Some writers are so creative, you wonder how they do it. Some books are based off of personal experience, while others are strictly fictional.
For author Liu Yongbiao, he marketed his as fiction when it was actually entirely real. Not a big deal right? It is when the story is about quadruple murder.
The Book
Liu is a famed writer in China, and even had one of his books turned into a 50-episode television series. At the beginning of one of his fictional books, called The Guilty Secret, Liu teased of his next novel he was working on which was a suspense-filled, cold-case detective drama about an author who evades detection after committing multiple, brutal murders.
The new book was called The Beautiful Writer Who Killed. Liu told readers he planned on having this book also be adapted into a big-screen movie because of the thrilling plot line.
If only they knew...
The Crime
In November of 1995, four people were brutally murdered. Two men checked into a guesthouse with the intention of robbing the other visitors. The two man began their theft, but one victim started to fight back. He was beaten to death. In an attempt to cover up their crime, the two criminals murdered the witnesses who came when they heard the commotion, including a 13-year-old boy.
Police tried their hardest to find the killers, but after years of investigation the case went cold. Investigators could not find a connection between the victims and any potential suspects.
"This was the most difficult thing. We found it hard to follow the vine all the way to the melon," Xu Zhicheng, one of the officers, said.
The Break
22 years after the murders, police caught a huge break in the quadruple murder case. Advances in DNA technology allowed them to re-test evidence from the crime scene, and they found their two suspects. Though investigators identified Liu, as well as a 64-year-old man only identified as Wang, as the murderers, they did not reveal what lead them to the men in the first place.
Though he was arrested, it's what Liu had planned which has got people talking.
The Confession
When police showed up at Liu's house, he told them "I have been waiting for you here all this time."
Chen Hongyue, one of the arresting officers, says the author had already written a letter to be left for his wife, explaining his criminal past.
"Now I can finally be free from the mental torment I've endured for so long," he reportedly wrote. "I have been waiting for this day for 20 years and now it has finally come to an end."
The Aftermath
Both Wang and Liu are in jail for their roles in the 1995 quadruple murder case. There has been no word on how long they'll be locked up, but it's probably going to be for life. Liu apparently has plans to write a new novel behind bars, though something tells me no one will believe him if he claims it's a fictional piece.
