Chinese couple sentenced to death for killing the man’s two young children so they could start a new family

‘When the kids are gone, I will marry you… Why don’t you kill both since you will be killing anyway?’

Representational: A police car in Shanghai on 30 July 2019 (AFP via Getty Images)

A Chinese couple have been sentenced to death for conspiring to kill the man’s two children from his previous marriage — just so they could start a new family.

The man and woman “violated both the law and moral limits” for the act that caused “a terrible social influence,” a Chinese court said while delivering the conviction on Tuesday.

Zhang Bo had began an extra-marital affair with Ye Chengchen from China’s Chongqing municipality and soon after Zhang divorced his then-wife Chen Meilin in February last year, the two decided to kill the children.

The father threw his one-year-old son and two-year-old daughter out of the 14th-floor window of his high-rise building in November last year after calling both of them to his apartment.

Local media reported that Ye was also convicted of murder and sentenced to death because she forced Zhang to kill the children, the Chongqing No 5 Intermediate People’s Court said in its verdict.

The court said Ye did not want her future husband to have children from other women.

It said Ye and Zhang had began dating in 2019. Ye had allegedly asked the father to kill his two children on several occasions because her parents had objected to her getting married to a man who already had children.

The court documents revealed that Ye told Zhang: “When the kids are gone, I will marry you… Why don’t you kill both since you will be killing anyway?”

“When Zhang Bo hesitated, Ye forced him to commit the crime, and finally he followed through with the murder,” read the verdict.

After he threw his children out of the window, he was seen by some neighbours crying beside them.

One of the children had died on the spot while the other was declared dead in a hospital.