Lotterry rumour win cost husband and wife their lives

Do not tell people that you won lottery

A COUPLE in Northeast China's Liaoning Province were robbed and killed because their murderers believed a rumor that they had won a two million yuan (US$260,078) lottery, the Shenyang Evening News reported yesterday. They never won the money.

The husband and the wife were well-known in Shenyang's Xinchengzi District for their interest in Marksix, an illegal lottery on the Chinese mainland. Their bodies were found in April 2005.

Han Jingchen, one of the three murderers, was sentenced to death by the city's Intermediate People's Court yesterday. Li Haizhou and Li Guoyong, his accomplices, got life sentences.

"We leant that the Pei couple (the victims) had won a great sum of money from Marksix, and we decided to rob them by pretending to be policemen," Han told the court.

The trio kidnapped the couple after following them for three days.

"We used fake guns and fake police identity cards," Han said. "They were told being arrested for taking part in an illegal lottery."

Pei's wife gave them a bank card and a bankbook. Her husband was choked to death by Li Guoyong after refusing to give out the bank codes.

The wife was also strangled after she gave the codes.

The three stole 70,875 yuan from the couple in bank deposits and some property, said the court.

Police later found out that the story of the couple's lottery bonus was fake news.