The case received international attention in July last year when 55-year-old Xu Guoli described how his wife, Lai Huili, had disappeared without a trace after leaving their home in the middle of the night in the big city of Hangzhou in China.
In several TV interviews, Guoli begged for information and help to find his wife, and offered more than 125,000 Norwegian kroner in finder’s salary.
Local police searched the apartment building where the family lived, and went through over 6,000 hours of surveillance material, without success.
However, the breakthrough came when police emptied the building’s septic tank and found DNA traces from Huili.
The police thus concluded that she had not left the apartment in the dark of night. On the contrary, her husband was now the main suspect in the case.
Guoli was remanded in custody on July 23 and confessed to the murder only hours later, according to a statement from the police, writes South China Morning Post.
In court, the prosecution has accused Guoli of doping his wife and strangling her until the night of July 4, 2020. He then allegedly cut her to pieces with a meat grinder, a cutting machine and a knife, before throwing the body parts in the toilet and rubbish.
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Several conflicts
They married in 2008, and had a twelve-year-old daughter, as well as a child from a previous marriage. Avisa writes that it was Xu Guoli’s own daughter who notified the police that Huili had disappeared without a trace.
The couple is said to have been in several conflicts since 2018 – and at times in violent quarrels. Guoli is said to have claimed that his wife did not respect him, calling him “useless”.
In court, however, Xu Guoli denied that the murder of his wife was planned, and denied that the meat grinder and cutting machine, which he had acquired one year in advance, had been bought for use in the crime.
He allegedly defended himself by saying that the murder was committed on impulse one afternoon when the couple used a meat grinder at noon. However, the couple is said to have ended up in a conflict the same afternoon.
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– Sufficient evidence
The man’s defender allegedly asked to have the man’s mental health examined and wanted a lenient punishment, but the prosecution claimed that there was sufficient evidence that the murder was planned.
Prosecutors also argued that his family had no history of mental illness.
