A ‘socially awkward’ Chinese gambler killed his parents after they refused to pay his debts – then killed 17 more people to cover up his crimes, local media reported.
Police arrested 27-year-old Yang Qingpei in Kunming – and said that his youngest victim is three years old, and his oldest 72.
The ‘socially awkward’ gambler confessed to police – and local media reported that he had killed his parents ‘in a rage’ after they refused to honour gambling debts.
Mass killings are rare in China and the incident dominated discussion on social media platforms.
Yang Qingpei, born in 1989, was arrested in Yunnan province’s capital of Kunming, about 124 miles from the site of the murders in Yema, Yunnan police said on their official microblog.
The victims were members of six families, said the official Xinhua news agency.
The bodies were found on Thursday at different locations in the village, a state-backed news website, ThePaper.cn, said.
