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Who is the glamorous kitten killer of Hangzhou
(telegraph.co.uk)
Updated: 2006-03-04 14:12
China's media have launched a nationwide hunt for a glamorously dressed woman
who has been photographed apparently crushing a kitten to death with her
stiletto heels.
Gruesome pictures, which first appeared on a website, have been reproduced in
recent days in many newspapers. In the first picture, the woman, wearing a
cocktail dress with a leopard-print top and black skirt, caresses a
tortoiseshell kitten lovingly. Then she puts it on the ground, looks at it - and
lowers a stiletto heel on to its head.
The woman puts a
kitten on the floor before apparently killing
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The subsequent images are graphic and deeply disturbing. The last photograph
shows the woman staring into the distance with a questioning look on her face.
Reporters and amateur sleuths are now trying to find the woman, while media
outlets have been flooded with readers' suggestions of what should be done to
her.
The location for the sequence has been identified from a stretch of water in
the background as being Hangzhou, a picturesque city south-west of Shanghai. A
trace on the original website also led there, and the mystery woman has been
dubbed "the kitten killer of Hangzhou".
Some newspapers then came up with a new twist - linking the pictures to an
international community of animal sadists and fetishists. One website said the
sequence was well-known in Japan, where it started life as an advertisement for
a brand of stiletto shoes, and identified the woman as a model.
But attention returned to China when an internet surfer came across a
37-year-old woman from Hubei province with the internet identity "Gainmas". She
had registered a website in Hangzhou and - the ultimate evidence - had bought a
pair of stilettoes on eBay last year.
She was also registered with QQ, a popular Chinese message service, where she
wrote of herself: "I furiously crush everything to do with you and me."
Before her QQ address went dead, its owner had several conversations. In one,
she is coy, saying "So what?" when asked if the pictures are of her, and then,
when asked again, replying: "In theory."
When confronted by a reporter, she became defensive, saying: "Suddenly
hundreds of people are on my QQ and cursing me. What's the problem if I crush
cats? It's a type of experience. You wouldn't understand."
He Yong, a Beijing representative of the International Fund for Animal
Welfare, said the angry response to the pictures had been heartening.
"We are still trying to confirm who it is in the pictures and where it is,"
he said. "The embarrassing thing is that there are no available laws in China
governing this type of misbehaviour.
"We are trying to draft an open letter to the authorities asking for the
possibility of creating an animal welfare law."
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