In the two years since Fang Yangyang was deemed infertile by her in-laws, she has survived many days of beatings, starvation, and freezing, but not the last day of the first month of 2019.
In the festive atmosphere of the village welcoming the Spring Festival four days later, Fang Yangyang died, “beaten to death” by her father-in-law and mother-in-law.
In the confessions of the three men, Fang Yangyang was treated inhumanely because she was “sterile.
On January 22, 2020, the court in Yucheng City, Dezhou City, Shandong Province, rendered its first-instance verdict. Fang’s father-in-law, Zhang Jilin, her mother-in-law, Liu Lanying, and her husband, Zhang C, were sentenced to three years in prison, two years and two months in prison, and two years in prison, respectively, for the crime of cruelty, with Zhang C’s sentence suspended for three years.
Almost two years after Fang Yangyang’s tragic death, her story came to our attention through hot searches due to the controversy over the leniency of the sentence.
After the verdict, Fang’s cousin, Xie Shulei, found a lawyer and decided to appeal, but because of the epidemic, the appeal was never filed. After the situation eased a bit, the appeal period expired, but the Texas Intermediate Court still accepted the appeal, and on February 19, 2020, it reversed the original decision and remanded for a new trial.
On November 19, Xie Shulei was supposed to be retried, but the day before, Xie Shulei received an unexpected notice from his lawyer that the trial was postponed until November 27. On the same day, the Texas Intermediate Court issued a notice that the case did not involve state secrets or personal privacy, and that the original trial was held in closed session, in violation of the law’s procedural requirements, ruling that the original verdict should be reversed and sent back to the Yu City Court for retrial.
This is comforting news for the Fang family, which is still waiting for an outcome in the Fang Yang Yang case.
Death
Nineteen days back from the day Fang Yangyang passed away, her 22nd birthday, no one knows how she spent that day.
On the last day of her life, a 50-centimeter-long, 3-centimeter-diameter wooden rod, which had passed by the hands of her father-in-law, Zhang Jilin, and mother-in-law, Liu Lanying, in turn, fell on her bony body, repeatedly for more than 20 strokes.
During the 10 hours from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Fang was beaten four times, dragged to the ground once, punished once, and starved once for not washing clothes, slaughtering fish, and handing food to her father-in-law. Zhang Jilin, the father-in-law, went over and cut off Fangyang’s long hair haphazardly when he didn’t deliver the goods to his father-in-law.
At around 4:00 p.m., when Fangyang Yang Yang called out that she was cold, Liu Lanying gave her some “kizi” (noodles) to eat. Yang Yang ate two bowls, the first by herself and the second by Liu Lanying. It was the last meal of her life, and she lay down to sleep again.
At 6:30 p.m., her mother-in-law, Liu Lanying, noticed that Fang Yang Yang’s nose was not ventilated and she was breathing strangely. Zhang Jilin came back and found that Fang Yang Yang had no pulse, and her husband, Zhang C, called 120, but it was too late.
Fang Yang Yang’s husband, Zhang C, called 120, but it was too late. Fang Yang Yang was gone.
This is what was recorded in the first trial judgment.
At 9:00 p.m., after hearing the news of her death, seven or eight of her cousins and uncles rushed to her in-laws’ home. But they were stopped in the courtyard by a group of people, including Fang’s mother-in-law and husband, and were not allowed to see the body. Cousin Xie Shulei felt something was wrong and suspected that Fang Yang Yang was not dying normally, so he called the police on the spot.
When the police arrived, they took Fang’s husband and three others away. That night, they only saw Fang’s half-exposed leg covered by a white cloth, which had frostbite.
Two months later, the police told Xie Shulei that a poor family like theirs could not afford a funeral home, so they buried her as soon as possible. Two months after her death, the family saw her for the first time, her face bruised and her body bruised.
What was most unacceptable to her cousin, Xie Shulei, was that the once 1.76-meter-tall, 160-pound Yang Yang was completely different from the 60-pound, skinny corpse in front of her.
In the autopsy report, the cause of death was “the victim suffered multiple blunt force injuries based on malnutrition, resulting in contusions and bruises to large soft tissues all over the body.
It seems that the stick in the hands of her father-in-law and mother-in-law ended her life that day, but in reality, what killed her was the Zhang family’s malice towards infertility and the years of atrocities they inflicted on her.
Fang’s fate was already written when she was deemed “useless” because she could not have children.
Marriage
Fang Yangyang was born on January 12, 1997, in Fangzhuang Village, Qian Cao Town, Plain County, Dezhou City, Shandong Province, an ordinary village in the north of China.
Fang was destined to be a child who would be loved by his family. Fang’s father and his brothers were the “old bachelors” of the village, and they never married until they were in their 40s. She was confused, unresponsive, and didn’t know where she came from. She was confused and unresponsive, not knowing where she came from. She married Fang’s father, and two years later Fang Yang Yang was born.
Fang’s father had a daughter in his later years and did not have any other children, and her uncle had never been married, so Fang Yang Yang became the family’s precious child, and both Fang’s father and uncle doted on her. Xie Shulei believes that this contributed to Fang’s timid and honest character, which is why she never spoke out about the abuse she suffered at her in-laws’ home.
As she grew up, her family noticed that she was a bit slow compared to other children, but she was a “healthy and lively child,” Xie says.
When she was in the fourth grade, she dropped out of school because she couldn’t keep up with her studies. After that, Yangyang lived with the love of her family, but without the love of her mother, and no one can say what kind of impact that had on Fangyang. It wasn’t until 2016, when she turned 19, that the topic of marriage began to surround her.
Like all the other girls in the village, a matchmaker came to propose to Fang Yangyang, but Fang’s father rejected several. Later, a man who often came to collect grain introduced Fang’s father several times to Zhang C from Zhangzhuang Village, more than ten miles away, and he agreed to meet her.
Xie Shulei remembers that the two families met twice. The first time they met, the Fang family told Zhang C about Fang and his family, but Zhang did not say anything and the two children had a good feeling about each other.
Four months later, on November 18, 2016, the two were married. Xie Shulei didn’t attend the wedding because he was away, but he heard that the day was very crowded and that Fang and his family were very happy.
In a video of the wedding day, Fang Yanyang, wearing a white wedding dress, red feather down, and a small crown on her head, sits on the bed, and the smile never disappears from her face. The groom, Zhang C, kissed her in the midst of laughter, and she shyly touched her nose. At that time, no one could have imagined that the man who kissed her in front of her and his parents would send the girl to her doom!
During the Spring Festival, Fang and her husband, Zhang C, went to their parents’ home to pay their respects. Xie Shulay remembers that they seemed to be in love at that time, and he thought the happiness would continue.
Infertility
At first, they lived a normal life as any newlyweds would. Although the Zhang family found Fang Yang Yang to be a little different from normal people, “often talking to herself and chattering to herself,” they thought it would not affect the family’s successor, so they treated Fang Yang Yang no differently. However, the family treated Fang Yangyang no differently, thinking that it would not affect the family’s ability to carry on the family name.
According to Zhang C’s confession, after the marriage, he took Fangyang Yang Yang out to work, during which time she was unable to get pregnant, and this became the change of track in Fangyang Yang Yang’s fate turned to the end of the road.
Zhang Jilin, her father-in-law, confessed that when they found out that she was unable to conceive, they learned through medical tests and other inquiries that she had had a miscarriage and was unable to conceive. This was unacceptable to the Zhang family and they began to scold Fang Yang Yang.
Zhang Jilin confessed that he spent about 130,000 yuan on his son’s wedding, of which 100,000 yuan was borrowed, which exacerbated the Zhang family’s mistreatment of Fang Yangyang.
At the end of 2017, when Zhang C took Yangyang to Fang’s house to give him a gift, he brought up the fact that Yangyang could not get pregnant and wanted to return the bride price. Fang’s father refused, and the two quarreled, and Zhang Jilin confessed that Fang’s father beat Zhang C for it.
Xie Shulei was not impressed. He said that Fang Yangyang does not have any mental illness, “just not very good mental state, slow reaction, life can take care of itself, used to work, and can do general work.
The company has been in the process of developing the new product for the past two years, and has been working on it for more than a decade.
Since that quarrel, Zhang family never let Fang Yang Yang to go back to her mother’s house, and also look at her “more and more unpleasant”.
In 2018, Fang’s father became seriously ill. In his hospital bed, Fang’s father was determined to see his only daughter, Fang Yang Yang, but he couldn’t reach her. Xie Shulei called many times, but each time it was not Fang Yang Yang, either her mother-in-law, father-in-law or husband.
Xie Shulei also went to the Zhang family many times to look for her, but the Zhang family said that Fangyang Yang Yang had gone out to work and was not at home. Later, Xie Shulei also called the police, suspecting that Fang Yangyang was being held under house arrest by the Zhang family. The police told him that since they were a legally married couple, there was no such thing as house arrest, and it was not convenient for them to intervene in family matters.
After a few months of illness, Fang’s father died on September 5, 2018, without seeing the last of his daughter. After the news reached the Fang family, Fang Yangyang still did not return, and even when her father was in mourning, no one from the Zhang family was there.
Abuse.
Her mother-in-law, Liu Lanying, confessed that after Zhang C was beaten while visiting Fang’s father in 2018, she began to let Fang Yang Yang eat less at home, mostly two meals, rarely letting her eat three meals.
When Fang Yangyang was “sick” and disobedient, Liu Lanying hit her in the face with her hands and hit her on the head, shoulders, and legs with a stick. When it was cold in the winter, she made her stand in the yard as punishment, every now and then, for more than half an hour, sometimes in single shoes, sometimes in half-cotton shoes. That’s how she got the frostbite on her feet.
Liu Lanying couldn’t remember how many times she had beaten Fangyang because it was too many times. The bruises on Fang Yangyang’s body were from her, and the scratches on her face were from her.
Since the fall of 2018, her father-in-law, Zhang Jilin, has beaten Yang Yang most often at home. He likes to drink alcohol and is irritable because he spent a lot of money on marrying Fang Yangyang, and as soon as he finished drinking, he took it out on her by hitting her, which was never light. Most of the wounds on Fang Yangyang’s body were inflicted by Zhang Jilin. This is also Liu Lanying’s confession.
Zhang C also confessed that he started beating Fang Yang Yang after he went to the hospital to see his father beaten. Once he made Fang Yang Yang work and not move, he beat him. He used a wooden stick to beat Fangyang Yang Yang’s calves and arms.
In October, when Zhang C stopped going out to work, he beat Fangyang Yang Yang more often. Sometimes he beat her once a week, sometimes twice. The methods of violence also became more violent, “smacking her with a stick, pushing her out to the punishment station, freezing her.” On one occasion, Zhang C held her in his hand and beat her. Once, Zhang C held the handle of a porcelain cup of water and hit Fang Yangyang’s ear, causing it to bleed.
Fang Yangyang did not know how to cook, and she had a big appetite, so the Zhang family was mean to her, and Fang Yangyang gradually did not dare to eat with them. Later on, Zhang’s family simply did not ask her to eat when they ate, and Zhang C suggested that she go on a diet, so she only ate one or two meals a day. Every time they went out, they had to lock the door to prevent Fang Yangyang from going out.
At first, when she was beaten, she would resist, but later she was beaten so much that she was afraid of the Zhang family and would deliberately hide when she saw them. Every time she was beaten, she would just say, “Don’t beat me, I’m obedient.
The mentally disturbed mother never shed a tear or even had any concept of her daughter’s death, and in many video interviews, she sits on the sidelines like a child, observing one interview after another about her daughter without expression.
Photo of Fang Yangyang with her mother when she was a childFang Yangyang with her mother when she was a child
No one can say why no one found out what happened to Fang Yangyang during the six months of abuse.
When Fang Yangyang was buried, Xie Shulei gave her a pledge marriage according to local custom, hoping that she would not meet another family like the Zhang family there.
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