For 14 years, a Hong Kong man surnamed Jian has managed to keep the bodies of his mistress and his two-year-old son hidden in a rented Shenzhen apartment without raising any suspicion.

Jian’s apartment in Shenzhen where the bodies were discovered after 14 years.

The bodies were only discovered after Jian requested his landlord send a helper to clean his two-bedroom apartment located on the top floor of an 8-storey building on Lianhua North Road in Buji during his absence. On May 3, the helper detected a foul smell coming from a bag underneath the bed. When she opened the bag, she found decomposed human bones, Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

Jian allegedly killed his mistress and his own son in May 2000. At that time, Jian’s gambling debts finally caught up with him, and they competed against the monthly RMB 2,000 allowance his Shenzhen family required. Jian needed to choose between them because the third responsibility Jian was not able to evade was his family in Hong Kong, which included two children.

One day after lunch, Jian strangled his mistress and son to death while they were taking an afternoon nap and wrapped their bodies in a nylon bag. After the murders, Jian moved out of the apartment. He stuffed the corpses into a large home appliance shipping crate without raising any suspicion from home movers, the report said.

No one from the mistress’ family ever reported her as a missing person throughout the past 14 years. She had long lost contact with rural family members, and the landlord did not bother to check his tenant since the rent was always paid on time, according to the report.

Jian, described by his mother as “timid”, was arrested in Shenzhen in May shortly after the landlord called the police.

The area of Buji, often referred to as “Little Hong Kong” and located in the north end of Shenzhen, was dubbed a “mistress village” during the 1980s and 90s. Many cross-border drivers and office clerks from Hong Kong led a different life with their mistress there, according to South China Morning Post.

Home page and content page image: Southern Metropolis Daily