Crime writer working on book about a killer author is arrested over four cold case murders
A Chinese crime writer working on a novel about a killer author who evades police has been arrested over a string of grisly murders.
It now appears Liu Yongbiao’s ‘The Beautiful Writer who Killed’ may have not been absolute fiction, after he was taken into custody for allegedly bludgeoning four people to death more than two decades ago.
Police believe Liu, a successful author who had one novel turned into a 50-episode TV series, checked into a guesthouse in the eastern city of Huzhou on November 29,1995.
They allege he and an accomplice had intended to rob the hotel’s guests but when one victim fought back, he was beaten to death.
Not stopping there, the thieves are believed to have then killed the couple who ran the guesthouse and their 13-year-old grandson – sparking a two-decade-long cold case.
For 22-years, investigators struggled to find a link between the victims and their killers, analysing 60,000 odd fingerprint samples before DNA technology pointed them in the direction of 64-year-old Liu.
In a scene fit for a murder mystery novel, police arrived to find Liu on his doorstep, when he told them “I’ve been waiting for you here all this time”.
According to Chinese media, Liu confessed his crimes to his wife in a one-page letter.
“Now I can finally be free from the mental torment I’ve endured for so long,” he reportedly wrote.
‘The Beautiful Writer who Killed’, which followed Liu's bestseller 'The Guilty Secret' was never published and it now appears Liu’s next masterpiece will be written from behind bars.
