CHINESE MAN GETS DEATH PENALTY FOR KILLING 8

a Chinese court sentenced a junk dealer to death for murdering eight people. The Intermediate People's Court in the central city of Suizhou ordered Xiong Zhenlin be put to death after a half-day trial, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Previous Xinhua accounts said that Xiong, 32, confessed to the killings after he was arrested January 11. Xiong had wanted to marry 43-year-old Zhu Deqing, but after she refused, he killed her and the boy at their home in Luoyang town, outside Suizhou. Police said their head wounds suggested that the killer used an axe. Police discovered six other bodies, three men and three women, after searching Xiong's junkyard. The six, between the ages of 45 and 69, were employees at his salvage operation, but it wasn't clear when they had been killed. Investigators found bloodstained axes and hammers on the premises.