On Jan 12, Zhou Chunmei, a judge and a mother of two, was found dead from multiple stab wounds in an underground parking lot at her home in Changsha, capital of Hunan province.

Local police arrived at the scene at around 7:30 am and detained a suspect, surnamed Xiang, who was an "old friend" of the victim, according to the police.

Later that day, the Hunan High People's Court released a statement online saying that Zhou, a 45-year-old senior judge in the court, had been killed in a possible hate crime.

According to the court, Zhou was diligent, dedicated and firmly upheld the law during her 17 years of service.

As a veteran judge, she had been given more responsibility and participated in more than 1,100 civil cases over the past two years, an average of 1.5 per day.

A court staff member who was a close friend of Zhou's described her as a good friend at work and a good mother at home.

"She was extremely meticulous and upright in her duties," the friend said.

Yet, it was likely such integrity that led to the tragedy.

A preliminary investigation into the slaying conducted by the police showed Zhou, in her role as a judge, had refused to bend the law in a labor-related lawsuit that Xiang had filed in her court months ago.

A model judge, mother

Zhou was born and raised in the same mountainous town as Xiang in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture in northwestern Hunan. After years of intense study, both women went to Xiangtan University, a key school in the province.

Zhou started her legal career in Changsha after earning her master's degree in law in 2003. Those who knew her say that in the years that followed, she became an exemplary mother and a model judge.

"Zhou's youngest daughter was a premature baby, and I remembered when she was on maternity leave, she asked us to send the case files to her so that she could work at home," said Huang Li, who was Zhou's assistant.

In 2014, Zhou was honored as the court's annual case-handling expert. That year, she had handled more civil cases than any other judge in the court, and all of those cases were rated as excellent, meaning none exceeded the trial-time limit and none were remanded or overturned.

In 2016, Zhou was appointed as a deputy head of the trial supervision tribunal at the court, a key department that is mainly responsible for filing and hearing retrials.