Man Accused Of Murdering Wife, Dismembering Her Body Using Meat Grinder

A man in China who has been accused of murdering his wife and dismembering her body parts before flushing them down a toilet appeared in court Friday.

Xu Guoli, 55, of eastern Hangzhou province in China allegedly murdered his wife Lai Huili and dismembered her body using a meat grinder on July 5, 2020. A day after the alleged incident, Guoli alerted the police that his wife went missing while he was sleeping, Global Times reported.

Guoli also appeared in multiple television interviews begging for help to find his missing wife. He even offered 100,000 yuan (US$15,500) as a reward for anyone who could help him find her.

The investigators spent more than two weeks searching at the couple’s apartment building and checked around 6,000 hours of surveillance video footage. The police then determined that Huili had not left the apartment complex as claimed by her husband.

They also drained the building’s septic tank in an attempt to get traces of her body tissues. The police arrested Guoli on July 23 after the DNA testing of these samples came positive for the victim’s body parts, South China Morning Post reported.

The prosecutors told the court Friday that Guoli had spiked his wife’s drink and taped her mouth before she was strangled to death. He then moved her body into the bathroom and dismembered her. The prosecutors said that Guoli threw some of the body parts in the garbage and the remaining parts were flushed through the toilet.

The couple who knew each other since 1988 got married in 2008 and has a 12-year-old daughter.

Guoli told the court that he held a grudge against his wife since 2018 and often had physical fights with her. He felt that his wife did not respect him and claimed that he had suicidal thoughts as she often called him “useless.”

The court found out that the couple had disagreements as the wife did not allow Guoli to intervene in their daughter’s education even though the child was falling behind in her academics.

The couple also had differences over the ownership of two apartments that they received as compensation in 2019 for a land eviction.

Guoli admitted in court that on the day of the murder, he had a fierce argument with his wife while the two were using a meat grinder to prepare dinner. However, he claimed that the murder was impulsive and denied that it was premeditated.

“I loved her and I hated her. [Killing her] is the only way,” Guoli said. “Now it’s of no use to say I regret it, but I have nothing more to say than ‘I regret it’,” he added.

The court hearing concluded with a conviction and sentencing scheduled for a later date.