Chen Danlei receives the death penalty
Submitted by The Horses Mouth on Sun, 2006-09-10 08:45. :: Things Chinese
I never thought I would say this, but justice in China has been served.
Quote:
A former Purdue University graduate student has been sentenced to death for murdering her husband in Indiana and hiding his dismembered body in the trunk of a car, state media said today.
Shanghai's No. 1 Intermediate court sentenced Danlei Chen, 29, to death with a two-year reprieve on Monday, the People's Daily newspaper said. Such sentences are routinely commuted to life in prison if the inmate is cooperative.
Chen, 29, was also ordered to pay her husband Lei He's parents $55,000 in compensation, the paper said. Chen's lawyer, Zhang Peihong, told the Shanghai Daily newspaper his client had no plans to appeal the verdict.
Chinese media accounts, quoting Chen's statements during her one-day trial in July, said she confessed to killing her husband, Purdue student Lei He, at their apartment in Lafayette, Ind., while they were fighting over his demands for a divorce.
"When we quarreled fiercely, I wanted to kill him and then commit suicide," Chen was quoted as telling the court by the Shanghai Daily. "I didn't want a divorce and I was scared of getting a divorce. I couldn't bear it."
Chen told the court she bought a gun for $300 on Aug. 18, 2005, and shot her husband in the back of the head on the morning of Aug. 20 after he insisted on a divorce.