The sensational “case of hiding a corpse in a flower bed” in Luzhou, Sichuan finally received a judicial verdict after 28 years of investigation. The Luzhou Intermediate People’s Court first issued its verdict on November 10, and the defendant Chen Moufen was sentenced to death for intentional murder and immediately executed; Co-defendant Yang Mougen was sentenced to death with two years of execution suspended. Both of them were deprived of political rights for life.
The case arose from a dispute over a 40,000 yuan loan in 1997. Wu Maoping, a 34-year-old female clothing store owner, was murdered and her body was buried in a flower bed on the ninth floor of a shopping mall. It was not accidentally uncovered until construction took place in 2025. The strangest part of the case is that the female suspect not only changed her name and identity, but was also accused of traveling to South Korea multiple times for plastic surgery in an attempt to avoid investigation. Police eventually revealed her true identity, which had been hidden for many years, through an old ID card photo from more than 20 years ago and identification by mall employees at the time.
In the 1990s, Luzhou Bus Mall in Sichuan was an important local textile wholesale and distribution center. Wu Mouping and her husband Huang Ming imported woolen sweaters from Zhejiang, and their business was very prosperous for a period of time, they became a famous merchant in the mall. After the couple divorced in 1996, Wu Maoping raised her 10-year-old son Huang Ping alone. Mother and son lived in the shop and were dependent on each other.
February 1, 1997, five days before Lunar New Year’s Eve. After Wu Mouping had lunch, he asked the clerk to go upstairs to collect the bill from another merchant. Unexpectedly, she never returned.
Police later learned that Wu Maoping had lent 40,000 RMB to Chen Moufen, who was also running a business in the mall, and provided her with goods to help her run her business. Because Chen Moufen was unable to repay the money, she conspired with her ex-husband Yang Mougen to lure Wu Mouping to a store on the fourth floor of the mall under the pretext of returning the money, strangled her to death, and took away gold and silver jewelry and other property.
The two took the body to the ninth-floor terrace of the shopping mall that night, buried it in a bed of flowers, and then fled separately. Although relatives and friends called the police and searched for her, they found no trace of Wu Mouping.
