Paris court sentences Chinese childminder for killing baby's parents, cutting up bodies
A French court has sentenced a Chinese immigrant childminder to 20 years in prison for killing the parents of a bay who died in her charge, then cutting up their bodies and hiding the pieces in dustbins and a Paris park. The jury rejected Hui Zhang's plea of self-defence but freed her partner, Te Lu.
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"I'm not lucky to be alive, to live with this guilt, it's real torture," 34-year-old Hui said at the end of her trial, expressing "remorse" to the families of the victims.
She admitted killing Ying Wang and Liangsi Xue with a cleaver in 2012 after their baby died accidentally while in her care, then chopping up their bodies in the bathtub of her home before taking the pieces and dumping them in dustbins and in the Bois de Vincennes park on the edge of Paris.
But she claimed that the couple became aggressive when she invited them to her home and proposed to pay them not to register their son's death.
They attacked her with a butcher's knife, scratching her and trying to strangle her, she said, arguing that she killed them in self-defence and lost control after the act.
Te Lu, also 34, claimed to have passed out after being injured in the fight and not to have been conscious when she cut up the bodies.
Accepting that Hui acted to "save herself and save her son", prosecutor Julien Eyraud declared he was shocked when he learnt about the case but appealed to the jury to weigh the evidence and not be carried away by emotion.
They found Hui guilty but accepted that there was no proof that Te had dealt any of the fatal blows.
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