The Chinese Jack the Ripper: The Serial Killer Who Hid in Plain Sight for 28 Years
When we think of serial killers, certain names immediately come to mind—Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, or the Zodiac Killer. Yet some of history's most prolific murderers remain almost unknown outside their own countries.
One such case is that of Gao Chengyong, a quiet grocery store owner from northwest China who managed to evade capture for nearly three decades while carrying out one of the country's longest-running serial murder sprees.
His story is every bit as chilling as those of the better-known killers.
A City Living in Fear
The nightmare began in 1988 in the industrial city of Baiyin, Gansu Province.
A young woman was found brutally murdered inside her home. Police initially believed it was an isolated homicide. There was little reason to suspect that the city had just witnessed the first crime in what would become a twenty-eight-year investigation.
Then, six years later, another young woman was murdered.
The similarities were impossible to ignore.
Both victims had been attacked in their homes. Both had suffered horrific injuries. The violence suggested an offender driven by far more than robbery or revenge.
Over the following years, more women were killed.
Factory workers.
Students.
Shop assistants.
Most were young, living alone, and completely unsuspecting.
As the murders continued, fear spread throughout Baiyin. Women stopped walking alone at night, families invested in stronger locks, and rumours circulated about an unknown predator stalking the city.
Police knew they were hunting a serial killer.
What they didn't know was that he was living an apparently ordinary life just a few streets away.
The Monster Next Door
By day, Gao Chengyong appeared to be an unremarkable member of the community.
He was married.
He had children.
He operated a small grocery store.
Customers remembered him as quiet and polite.
Nothing about him suggested he was capable of extraordinary violence.
Yet appearances can be dangerously misleading.
Between 1988 and 2002, investigators believe Gao murdered eleven women. His attacks became increasingly brutal, with post-mortem mutilation revealing an escalating pattern of sadistic behaviour.
Then, quite unexpectedly, the killings stopped.
For fourteen years there were no further known murders linked to the case.
Had the killer died?
Moved away?
Or simply decided to stop?
No one knew.
The DNA Breakthrough
The mystery might have remained unsolved forever if not for advances in forensic science.
In 2016, police collected a DNA sample from one of Gao's distant relatives during an unrelated investigation. The result produced a partial familial match to biological evidence preserved from the Baiyin murder scenes decades earlier.
Investigators quietly narrowed their search.
When Gao's own DNA was obtained, the results were conclusive.
After twenty-eight years, China's most wanted serial killer had finally been identified.
The quiet shopkeeper who had blended effortlessly into everyday life was arrested without incident.
He later confessed to all eleven murders.
The Real Lesson
Cases like Gao Chengyong's are disturbing for many reasons, but perhaps the most unsettling is how ordinary he appeared.
We tend to imagine that violent offenders look different from everyone else.
History repeatedly proves otherwise.
Some of the world's most dangerous criminals have lived behind remarkably ordinary lives—holding steady jobs, raising families, and earning the trust of neighbours who never suspected the truth.
It serves as a sobering reminder that appearances alone tell us very little about a person's character.
Why These Stories Matter
The Gao Chengyong case is one of many forgotten true crime stories that deserve to be remembered.
Outside China, relatively few people have heard of the man the media dubbed the "Chinese Jack the Ripper." Yet his crimes, the extraordinary investigation that finally exposed him, and the role played by modern DNA technology make this one of the most fascinating serial killer cases of recent decades.
I've always been drawn to these overlooked stories.
The famous cases have been analysed countless times, but history is full of extraordinary crimes that remain hidden outside the spotlight.
They're often just as compelling—and sometimes even more revealing.
If you enjoy discovering the darker corners of criminal history, you'll find many more bizarre, forgotten, and little-known cases throughout my true crime books, where I explore murders, mysteries, forensic breakthroughs, and strange crimes from every corner of the world.
You can browse my collection here:
or read this full story and 19 others in Macabre True Crimes & Mysteries Volume 1 here:
Blog written by Guy Hadleigh, author of Crimes That Time Forgot, the Macabre True Crimes & Mysteries Series, the Murder and Mayhem Series, the British Killers Series, the Infamous True Crimes and Trials Series - and many more!