On October 21, a report from The Paper revealed that the Supreme People’s Court has upheld the death sentence for Zhou, the defendant in the high-profile “Changchun fatal object dropping case.” This decision was announced by the Intermediate People’s Court of Changchun on the morning of the same day.
In June 2023, a 28-year-old woman named Xiao Lou was tragically killed when a brick thrown from a high-rise building in Changchun struck her while she was at a night market. Zhou had previously hurled two buckets of water and three cans of unopened soda from the building, injuring two other individuals. On December 13 of the same year, the Changchun Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Zhou to death and deprived him of political rights for life, ordering him to pay over 40,000 yuan in compensation for funeral expenses to the victim’s family.
Xiao Lou’s sister spoke about the emotional toll of the announcement of the death sentence review, mentioning that Zhou was brought into the courtroom without showing any remorse, either personally or through his family. “For five or six days, this criminal continuously threw objects from above, injuring multiple people, which ultimately led to my sister’s death. The lack of intervention during that time is deeply disturbing to us,” she remarked.
According to previous reports from The Paper, Xiao Lou was a legal professional in Beijing who had visited Changchun to see friends. “She was at a crucial point in her career and had a stable relationship with her boyfriend. They were planning to get married,” her sister said.
On the night of June 22, 2023, Xiao Lou was struck by a brick thrown from the 33rd floor as she passed through the night market at Wanda Plaza on Hongqi Street in Changchun. She had no vital signs by the time she reached the hospital.
Her sister recounted that the police informed her that the suspect, a man in his twenties from Jiangxi, had arrived in Changchun just days before the incident and was living in a rented room without stable employment. A mental evaluation issued by the Changchun Public Security Bureau on July 24 confirmed that Zhou did not suffer from any mental illness and was fully criminally responsible.
The case was publicly heard by the Changchun Intermediate People’s Court on November 27, 2023. Prosecutors accused Zhou of harboring a disdain for society due to his inability to be self-sufficient, which led him to plot the repeated acts of throwing bricks and other objects from a high building, endangering the lives of unspecified individuals below. On the evening of June 22, he is said to have thrown eight bricks from a window and the rooftop of a 32nd-floor apartment, with one brick striking Xiao Lou in the forehead.
Prior to this incident, on June 17, Zhou had thrown two buckets of water from the 33rd-floor window, injuring another victim. Later that night, he hurled three cans of soda, which injured yet another victim.
Forensic experts later determined that Xiao Lou died from severe cranial injury caused by a blunt object, while the injuries to the other victims were classified as minor. Zhou voluntarily surrendered after the incident. The prosecution charged him with endangering public safety through dangerous methods.
On December 13, the court ruled in favor of the death penalty for Zhou, alongside the same lifetime deprivation of political rights and was required to pay damages to the victim’s family. Throughout the proceedings, Zhou did not appeal or express any apologies to Xiao Lou’s family.
He Peiyun, The Paper reporter. Edited by Shao Wanyun.
About the author