so they would not leave any witnesses. Dawei instead handed the gun back to him, with he then shooting Zhang in the head.
Afterwards, he took out a knife and said to Dawei that he needed to help dismember the body, which he refused, claiming he could not stomach it. Instead, the trio stuffed the corpse into the trunk of the taxi and then set course for Mr. Li's trading company. On the way Dawei, realizing that Peng would likely kill Mr. Li if they found him, said to his accomplices that it was way too early and he might not be there. Because of this Peng and Shao drove back to the former's house, where they let him off with the warning not to tell anyone about what had happened. He and Shao then drove to Xishawo and buried Zhang's body in the sand, but on the way back, Peng thought it would be better to just feed the remains to his dogs. And so, they turned around and returned to the burial site, where they unearthed the corpse and took it to Peng's house and threw some of the remains to the dogs, while the rest were buried in the backyard. Since the corpses were beginning to pile up, Peng put a layer of concrete over the locations where he buried the remains.
After disposing of the remains, Shao asked him what they should do with the car, to which the latter replied that it would be better to get rid of it since it was damaged. The pair subsequently drove the taxi to the Dongfeng Bath House, where they abandoned it at the parking lot and left. As time passed, Dawei started gradually distancing himself from Peng until he eventually broke off contact with him altogether. This did not concern him, however, as he believed Dawei would be too intimidated to inform the police of their actions and let him off without any issues.
Murder of Ms. Liu Sometime circa the winter of 1991, Peng was dancing at the Tongfuju Ballroom when he noticed a young woman, who was also dancing. Her name was Ms. Liu, a cotton factory worker in her early 20s. Peng approached her. They agreed to meet up the next evening at the ballroom. On the following night, the pair met up again and spent the night together.
After this, Peng took her out for dinner before proposing that they go to his house, to which Liu agreed. For an indeterminate amount of time later, the pair began an affair. Liu then revealed that her family was actually helping her find a partner whom she could marry, but as they had no money, she searched for somebody who appeared rich so he could pay some of the wedding costs, amounting to about 3,000 yuan. Peng asked for ten days to gather the money. Liu accepted his proposal.