Duan Guocheng

Duan Guocheng (1973 – 24 April 2003) was a Chinese serial killer and robber who murdered 13 women in Hubei and Hunan between 1999 and 2001. Additionally, he committed fourteen assaults and over forty other robberies during the same timeframe. Duan was arrested in 2001 following a three-month manhunt and executed in 2003.

Duan was wanted by police in Yueyang for nine counts of murder and numerous robberies, but had managed to flee to Wuhan, where he resumed his killings and muggings. Based on unfounded rumors that most of the victims in Wuhan wore red clothing, the killings were dubbed "The Red Dress Murders" and the then-unidentified perpetrator was nicknamed "The Red Dress Killer". In official accounts, the later murders are referred to as the Wuhan 5·7 serial robbery-homicide case ("武汉5·7系列抢劫杀人案").

Early life Duan was born in Yueyanglou, Yueyang. His parents, originally from Jianli, Hubei, were described as honest, but short-tempered. Since early childhood, Duan was known as a pickpocket. When he was seven or eight years old, his father broke one of Duan's fingers with a pair of pliers to prevent him from stealing again. Over time, the relationship between Duan and his parents became strained due to frequent quarrels over "trivial matters", to the point where they no longer ate at the same table. He lived with his parents and frequently unemployed, last working as a security guard. According to Duan's mother, her son blamed his father for the family's poverty, which Duan believed was also the reason why he could not enter a romantic relationship. they were actually aged 20 to 41. Most of them were migrant workers or university students not native to the province. A popular rumor claimed that the fatal victims all wore red and had long hair, leading some women to stop wearing red clothing, usually opting for blue colors, and to cut their hair short.

Since all four of the fatal victims were stabbed repeatedly, a minimum of seven and upwards of thirty times, Wuhan's police believed that the unidentified perpetrator was acting out of misogyny. They also thought that the suspect might be impotent, since the final of the fatal victims was sexually assaulted, but not vaginally raped. Wuhan's Public Security Bureau also commissioned a teacher at the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts to make a sculpture based on witness descriptions of the suspect. In the early hours of 10 August 2001, Wuhan PSB contacted Yueyang authorities after hearing about their search for Duan, having noticed similarities in physical descriptions and modus operandi. Five officers, led by Captain Yi, arrived in the city as consultants. They provided information including Duan's "Hu Cheng" alias. By 8:00 a.m. that same day, the bureau printed forty bulletins containing Duan's personal details and distributed them to all guesthouses in Wuchang District. Within ten minutes, a receptionist called police that a "Hu Cheng" of Duan's description had checked into her workplace.

Arrest On 13 August 2001, Duan was tracked down to a hotel and arrested by six armed officers as he attempted to flee through a bathroom window. Under the bedsheets in his room were the bloodstained murder weapon, a victim's handbag and other stolen items. His shoes were also positively matched to footprints at all four murder sites.

The investigative team headed by inspector Zhang Dehua was rewarded ¥70,000 by Chen Xunqiu, who credited "high-tech methods and strategies" by the Yueyang and Wuhan security bureaus. The Wuchang District bureau task force was rewarded ¥100,000. Yu Min, the receptionist who reported Duan's presence, received a reward of ¥20,000.

Legal process Duan was held at Wuhan No. 2 Detention Center. His trial began on 16 December 2002 and on 14 March 2003, he was sentenced to death. Duan was executed on 24 April 2003.