INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
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Gao's first killing took place in 1988, he was only caught years later in 2016
A Chinese serial killer convicted of murdering 11 girls and women between 1988 and 2002 has been executed
Gao Chengyong, dubbed "Jack the Ripper" by Chinese media, followed his victims home before robbing, raping and murdering them
He cut their throats and mutilated their bodies
Gao, a married father of two, was arrested in 2016 at the grocery store he ran in Baiyin, Gansu province
Police managed to trace the 53-year-old through a series of DNA tests.Gao's first murder was in May 1988, the year his son was born.A
23-year-old woman was found in Baiyin with 26 stab wounds to her body.Subsequent murders followed a similar pattern, with the killer often
targeting young women who lived alone.Gao also cut off parts of his victim's reproductive organs, according to the Beijing Youth Daily
His youngest victim was eight years old.Women in Baiyin would not walk alone in the streets without being accompanied by male relatives or
friends after the spate of attacks
The killings stopped in 2002 but it was only years later that a breakthrough came, when Gao's uncle was arrested for a minor crime.He gave
a DNA sample which police then linked to the crimes, determining they must have been committed by a relative - which was later confirmed to
be Gao.He was sentenced to death last year
The court in Baiyin called his actions "despicable"
His execution on Thursday was announced on the court's Weibo account.It is not clear how the execution was carried out, though death
sentences in China are mostly carried out by lethal injection or a firing squad.
