Woman suspected of role in murders caught after 20 years at large

A female fugitive suspected of involvement in the murder of seven people was arrested in Xiamen, Fujian province, on Thursday after two decades on the run, Anhui Provincial Public Security Department said on Saturday.

Lao Rongzhi was suspected of killing seven people with her ex-boyfriend, Fa Ziying, from 1996 to 1999. She escaped from a rented house in July 1999 when Fa was arrested in Hefei, capital of Anhui province, after two men were killed.

Lao went into hiding and used a false identity. She was helping a friend manage a business counter in a shopping mall in Xiamen when she was captured, Xiamen police said.

Born in 1974, Lao used to be a primary schoolteacher in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province. She met Fa at the age of 19. Before meeting Lao, Fa, who was born in 1964, was sentenced to eight years in prison for robbery in 1981.

He received the death penalty for the seven murders and was executed in December 1999.

Anhui News reported that Lao and Fa began committing crimes in 1996 in multiple cities including Nanchang in Jiangxi province, Hefei in Anhui province, Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, Guangzhou in Guangdong province, and Nanning in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

When they arrived in a city, the couple would search for targets who looked wealthy in bars or dance halls, the reports said. Lao would then use different tricks to seduce targets and persuade them to visit a rented house, where Fa would be lying in wait to tie them up. The two would then force the victims to write letters or call their families to pay a ransom. But once they received the money, they would kill the victims.

Seven people were killed between 1996 and 1999. Two were killed in Hefei, two in Wenzhou, and three in Nanchang, according to Fa's confession.

In July 1996, a man was killed in Nanchang. Fa later killed the victim's wife and daughter and looted their home while collecting the ransom. In October 1997, two women were killed in a rented house in Wenzhou.

Lao had been listed on the arrest warrant since 1999, when another victim was lured to a rented house in Hefei. At first, the victim did not believe they were serious, so Fa killed a male carpenter, which persuaded the victim to write to his family for ransom money, according to reports at the time.

Fa was arrested while collecting the ransom, while Lao managed to escape.

The cases involving Lao are still under investigation, Xiamen police said.