CHINA. 'KINDERGARTEN KILLER' EXECUTED FOR MURDERS

Fu Hegong, a 31-year-old man dubbed the "kindergarten killer", convicted of murdering a teacher, a 5-year-old boy and three other people, was executed. Fu was put to death in Beijing after being convicted in September of murder, rape, molestation and theft, the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper reported. It was alleged that on October 2004, Fu smothered a Beijing kindergarten teacher with a quilt and fatally beat the 5-year-old boy with a fire extinguisher after being spotted sneaking into a school to rob it.
The killings came in the midst of a rash of unrelated attacks on kindergartens and day care centers in China in 2004, which prompted President Hu Jintao to order schools to hire guards and tighten security.
Fu also was convicted of killing two people in 2002 with bricks and knives after quarreling with them, and of stabbing a security guard to death in 2004 during a robbery, court reports said.