Our reporter Zhang Yuan - After getting divorced, Fan Fenglian rented a house with her mother. However, due to feeling that her mother was weak and constantly suffering from rhinitis symptoms, they frequently quarreled. Eventually, she killed her mother over a rent issue. Recently, the First Intermediate People's Court found 42-year-old Fan Fenglian guilty of intentional injury, but due to her being a person with limited criminal responsibility, she was sentenced to only 10 years in prison.
Fan Fenglian called the police reporting that her mother had fainted. At 7:32 PM on December 25, 2010, two officers from Xingfeng Police Station were patrolling their jurisdiction when they received an alert from the 110 center stating that an old lady had fainted in the bathroom at Guanyinsi Northli in Huangcun Town, Daxing District. The caller was none other than the defendant, Fan Fenglian. Before the incident, Fan Fenglian worked as a coordinator at the Social Security Office of Xingfeng Subdistrict Office in Daxing District.
According to the testimony of the police officers, before the ambulance arrived, Fan Fenglian suddenly started laughing for no reason. Then she began vomiting, saying "If the old lady dies, I won't live either, and if the old lady dies, I can't explain it either." When the medical personnel confirmed the death of the elderly woman, Fan Fenglian started cursing at them and grabbed a basin of water from the coffee table to throw at the doctor. She was then taken away for investigation.
The court found that around 7 PM on that day, Fan Fenglian beat her mother Fang (who was 74 years old at the time), causing multiple blunt force injuries to her head and face, resulting in closed brain injuries which led to her death.
It was reported that Fan Fenglian had beaten her mother multiple times. Her ex-husband said that Fan Fenglian had a very short temper and insisted things be done immediately. On August 13, 2009, they got a divorce, and their son lived with him while Fan Fenglian moved out to live with her mother in a rented house belonging to her third sister.
Fan Fenglian's four sisters testified that before this incident, Fan Fenglian had beaten her mother multiple times, especially after drinking alcohol, making the situation even worse. The most serious incident left her mother’s face bruised purple. The reasons for each beating were basically because Fan Fenglian told her mother to do something, and her mother didn’t follow her instructions.
On the afternoon of the day of the incident, around 4 PM, Fan Fenglian called her ex-husband, complaining that her third sister had come to collect the rent. According to her statement, after her third sister left, she became angry and felt her mother was too weak, so she started arguing with her mother. After the argument, she returned to her small room and then heard some noise coming from her mother’s room.
Fan Fenglian claimed that she rushed over and found her mother lying on the ground. She tried to drag her mother into the toilet to wipe her down with a towel and tissue paper, but unfortunately, she lost her grip, causing her mother's back of the head to hit the ground. When she went to the toilet to get the tissue, she accidentally stepped on her mother's left face twice, “I remember just these three incidents.”
Medical experts determined that the deceased's injuries on her head and face were widespread and could not have been caused by one or two external forces. An accidental fall or someone accidentally stepping on or kicking her would not result in such extensive injuries. Therefore, it can be concluded that the deceased had been punched and kicked.
After the incident, Fan Fenglian's four sisters jointly requested leniency in her punishment and stated that they did not require any civil compensation from Fan Fenglian. Additionally, the Forensic Appraisal Center of the Compulsory Treatment Administration of the Municipal Public Security Bureau proved that Fan Fenglian suffered from organic personality disorder. During the incident, affected by her mental illness, her control ability was incomplete, and she was assessed as having limited criminal responsibility.
In the end, the court handed down the aforementioned verdict.