‘ORDINARY MAN’

Exalted Chinese Murder Suspect Dies After a Week on the Run

Ou Jinzhong’s supporters reportedly lionized him as an “ordinary man pushed to the brink of despair over a years-long housing dispute.”

A Chinese fugitive accused of killing two people over a land dispute is dead after more than a week on the lam, according to police in the city of Putian, CNN reported. Suspect Ou Jinzhong, 55, died by suicide while being arrested Monday, Putianese authorities claimed. Ou allegedly attacked his neighbors with a knife last Thursday in the coastal village where they lived, killing a 78-year-old man and his daughter-in-law, and injuring the man’s wife, grandson, and great-grandson. He is reported to have triggered an outpouring of sympathy on Chinese social media, with many supporters seeming to view him as an “ordinary man pushed to the brink of despair over a years-long housing dispute,” according to CNN, which said his legend grew after reports emerged that Ou had previously saved a young boy from drowning and rescued two stranded dolphins in 2008. Police said Ou was taken to a hospital after his suicide attempt but died despite attempts to revive him. Police searchers found Ou hiding in a cave, where they arrested him.