Daily Lessons from Life 13 August 2010 - Family killer asks court for 'quick death'

"Family killer asks court for 'quick death' - Fri, Aug 13, 2010 China Daily/Asia News Network

BEIJING - A man who has confessed to killing six of his family members, including his two young sons, asked the judge to give him a quick death when he stood trial on Thursday.

Li Lei went on trial at the No 1 Intermediate People's Court of Beijing for murdering his parents, wife, younger sister and two sons on Nov 23, 2009, in the southern district of Daxing. The court heard that the incident started when Li quarreled with his wife, Wang Meiling. Li then stabbed her to death in their bedroom with a 30-centimeter knife he bought in 2008."

A tragic story. How else can you described this case? Maybe death is the best treatment for him. As requested!

Lessons for me are:

1. when emotion takes control, the most unimaginable crime can take place;

2. the reasons given by the killer was he has always being treated very strictly by his parents since he was young while his college-educated sister treated his shabbily. On top of that his wife set a curfew for him to come back each night and took away his earning for the night working at the restaurant! Could he have been driven to this stage of insanity to kill? He also claimed that he smoke cigarettes for hours before killing his sons age below 6! The sad thing for him is that the psychological assessment of him revealed that he is NORMAL!! So, these can only be excuses. Maybe indirectly influencing his actions, at best. Still, he has to face the consequence and take responsibility. Which he is doing and asking for a quick death!;

3. the question to ask is: are there more such people in China? Ticking human time bomb of a different variety from those suicide bombers? At 1% of 1.3B, the number is staggering! If they concentrate in the urban cities, any copy-cat outbreak will be terrifying. The worst thing is that the killer was described a introverted and gentle young man by those who know him.

There is no way to turn this away. It is like the random killing in the USA every now and then. Except the damages are inflicted with fire arms. The number can be higher than 6 at any one time.

Blessed those who lost their lives. I have no answer. I feel hapless!