On November 4th, in the bleak autumn wind, murderer Wu Zhonghuan was executed according to law. This day was only four days away from his 41st birthday.
Last February 1st, Wu Zhonghuan created a bloody incident in the mountain village where he grew up, crazily killing three people, including his own mother, a neighbor who he thought had a grudge against him, and an innocent seven-year-old girl.
A week after Wu Zhonghuan's execution, the reporter came to the place of the tragedy, Henggang Village under Dalan Village Committee in Sulong Town at the southwest corner of Yunfu. The village seemed to have restored its peace on the surface, but when mentioning that bloody morning more than a year ago, many villagers were still frightened.
The villagers' evaluation of Wu Zhonghuan was surprising: before the incident, Wu Zhonghuan was not a violent person; instead, he was rather honest and hardworking. So why did this seemingly honest and hardworking farmer commit such a bloody crime? According to the police investigation, it was mainly because Wu Zhonghuan had been trapped in the drug world for a long time and had contracted AIDS due to drug use. In despair, he chose to kill as a way to revenge society.
Wu Zhonghuan lost his mind and raised the iron hoe to hit his mother on the head
Nowadays, it is the season of autumn harvest in Henggang Village. Farmers are busy reaping in the fields, and water buffaloes are quietly eating grass. However, more than a year ago, there was a tragic scene here.
On the morning of February 1st, 2008, the weather was a bit cold. Villager A Yan was washing clothes at home when suddenly her neighbor Wu Zhonghuan, dressed in black pants and black shirt, appeared at the door and said he had something to talk with her father-in-law Liao Wanrong, then went straight upstairs. A Yan later recalled that Wu Zhonghuan's tone was very calm at the time.
No one would have thought that Wu Zhonghuan was driven by a terrible idea at that moment: he wanted to take revenge on the whole village. And the first target was Liao Wanrong, who had a dispute over the boundary of the vegetable field with Wu Zhonghuan's family.
After Wu Zhonghuan went upstairs, he happened to see Liao Wanrong coming out of the room, then started cursing Liao in the local dialect, saying that Liao usually bullied his family and today he would kill Liao. Liao Wanrong didn't realize that he was about to face a great disaster, saying while defending himself: "I didn't bully you," and walked downstairs. At this moment, Wu Zhonghuan took out a fruit knife prepared in advance from his back pocket, grabbed Liao's clothes with his left hand, and stabbed Liao's abdomen several times with the right hand. Liao Wanrong immediately fell in a pool of blood. Wu Zhonghuan then picked up an iron hoe on the first floor, returned to the stairs where Liao Wanrong fell, and hit his head several times until he stopped.
Seeing her father-in-law fall on the stairs, A Yan rushed forward and grabbed Wu Zhonghuan's clothes, shouting: "Help! Someone is killing!" Wu Zhonghuan broke free from A Yan and walked out, and A Yan kept chasing him. When they arrived at a villager's house, Wu Zhonghuan picked up an iron hoe placed at the door and beat A Yan fiercely. Villager Wu Jiajin bravely stepped forward to stop Wu Zhonghuan from continuing the crime and snatched the iron hoe.
After the iron hoe was snatched away, Wu Zhonghuan became even crazier, running around the village to find more targets for revenge. When he saw Liao Wanrong's wife Ms. Chen, he wanted to take revenge on her too. Ms. Chen realized the situation was not good and hurriedly escaped into a villager's house, locking the door, thus escaping the disaster. At this time, some villagers wanted to step forward to stop Wu Zhonghuan, but all were shaken off by him.
Wu Zhonghuan found another iron hoe and walked towards the village. On the way, he saw his mother Ms. Zhuo carrying a bucket of water home and shouted at her "I will beat you to death." Perhaps Ms. Wu didn't expect her own son would really harm her, so she shouted back at Wu Zhonghuan: "Beat me if you dare!" At this point, Wu Zhonghuan had already lost his mind and raised the iron hoe to hit his mother on the head and body, causing her to fall beside her own son.
The tragedy was not over yet. In a villager's living room, some villagers were sitting together watching TV. Suddenly, Wu Zhonghuan burst in holding an iron hoe. Frightened villagers quickly ran outside. Wu Zhonghuan swung the hoe towards the crowd. A seven-year-old girl in the first grade couldn't dodge in time and was hit on the forehead by the iron hoe. She cried out "Mom" once and then fell down, never waking up again.
Villager Wu Xinxin rushed forward to grab the iron hoe from Wu Zhonghuan and was injured on his left palm by Wu Zhonghuan's iron hoe. Subsequently, relatives of Wu Xinxin arrived and finally managed to subdue Wu Zhonghuan together. Within just two or three hours, Wu Zhonghuan killed three people and injured two others, creating an unprecedented bloody case in this small mountain village.
"Such a quiet person, who could have thought he would kill?"
More than a year after the incident, the villagers still couldn't understand. Although Wu Zhonghuan had the bad habit of drug addiction, he looked honest and hardworking. How could he suddenly turn into a crazy killer?
"He was normal all the time. A few days before the murder, my youngest son got married, and he came to help. We were laughing and talking at the time," recalled villager Wu Xinxin. During this incident, Wu Xinxin was injured by using his left hand to catch the iron hoe struck by Wu Zhonghuan. "I knew he had been addicted to drugs for more than ten years, but our families didn't have any conflict."
"He stayed at home every day and didn't argue with family members," said Wu Zhonghuan's father Wu Ming. On the day of the incident, Wu Ming, who was chatting with neighbors far away, heard something had happened and rushed home. Along the way, he saw his wife lying on the embankment covered in blood. Wu Ming, who had separated from his eldest son for a long time, said he never imagined Wu Zhonghuan would have the heart to kill his own mother.
Wu Zhonghuan's wife believed that her husband committed such cruel acts because he contracted AIDS. Since knowing he had AIDS in 2007, Wu Zhonghuan often sat alone muttering to himself, and no one knew what he was saying. Although she felt her husband was a bit strange, she absolutely did not expect him to do such a thing.
In the eyes of many villagers, Wu Zhonghuan was just an ordinary farmer. Although he had the bad habit of drug addiction, he wasn't a bad person. Villager A Lian described Wu Zhonghuan as "very introverted and not talkative", but polite. Whenever he met someone on the road, although he wasn't good at speaking, he would greet them with a smile.
Villager A Jie tried to snatch the hoe from Wu Zhonghuan during the incident but failed because of her lack of strength. She said Wu Zhonghuan was "pretty honest and fair, and didn't cause trouble in the village."
"At that time I was watching TV. I saw Wu Zhonghuan push open the gate, without saying anything, and directly start hitting people with the hoe," described villager Liao X. His seven-year-old daughter was hit on the forehead by Wu Zhonghuan's iron hoe and died on the way to the hospital due to severe injuries. Until now, thinking about his innocent daughter who died, Liao X still feels very sad.
At that time, there was only one thought in his mind: since he had AIDS and wouldn't live long, he just wanted to kill people
Born in this remote little mountain village in 1968, Wu Zhonghuan dropped out of school after elementary school. Villagers called him "Ah Huan", and some called him "Lame Huan". His legs and feet weren't actually disabled, and no one knows why others called him that. He didn't care, just silently growing up like an ordinary farmer, quietly farming, harvesting crops, marrying and having children. Wu Zhonghuan's parents both worked in agriculture at home, his wife worked in a clothing factory, his elder son studied computers at a technical school, and his two daughters worked outside. Originally, this should have been a warm and harmonious family, though not wealthy.
However, drugs changed everything. Around 1995, Wu Zhonghuan started taking drugs and became addicted. For this, he was caught twice by the local public security department and forcibly sent to detox for six months.
What completely shattered Wu Zhonghuan was AIDS. Due to drug use, Wu Zhonghuan was confirmed to have contracted AIDS in the second half of 2007. After that, Wu Zhonghuan seemed to have changed overnight, often gloomy, either mumbling to himself or being frequently scolded by his mother due to drug issues, making him extremely depressed. However, these situations did not attract special attention from his family at the time. A few months later, the tragedy occurred.
The villagers were indeed taken aback by this. According to Wu Zhonghuan's wife, at around 8 o'clock in the morning on the day of the incident, Wu Zhonghuan suddenly told her that he wanted to kill the entire village. His wife persuaded him, saying: "Don't say nonsense like that, don't ruin yourself. It's so cold, go back to bed." After sleeping for half an hour, Wu Zhonghuan said "I want to go out for a walk." Seeing her husband's abnormal expression, his wife chased after him. Wu Zhonghuan turned around and glared at her, saying, "If you chase me, I'll beat you to death!" Helplessly, the wife followed behind her husband, hinting or explicitly shouting along the way, telling neighbors to lock their doors, but still couldn't prevent the tragedy from happening.
Some villagers tried to analyze Wu Zhonghuan's psychological state that morning: at that time, his psychology was already extremely distorted, associating all bad things together, feeling that at over forty years old, he was constantly being scolded by his mother, and his daughter didn't come home during holidays, seeming to keep distance from him. Anyway, he would die sooner or later from AIDS, and if he died, those "enemies" wouldn't feel satisfied either. It might as well drag a few people down with him, thus generating the idea of retaliating against society.
During the interrogation by the public security organs, Wu Zhonghuan said that he did not consider the consequences at all, and at that time he had only one thought: since he had AIDS and wouldn't live long, he just wanted to kill people, especially those "enemies" who had offended him before.
Liao Wanrong had a quarrel with his family over the vegetable field issue, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he got, feeling that not killing the "enemy" would not let off steam.
As for his own birth mother, she indulged him in the past and didn't manage him properly, but after knowing he was addicted to drugs, she often cursed at him, treating him as if he wasn't her real son, which also made him angry.
He painstakingly raised his younger daughter and sent her to work elsewhere, but she turned out to be an ungrateful wolf who didn't come back to visit him during holidays, which also made him angry. Once he was angry with one person, he felt that many people were annoying, remembered all the bad things, and wanted to kill those "annoying people".
He told the investigating officers that he deserved to die. When asked if he required a lawyer for defense, Wu Zhonghuan shook his head, as if he had lost all hope. Following the procedure, the police consulted his opinion three times, and each time his attitude was the same.
Southern Daily reporters Wei Fang Yang Hongyu
Intern Fan Chen
Expert Suggestions
Government departments should actively conduct psychological interventions
Associate Professor He Yanling from the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Sun Yat-sen University believes that this tragic event is thought-provoking and offers much reflection for all sectors of society.
Firstly, at this stage, government intervention in drug users is still very limited. Drug use is basically still a personal problem. Only when it affects the surrounding population does the personal problem become a social problem; only when the social problem evolves into a public problem does the government intervene. By then, the harmful results have already occurred. Government departments must adhere to the principle of prevention first and actively intervene in drug use phenomena.
Many drug users belong to a group of people who are not valued in society before drug use, and are even excluded by society, leading them onto the path of drug use; after drug use, drug users become addicted and can't quit, are discriminated against in employment, and become estranged from the surrounding population, easily developing a desire for revenge against society. The government can intervene in these two aspects respectively, conducting pre-event and post-event interventions.
Moreover, in today's rural society, the connection between neighbors is not as tight as in traditional agricultural societies, and farmers' collective consciousness is not strong enough. Once misfortune strikes, farmers often find themselves isolated and helpless, and the failure of social intervention occurs from time to time. This also reminds us to actively explore effective rural management mechanisms.
Psychological adjustment institutions can be established in rural areas, focusing on social intervention for a group of middle-aged and young people who bear the responsibility of supporting their families but cannot find work. This mechanism should be a regular mechanism that can continuously investigate the situation of this group, dynamically monitor, and conduct psychological tests. The government should provide financial and policy support for it.
Special care and love should be given to certain key populations, such as drug users, AIDS patients, disabled persons, and those with broken families. Psychological adjustment mechanisms should be established among these people to identify and prevent potential dangers, preventing them from developing mental illnesses and other problems.
There are various channels for establishing psychological adjustment mechanisms. In rural areas, the Village Committee, as a self-governing institution of villagers, can play the role of a communication bridge between the government and farmers, playing the role of a comprehensive coordinator; in cities, some institutional bodies within the system, such as the Youth League, Women's Federation, and Elderly Association, can achieve the goal of intervention, coordinate and handle their functions, enabling these institutions to play the role of caring for key populations; relevant functional departments within the government, such as the Civil Affairs Department, can also purchase public services, support rehabilitation organizations, improve employment policies, and other means for social intervention.
Reporter's Notes
Pay Attention to the Mental Health of AIDS Patients
It is comforting that after the incident, the local government did a lot of follow-up work, and the mountain village has restored its former tranquility and beauty.
But the lessons of bloodshed cannot be forgotten. In conversations with local officials and the masses, everyone mentioned Wu Zhonghuan's tragic life trajectory: lacking discipline as a child, and being scolded excessively as an adult; weak-willed, with a stubborn personality, resulting in drug addiction and disease; physiological diseases aggravating psychological diseases, leading to extreme psychological distortion, ultimately causing tragedies for both himself and society.
How to ensure that all members of society maintain physical and mental health, develop an open-minded and grateful mindset, is the subject left by the tragedy. Wu Zhonghuan's case cannot be viewed in isolation. In recent years, cases of retaliation against society due to psychological imbalance have occurred from time to time. Although the killers have been sentenced to death, the victims cannot be brought back to life. How to eliminate the social psychology that leads to such tragedies is the urgent problem we need to solve.
For groups like AIDS patients who are prone to despair, how to eliminate their feelings of despair, allowing them to feel love and care rather than indifference and discrimination, so that they can live with dignity and purpose rather than maliciously retaliate against society, requires reflection from the whole of society.