Xie Tianqin (谢天琴), a Chinese woman, was murdered by her son Wu Xieyu in Fuzhou, Fujian, China on 10 July 2015 at the age of 47. Wu Xieyu subsequently defrauded relatives and friends of 1.44 million yuan under false pretenses surrounding his mother.
Murder Pessimistic and tired of life, Wu had had thoughts of suicide. After his father died of illness, he believed that his mother’s life had lost its meaning.
On July 10, 2015, Peking University student Wu Xieyu murdered Xie Tianqin, his mother, in Fuzhou, and wrapped her body in multiple layers of plastic with activated carbon added to subdue smells related to decomposition. He then left the body in the dormitory where the crime occurred.
Related fraud Wu concealed from his relatives and friends the truth of Xie Tianqin's murder, instead telling them that Xie accompanied him to study abroad. He defrauded relatives and friends of 1.44 million yuan under the pretext of needing living expenses, tuition fees, and proof of financial resources. In order to evade investigation, Wu purchased more than ten identity documents to hide his identity. + Statistics on related fraud Relationship with Wu Xieyu The amount defrauded Maternal uncle 560,000 yuan Father's friends(5 people) 610,000 yuan Maternal aunt 200,000 yuan Paternal aunt 70,000 yuan[in the name of paying back]
Investigation On February 14, 2016, Xie Tianqin’s body was discovered. On April 20, 2019, the police arrested Wu Xieyu at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport. He remained in mainland China under investigation for the following three years.
Trials On August 26, 2021, the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court sentenced Wu Xieyu to death in the first-instance verdict, which Wu appealed. On March 21, 2022, the High People's Court of Fujian Province stated that the second-instance verdict of this case was suspended due to “irresistible reasons”. On May 19, 2023, the High People's Court of Fujian Province held a second-instance trial of the case. On May 30, 2023, the Fujian Provincial High People’s Court publicly pronounced its verdict in the second instance and ruled to reject the appeal and uphold the death sentence.
Individuals involved
Perpetrator
Wu Xieyu (October 7, 1994 – January 31, 2024), from Nanping, Fujian, originally from Putian. In 1996, due to his parents’ job transfer, the whole family moved from Nanping to Fuzhou to live. In 2006, he was admitted to the Second Affiliated Middle School of Fuzhou Education College where his mother worked. In 2009, he was admitted to Fuzhou No.1 Middle School with the highest score in the school and continued to rank among the top students in high school. In 2012, he was recommended for admission to the School of Economics at Peking University. He was also awarded as a Triple-A Student (a straight A student) at Peking University in his freshman year and received a Liao Kaiyuan Scholarship of 10,000 yuan in his sophomore year. In his junior year, he had plans to study abroad. In September 2014, he participated in a GRE training program organized by an institution and scored 165 (out of 170) on Verbal, 170 (out of 170) on Quantitative and 4.5 (out of 6) on Analytical Writing, ranking in the top 5% globally. The institution also awarded him a scholarship of 6,000 yuan.
Victim Xie Tianqin (December 25, 1967 – July 10, 2015), the mother of the suspect Wu Xieyu, was a middle school history teacher. In the late 1980s, she graduated from a normal school and became a history teacher at Nanping Railway Children’s Middle School in Fuzhou Branch. In 1992, she married Wu Zhijian (died in 2010), whom she met in Nanping. Later, in 1994, they had their only child, Wu Xieyu. At the end of 1996, due to the cancellation of Nanping Railway Children’s Middle School in Fuzhou Branch, Xie Tianqin went to Fuzhou Railway Middle School (renamed as the Second Affiliated Middle School of Fuzhou Education College in 2003) to continue her work as a history teacher.
Events At the end of June 2015, Wu Xieyu purchased various tools online such as knives, waterproof cloth, plastic cloth, isolation suits, doctor and nurse uniforms.
On July 10, 2015, approx. 17:00, Wu Xieyu took advantage of Xie Tianqin’s return home to change her shoes and struck her head and face several times with a dumbbell bar, causing her death.
In mid-July 2015, Wu Xieyu began to send messages to his relatives saying that he was about to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States as an exchange student and that his mother Xie Tianqin would accompany him to study in the United States and would take a flight on July 25. Then Wu Xieyu used the excuse of needing money to go abroad and borrowed money from his mother’s relatives, colleagues and friends in his own and his mother’s name through various means of communication. The total amount borrowed was as high as 1.44 million yuan, all of which was transferred to Xie Tianqin’s bank card. The password for the card was Wu Xieyu’s birthday. Wu Xieyu also copied his mother’s diary and cut out some words to piece together a resignation letter. In Oct 2015, the grade director of Xie Tianqin's workplace received a resignation form that Wu had created by imitating Xie's handwriting and sent from Shanghai. It was precisely because of Wu Xieyu’s careful cover-up that his relatives and friends did not notice anything unusual for half a year.
From July 12 to 23, 2015, Wu Xieyu purchased activated carbon, plastic film and other items online several times and installed surveillance cameras and alarms on the scene.
On February 5, 2016 (the 27th day of the twelfth lunar month), Wu Xieyu’s uncle received a text message from Wu Xieyu saying that he and his mother would return from Boston, US, and arrive at Putian Railway Station in Fujian on February 6. On February 6, Xie Tianqin’s family failed to pick them up at Putian station and received no response to phone calls or text messages. They rushed to their home in Fuzhou but no one answered the door. Relatives were worried that something had happened to them and reported it to the police. The police initially speculated that the mother and son might be hiding from relatives came collecting debt, but Xie Tianqin’s colleagues told relatives that they had seen Wu Xieyu on campus at the end of July 2015. Relatives approached the leaders of Xie Tianqin’s workplace and asked them to pry open the door, but were refused. A later reward notice from the police showed that from February 4 to 6, Wu Xieyu was staying at a hotel in Henan. At around 23:00 on February 4, Wu Xieyu withdrew money from a cash machine in Henan and was captured by surveillance cameras. This was the last time Wu Xieyu appeared in public images before being captured.
On February 14, 2016 (the seventh day of the Spring Festival), Fuzhou police discovered that the victim Xie Tianqin was killed in her residence at Unit 102, Building 5 of the Second Affiliated Middle School of Education College at No. 172 Guishan Road, Jin’an District, Fuzhou. After investigation, the police found that her son Wu Xieyu was a major suspect and had fled. Through investigation, the police learned that in July 2015, Wu Xieyu had left Fuzhou by train; in October, Wu Xieyu had stayed in a hotel in Fuzhou; on October 7, Wu Xieyu celebrated his birthday and had a phone conversation with his relatives; at the end of December, Wu Xieyu even returned to his dormitory at Peking University and asked his classmates about retaking exam in the second semester of his junior year.
On March 3, 2016, Fuzhou police issued a reward notice for this case. On May 19, the Shangqiu police in Henan also assisted in issuing a reward notice, stating that Wu Xieyu may have fled to Henan. However, there was still no trace about Wu Xieyu.
According to the Fuzhou police, after committing the crime, the suspect Wu Xieyu sealed off the staff dormitory and placed the body on the bed, wrapping it in layers of plastic cloth, a total of 75 layers, and placed activated carbon in the gaps to subdue stinks. When the police broke in, they first found a human-shaped object wrapped in plastic cloth on Wu Xieyu’s bed. After unwrapping it, they found that it was a dummy. Then they found the real body under the bed, also tightly wrapped. In addition, he also installed surveillance cameras in the room and connected them to a computer. The curtains were tightly closed and all light-transmitting places in the room were covered with black tape. After killing his mother, Wu borrowed money in his mother’s name.
After leaving Henan, Wu Xieyu traveled to coastal cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. Later, due to the alerted public, he chose to take a bus to the inland areas and finally settled in Chongqing under the alias "Zhou Long". He claimed to have graduated from Peking University when tutoring students but claimed to have graduated from Tsinghua University when talking to colleagues and customers at nightclubs. However, everyone thought he was bragging and no one believed him. During his time on the run, he purchased more than thirty forged identity cards.
In February 2019, Wu Xieyu resigned from his job at the nightclub and worked as a waiter at a bar under the alias Zhang Weijin. According to bar staff, Wu Xieyu’s appearance at the time was very different from the photo on the reward notice. He claimed to be from Hunan, but his accent was clearly different from that of another colleague from Hunan. During his time working at the bar, he visited prostitutes several times.
Detainment On April 21, 2019, Wu Xieyu, who had been on the run for three years, was arrested by the police while boarding a plane at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport. However, The Paper cited an interview with a woman surnamed Chen from Chongqing who witnessed Wu Xieyu’s arrest and obtained confirmation from authoritative sources that Wu Xieyu was arrested at around 4:00 am on April 20. He went to the airport not to board a plane but to see off a female friend (also a customer he was pursuing) who was flying to Wuhan. When Wu Xieyu entered the T2 terminal of Jiangbei Airport, the Sky Eye took his images and compared with its facial recognition system four times in the entrance security check area. Each time, the similarity comparison with his wanted photo was greater than or equal to 98%, confirming that it was Wu Xieyu himself. Chongqing police quickly dispatched and arrested Wu Xieyu shortly after he entered the terminal building. The woman surnamed Chen said that she had only met Wu Xieyu three times and was not familiar with him. She only learned his name after he was arrested and only learned from a friend several days later that he was a murderer and was very scared. Staff at the bar where Wu Xieyu worked confirmed that the person Wu Xieyu went to see off was the manager of the bar.
Interrogation and arrest On April 28, 2019, the police conducted a preliminary interrogation of Wu Xieyu for about 8 hours. Wu Xieyu did not deny killing his mother, but he avoided answering core questions about the case such as motive, the course of the crime and his own situation after the crime. He “basically did not give a direct answer”. He only actively expressed himself when it came to knowledge-based topics unrelated to the case. This behavior and attitude towards the police were considered to be very similar to that of the murderer in the Baiyin case.
On May 27, 2019, the Fuzhou Jin'an People's Procuratorate made a decision to approve the arrest of the suspect Wu Xieyu.
Trial and appeal On December 24, 2020, the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court held a public trial of this case.
During the trial, Wu Xieyu stated that the process of his father’s death at home had a great impact on him. When he mentioned his father, he could not help but burst into tears. When he mentioned his mother, he only said that she was a "good woman", a "good wife" and a "good mother".