Cheng Peng (serial killer)

In the aftermath of the executions, all of Cheng's dogs, including the one which starred in An Old Man And His Dog, were forcefully put down. Due to the notoriety surrounding the film, it was banned for more than two decades before the ban was rescinded sometime during the 2010s.

Cheng Peng (Chinese: 程鹏; 1962 – 25 September 1995) was a Chinese serial killer and dog breeder who killed six people in Yinchuan from 1988 to 1995, occasionally with the help of three accomplices. He is best remembered for fact that he fed some of his victims' remains to his dogs, one of which was featured in the 1993 film An Old Man And His Dog (Chinese: 老人与狗), directed by renowned Chinese director Xie Jin, in which Peng himself was also cast as a body double to lead actor Tian Xie.

On 7 January 1995, Cheng invited Li and Zhang to his house to have dinner. After eating, he prepared strong tea laced with sleeping pills and gave it to Zhang, who soon faded into unconsciousness. As an initiation ritual, he gave a shotgun to Li and told him to kill Zhang, but Li refused and returned the shotgun. Cheng then shot Zhang in the head, killing him instantly. The pair then dragged his body to the backyard and buried it hastily, before they traveled to his house to get the money. To Cheng's surprise, however, he only found a few hundred yuan. Believing that Zhang had likely hidden it somewhere, he thought of asking his wife, but as asking directly would make it seem suspicious, he thought up a plan to extract information out of her.

On 27 September 1995, both Cheng and Shao were sentenced to death, while Dawei was given a suspended death sentence, with all three defendants being deprived of their political rights for life. Immediately after the pronunciation of the sentence, Cheng and Shao were brought to the execution grounds in Yinchuan, where they were summarily shot.

In April 1994, Yu called Cheng to ask if she could visit him the next day. As they had not seen each other for a long time, since Yu's father had died and she had to return to attend his funeral in her native Hebei, Cheng accepted her offer. On the next day, the pair met up, dined at a high-end restaurant, and then went to a karaoke hall, before eventually returning to Cheng's house. After having sex, Yu suddenly revealed to him that she was pregnant and the child was likely his. She was unaware that Cheng did not want to have children with anyone else besides his wife, and upon being informed of this, he immediately started making plans to get rid of her.

In March 1993, Chinese film director Xie Jin and his film crew settled on Zhenbei Fort in Ningxia as the filming location for his newest film, An Old Man And His Dog. However, he struggled with finding a dog suitable for the project, and so, the film crew published an ad in the local newspapers and on the TV that they were searching for any puppies that could fit the role. While many people applied for the offer, Xie proved to be demanding and frequently rejected the applicants, until he eventually came across Cheng and one of his dogs, which he immediately approved. On his instructions, Cheng was allowed to stay on set and help his dog perform in some of the scenes, with the payoff that he was cast as a body double for the main actor, Tian Xie, being filmed in some of the scenes in which the protagonist rides on horseback.

For about half a month after the murder, Cheng and Shao laid low to avoid any possible inquiries from the police. On 8 January 1991, Dawei visited Cheng to ask him if he was ready with the payments, to which, after treating his guest to dinner, he said that they would go to Mr. Li and ask for the money. After finishing with their meals, Cheng called Shao, and the three traveled to the Nanmen bus station. There, the trio entered the beige FSO Polonez taxi of a man named Zhang, who immediately started driving them to the Yinchuan nursery farm. After approaching the area and confirming that there was nobody around, Cheng asked him to pull over.

Sometime circa the winter of 1991, Cheng was dancing on the dance floor of the Tongfuju Ballroom when he noticed a young woman, who was also dancing. Her name was Ms. Liu, a cotton factory worker in her early 20s. Cheng approached her. They agreed to meet up next evening at the ballroom. On the following night, the pair met up again and spent the night together.

The first person he recruited was his cousin, Shao Xiaodan, who had coincidentally been hired as a temporary worker at the Lin Ke Forestry Institute. When approached with the offer, he immediately accepted, and the two men now planned on how to acquire firearms. Eventually, Cheng learned that on 18 October 1990, a subsidiary of the institute had bought a batch of products he believed to be weaponry, and so, he and Shao snuck inside one of the warehouses and searched through a few of the boxes before locating one that stored several shotguns. They took eight of the shotguns and brought them back to Cheng's house, where they sawed off the barrels and stocks of two of the weapons to make them easier to carry, while the remaining six were hidden on the roof of a shed. In order to practice his aim, Cheng would shoot at chickens and ducks in the courtyard, whose corpses he would later use as food for his dogs. As he did this often, his neighbors had grown used to it, which would aid him in some of the later murders.

For the next few months, Cheng and Shao stole small items around the institute, mostly consisting of food, furniture, plants, and occasionally money, all of which amounted to around 10,000 yuan. Eventually Cheng started searching for more accomplices. In December 1990, he found a potential candidate in his younger friend, Yu Dawei, an employee of the Yinchuan Great Wall Trading Company who complained that his manager, Mr. Li, was withholding a big payment of money. Utilizing this, he promised Dawei that he would help him and would collect the debt from Mr. Li. After Dawei left, Cheng started planning a way for him and his accomplices to acquire a car.

On 22 December 1990, Cheng and Shao took their shotguns and went to the train station, where they planned to select a driver who would drive them to Mr. Li's offices, then kill the driver and steal his vehicle. In the end, they found their target in a man named Yang, who drove a white minivan. Cheng approached him and asked whether he could drive them to a casino in Yongning County, to which he agreed. Yang then drove them to a kiln farm, where Cheng asked him to stop, ostensibly to go to the toilet, but Yang said it would be better to stop at a public toilet further along the road. At that moment, Cheng winked at Shao, indicating that he should shoot him, but owing to his nervousness, he missed the shot and instead hit one of the car doors, knocking it wide open.

In 1982, Cheng was arrested for stealing a TV and sentenced to two years imprisonment, since his father refused to bail him out despite having the money to do so. After his release in 1988, he was allowed to return to work, but due to his parents' demands, he was forced to marry a college student who was a year older than him in May of that year. This was done ostensibly so his new wife could possibly change his behavior, but due to the nature of her work, she was rarely at home, allowing Cheng to do whatever he wanted most of the time.

Cheng Peng was born in 1962 in Yinchuan to a family of cadres originating from Jingbian County, Shaanxi. Due to his father's position, he grew up in a relatively privileged background and was well cared for by both of his parents. However, Cheng himself proved to be a problematic child, as he was expelled from junior high school for beating a teacher who had scolded him for bullying other children. Through his father's contacts, however, he was given a job at the Lin Ke Forestry Institute, where he proved to be unpopular among his colleagues due to his rude demeanor and overspending. Due to his dissatisfaction with his salary, Cheng would eventually start stealing various items from his workplace.