Chinese Author Liu Yongbiao Arrested for Decades Old Murders

The Chinese crime author Liu Yongbiao has been arrested for the murder of four people who he killed over twenty years ago. The 53-year-old was a member of the official China Writers’ Association and had won prizes for his writing. The case is made all the more chilling by the fact that, in his book ‘The Guilty Secret’, the author wrote about a female writer who avoids arrest after having murdered several people.

As originally reported by The Paper (translated by the New York Times) Mr. Liu has since been arrested and is facing accusations of bludgeoning four people to death 22 years ago. It seems Mr. Liu is admitting to the crimes as he stated: “I’ve been waiting for you here all this time,” when the police arrived. The killings occurred in Huzhou, in neighboring Zhejiang Province, on a November night in 1995 at a hostel. Liu and a friend checked in to the hostel in order to rob the other occupants. A person staying at the hostel caught the two robbers in the act and they then beat him to death. To cover up the killing, they then beat to death the couple that ran the hostel as well as their 13-year-old grandson.

Police opened an investigation into the murders but it soon went cold. “The biggest challenge was the suspects and the victims had no previous relationship,” said Xu Zhicheng, one of the local investigators, according to The Paper. “It was very difficult for us to follow the vine to find the melon.”

Mr. Liu went on to become a successful writer but he did seem to show regret for the murders, saying that for years after the killings he struggled to sleep. With the help of new DNA technology, the police were able to reopen the case and found that the two suspects were Mr. Liu and his accomplice, a Mr. Wang. The two have since been arrested and Mr. Liu had written a letter to his wife saying: “I have been waiting for this day for 20 years and now it has finally come to an end. Now I can free myself of this spiritual torment I’ve had for so long.”