# 80: TikTok Star Publicly Murdered by Jealous Ex

An episode of [Outlore with Eleanor Neale](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1682504024), 26 Nov 2024, 1 h 09 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO8031383129.mp3

Ad - Download Love & Pies here -> https://pixly.go2cloud.org/SH4O2 Use my link in the next 7 days to receive a free gift! In 2018, 22-year old TikTok/Douyin dancer Chen Qiaofeng was killed in the middle of a busy city centre in China. She had shot to internet fame only 2 months before her death after she filmed a viral video that made her an influencer overnight. But in the months leading up to her murder, her boyfriend Wu Yidong had been subjecting her to a life of abuse. And since she became viral online, his abuse and obsession over her intensified. Because not only was she his girlfriend, but now she would become his income. When Qiaofeng couldn’t take his exploitative abuse any longer, she tried to escape. But weeks later, he would end her life. In front of an audience of passers-by, ready with their phones out to capture the influencer’s dying moments. IDAS - https://idas.org.uk/ Trigger Warning: domestic violence, animal abuse, rape, stalking, gambling, and murder Resources: https://linktr.ee/usualdisclaimer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

## Transcript

[0:00] Becoming an influencer overnight would be a dream come true for
[0:03] so many people. All it can take is 1 viral video
[0:07] to kick start a career that promises fame and fortune.
[0:11] But what if that dream has actually become a nightmare?
[0:14] A nightmare where someone holds you captive, forcing you to
[0:18] perform in front of a camera day and night.
[0:21] Well, this was 22 year old Chen Chao Fung's reality.
[0:25] She went viral on China's version of TikTok after posting
[0:29] some dancing videos and within two months, she had half a
[0:32] million followers. But all was not as it seemed
[0:36] because there was a puppeteer behind her videos.
[0:40] Someone forcing her to film content whilst keeping every
[0:44] penny that they earned to himself.
[0:47] And when Chao Fung tried to escape this situation, this
[0:50] person relentlessly stalked her and chased her down like she was
[0:55] prey. He ran after her through the
[0:57] crowded city and eventually dragged her her into a game
[1:01] store. And as this was happening,
[1:03] passes by, we're starting to recognize the influencer from
[1:06] the other side of the shop window.
[1:08] People were pulling their phones out to record and take pictures
[1:11] of what was happening to her. Only Chao Fung wasn't posing for
[1:16] the photos. She wasn't dancing for the
[1:18] videos. She was laying on the ground
[1:21] bleeding to death and watched her die, all because she tried
[1:25] to. This series is intended for
[1:28] educational purposes, to memorialize victims, and to
[1:31] amplify important conversations. All opinions stated are mine
[1:35] alone. Quickly.
[4:20] Before we get into the case, I just want to warn you of the
[4:22] sensitive topics that we're going to be touching on in this
[4:25] episode, including discussions of domestic violence, animal
[4:29] abuse, rape, stalking, gambling and murder.
[4:32] So viewer discretion is always advised.
[4:35] Now with that being said, let's get into the tragic case of Chen
[4:39] Chao Fung, a woman who was forced to live and die in front
[4:43] of someone else's camera. So you might have heard of Doyen
[4:46] makeup or Doyen fashion, or the Doyen aesthetic.
[4:50] Think soft colours, youthful glows, ultra girly styles and a
[4:55] real pursuit of health. Be it nutrition, exercise, skin
[4:59] care, it's like a whole lifestyle.
[5:01] That whole like it Girl vibe and this current phase of it girl
[5:05] that we are in right now actually originated on a social
[5:09] media app that only exists in China called Do Yin.
[5:13] It's essentially China's version of TikTok.
[5:15] It has 755,000,000 users. It's absolutely massive.
[5:21] You will find all different kinds of people and accounts and
[5:24] different kinds of content on there, with the most popular
[5:27] creators on the platform earning so much money from views and
[5:31] brand deals. I mean, I guess we know that
[5:33] because the biggest Tik Tokers do.
[5:35] So. Yeah, on every level, it's kind
[5:37] of the same thing where everyone can post videos.
[5:40] Anyone can become a star. In the summer of 2018, a new
[5:44] user whose account had only just started posting videos in recent
[5:48] months suddenly began going viral and was rapidly rising as
[5:52] one of those bigger creators on DOI Yin.
[5:55] And the star of every video posted by this account was a 22
[6:00] year old dance teacher named Chen Chao Fung.
[6:03] Chen Chao Fung was born in 1996 and she lived in a seaside town
[6:08] which was on the outskirts of a city in China called Sichi.
[6:12] As always, a little apology for my pronunciation in this video.
[6:15] If you've ever watched any of my other videos, you'll know that
[6:18] this is a very common thing with me.
[6:20] I try my best to pronounce things from around the world and
[6:23] sometimes it comes out sounding a bit funny and weird, but
[6:27] sorry. Chen Chao Fung grew up with one
[6:30] older brother, and her family were actually quite wealthy
[6:33] because her parents owned a factory, so she had a pretty
[6:36] nice childhood. As a person, Chao Fung was very
[6:40] gentle. She was very soft spoken, she
[6:43] loved animals. She was such a kind, sweet
[6:46] little girl. In Chinese culture, it's
[6:49] tradition for parents to name their children kind of how they
[6:53] want them to grow up. Their name and the meaning of
[6:56] their name will kind of dictate the person that they grow in to
[6:59] become. So Chao Fong's parents gave her
[7:01] the name Chao Fong, which meant that she would grow up to be
[7:04] someone with an abundance of skill, someone full of
[7:07] technique. And that's actually crazy, given
[7:10] the passion that she very quickly had as a child.
[7:15] That passion was dancing, something that she would do for
[7:19] the rest of her life. And Chao Fung was a brilliant
[7:22] dancer as well. Literally, since a tiny, tiny
[7:24] child, she had learned all different styles of dance.
[7:27] She was entering competitions. She won awards.
[7:30] And while she was growing up in these dance classes, Chao Fung
[7:34] would often help the younger kids, you know, like, fix their
[7:38] form and their technique and stuff like that.
[7:40] And she found it so rewarding to watch these many little people
[7:44] getting better and better every week.
[7:46] And so she decided, even while she was still a kid, that one
[7:50] day she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up.
[7:53] So when she graduated school, she went on to do exactly that.
[7:57] At 19 years old, Chao Fung became qualified to teach
[8:00] children. And she was one of those people
[8:03] that it just makes sense, you know, those people that were put
[8:07] on this earth to work with kids because they're just so gentle
[8:11] and sweet natured and patient. Soon after graduating, she got a
[8:15] job working with like kindergarten age kids.
[8:18] It's around like 4-5 years old, so cute.
[8:21] And around the time she got this job, her parents very kindly got
[8:25] her an apartment in the city close to where she worked.
[8:28] And she was loving life. And the kids in her class
[8:31] absolutely adored her. I mean, she was probably like
[8:35] the youngest teacher there. And I feel like that's the
[8:37] treatment that the youngest teacher gets, isn't it?
[8:39] Like they're always the kids favorite, but Oh my God, they
[8:43] love her. But in early 2017, she'd been
[8:46] working this job for about two years now.
[8:49] But she was getting the itch, the I miss dancing itch.
[8:53] So she began thinking of ways that she could turn her passion
[8:57] for dancing into a career. By this time she was a fully
[9:01] qualified teacher with two years of experience.
[9:03] And she did love her job. She loved working with kids.
[9:06] And so the answer became obvious, She should teach dance
[9:11] to kids. She soon found a job teaching at
[9:13] a dance schooled that same year and when she got this new job,
[9:16] her salary went up by a couple 100.
[9:19] She is so happy with the work that she's doing that she
[9:22] doesn't really mind about the whole money aspect of it as long
[9:26] as she is fulfilling her passion for dance and putting food on
[9:30] the table. Like that's all that mattered to
[9:32] her. So it's mid 2017.
[9:34] We're thinking around mere time. She's 21 years old, she's
[9:38] dancing, she's teaching, she's slaying the damn thing.
[9:41] But this era of her life would unfortunately be quite short
[9:45] lived. One day, Chao Fung was in the
[9:47] changing rooms getting ready for her performance at work when one
[9:50] of her colleagues noticed a tattoo.
[9:53] She had this cute little tattoo on her back.
[9:55] It had a tiny cat and a tiny little dog and two names.
[10:00] And so her colleagues start teasing her being like, oh, is
[10:03] it a new boyfriend? Have you got a tattoo for your
[10:05] boyfriend? Yeah, yes, it was.
[10:08] To their surprise, Chao Fung turned around and confessed
[10:11] that, yeah, she had a new man. And to 26 year old Wu Yi Dong,
[10:17] which interesting side note, you know, we spoke about what Chao
[10:19] Fung's name meant earlier. Well, very interestingly, Yi
[10:23] Dong means to benefit and always have a stable roof over your
[10:27] head, which I guess can be a great thing in the context of
[10:31] today's case. The more you learn about this
[10:33] man, it is such a dark foreshadowing for the kind of
[10:36] person that he is to benefit from this.
[10:40] But hey, this was Chao Fung's new boyfriend.
[10:43] The two of them had actually known each other for quite some
[10:46] time. He was five years older than
[10:48] her, and I believe they'd gone to the same school, but
[10:51] obviously five years apart. You're not going to know each
[10:54] other or pass each other, really.
[10:55] Their paths just hadn't really crossed at all in their lives up
[10:59] until he'd seen her in a bar, thought she was very pretty and
[11:02] made a move. And now they were together, and
[11:05] now she had a tattoo. Chao Fung had always been a very
[11:07] popular girl growing up, very beautiful as as well.
[11:10] A lot of boys had been interested in her in her life,
[11:13] but she'd never really bothered with any of them until Yi Dong.
[11:18] Her relationship with Yi Dong was her first experience of love
[11:23] and partnership. And I know most people on this
[11:27] earth can probably relate to your first ever relationship not
[11:31] being perfect. People learn a lot of lessons in
[11:35] their first romantic relationship.
[11:37] You learn how to love other people.
[11:39] It always seems to be people's first relationships where like
[11:41] your friends and family can spot all the red flags in them, but
[11:44] you're just so rose tinted glasses that the flags just look
[11:48] like flags. And that was kind of what was
[11:50] happening for Chao Fung with He Dong.
[11:52] Her friends just could not understand what she saw in him
[11:56] because she was such a catch. She was such a beauty.
[11:59] She was she was Grace, she was amazing.
[12:02] But then this fella was like nothing compared to her.
[12:06] I guess the technical term for a man like him would be a bum.
[12:10] Someone who hated the idea of working a job.
[12:14] He was too proud to have a job, too proud to work for someone
[12:18] else. He hated the idea of working to
[12:21] make someone else rich. So he would just refuse to
[12:25] participate entirely in this little game we call work and the
[12:29] economy. OK, well, actually, allegedly,
[12:32] supposedly maybe he said that he had a clothing line like a
[12:36] clothing store, but we've all heard that one before, right?
[12:40] But this unemployed loser was grafting in other ways.
[12:44] He was grafting for Chao Fung's heart.
[12:46] He was full of compliments. He would shower her with gifts.
[12:50] He would cook her dinners. And side note, he actually
[12:53] graduated in culinary arts, so he was a good chef.
[12:57] He was. Not only did he know how to cook
[12:58] a good meal, he also knew how to present it really nicely on the
[13:02] plate. This was a skill that he didn't
[13:03] pursue after graduating because, well, as we know, Yi Dong
[13:07] doesn't like the idea of getting a job.
[13:09] I guess unless he owned the whole entire restaurant for
[13:11] himself, he wasn't going to work.
[13:14] But actually somehow, despite not having a job, he was
[13:17] constantly showering Chao Fung with gifts and affection and
[13:22] trips out, which all sounds well and good, but it was very
[13:27] persistent. And there is this technique that
[13:30] some people use to manipulate the person that they're with in
[13:33] a relationship, want to be in a relationship with.
[13:36] They will shower them with gifts and affection and compliments.
[13:39] It's full on, it's fast. It's called love bombing.
[13:43] You know it, The Internet knows what love bombing is.
[13:46] And this is a prime example. It's done to gain emotional
[13:50] control over a person. And a lot of the time, these
[13:54] same people that do the whole love bombing thing, I think the
[13:57] reason they do it is because they know that they're a shit
[13:59] person. So as soon as they can gain your
[14:02] love and make you think that they're this amazing person
[14:04] person, they can drop the facade.
[14:07] But you're already in too deep. Now you're already in a
[14:09] relationship with the person. So what are you going to do?
[14:11] And by that point, when people drop that facade, it's often too
[14:15] late and people are married to them or they've got kids or you
[14:19] know, they're living in a house with them.
[14:21] It's so scary because while you can think you're in this super
[14:25] sweet loving honeymoon phase style relationship, they could
[14:30] just be priming you to be able to abuse you.
[14:33] But like all love bombing does, it eventually comes to an end
[14:36] and Yi Dongs facade began to drop.
[14:40] Chao Feng started to see cracks in this perfect person that she
[14:44] once thought that he was. He'd get jealous really easy and
[14:48] he would want to know where she is at all times.
[14:51] And if he didn't like the answer or if he didn't receive 1 fast
[14:54] enough, it'd cause an argument. Full blown massive shouting
[14:58] screaming argument. He was spending like every day
[15:01] just chilling in her apartment while she would go out to work
[15:04] because she is full time employed.
[15:06] She's a girl boss and he is on her sofa eating her food, being
[15:11] a bum. He basically moved himself into
[15:13] her house rent free. And Chao Fung didn't really like
[15:19] this. I mean, she liked the man at
[15:20] this point in time, but she wasn't attracted to this
[15:24] behavior, especially because she knew that her parents would
[15:28] really disapprove of a man like this and she couldn't keep him a
[15:33] secret for much longer. She didn't want to introduce him
[15:36] to her parents until he'd found a stable job, and so she was
[15:40] holding off for as long as she possibly could until she
[15:43] couldn't anymore. One day in August 2017, only a
[15:47] few months into their relationship, Chao Fung was
[15:50] obviously still keeping Yi Dong hidden from her parents.
[15:53] Well, soon that would no longer be an option because they
[15:57] dropped by her appointment. They dropped by her apartment
[16:01] unannounced while she was at work and you Dong was just
[16:06] asleep in her bed. And you know what?
[16:08] Her parents are better than me. Because I would have screamed.
[16:11] I would have screamed the house down.
[16:12] I would have called 999. Like there would have been a
[16:15] whole palava. But they kind of assumed the
[16:19] situation. They were like, Oh my God, Chao
[16:22] Phong's got a boy round at the apartment that she hasn't told
[16:25] us about. So they didn't freak out.
[16:27] They just kind of like went into the living room and assumed that
[16:32] this boy that had just seen them, like he wasn't fully
[16:35] asleep. I don't think at this point in
[16:36] time he knew that they were in the house basically.
[16:38] So her parents just went and sat in the living room thinking,
[16:41] surely he's going to like get himself up and out of bed and
[16:44] come and say hi to us, come and speak to us.
[16:45] We are his girlfriend's parents after all.
[16:48] But what did he do? He just slammed the bedroom door
[16:52] and went back to sleep for another two hours.
[16:55] Oh my God, could you imagine? You're already a bit worried
[16:58] about introducing your boyfriend to your parents because you know
[17:01] that he's just a bit of a bum. And this is the first impression
[17:05] that they get of him that he is rude, that he doesn't want to
[17:08] talk to them, that he is just sleeping the day away.
[17:11] I would just be so embarrassed, you know?
[17:13] And I can't believe he didn't have that thing in his own brain
[17:17] to want to give a good impression to the in laws.
[17:20] Like, why do you want this to be how the they see you?
[17:23] So later that day, Chao Fung gets back from work and her
[17:26] parents pull her to the side. And they tell her everything
[17:29] that had happened. And they, you know, imply that
[17:32] they don't really approve of this man.
[17:34] And I don't blame them. This is a very bad first
[17:37] impression. But they tell Chao Fung that
[17:41] they will support her whatever she does with her life, no
[17:45] matter what job, no matter what man, even if it is a bum that
[17:49] sleeps all day and ignores them when they come to visit.
[17:53] And you know what is really weird to say?
[17:55] That Yi Dong really didn't care about the impression he made on
[17:58] her parents. He was really keen for her to
[18:01] meet his parents. So when the Lunar New Year came
[18:04] round in February of 2018, he was desperate to get them in a
[18:08] room for them to meet her. He was, he was really proud of
[18:12] this woman that he'd found. You know, she was an incredible
[18:15] girl. And I think the reason he was so
[18:17] proud was because he knew new deep down, or even not that deep
[18:21] down, that he didn't actually deserve Chao Fung.
[18:23] I think he must have felt like he'd won the girlfriend lottery,
[18:27] you know? So the Lunar New Year comes
[18:29] around, and it's common for older family members to give
[18:33] younger ones red envelopes full of money.
[18:36] This symbolizes like good wishes, success, good luck for
[18:40] the year ahead. The more money given means the
[18:42] more good wishes to that person. So the more money, the better.
[18:46] Obviously, the amount of money given is very dependent on the
[18:49] person's income and how much spare money they actually have.
[18:53] Well, when Yi Dong's parents met Chao Fung, they gave her so much
[19:00] money, over 1000 lbs, which was like a full month of their
[19:04] wages, and this was the first time they'd ever met her as
[19:08] well. They had really scraped up for
[19:10] them to be able to make a good impression on her.
[19:13] They also believed that their son had won the girlfriend
[19:16] lottery. They really wanted her to stay
[19:18] with him, so maybe that's why they gave her so much money.
[19:22] It's kind of giving, like, please marry our son, please.
[19:26] I feel like every parent would want their son to end up with a
[19:29] woman like Chao Feng. She was just so kind, so
[19:32] ambitious. She was such a wonderful woman.
[19:35] But I also feel like every parent would hate for their
[19:38] daughter to end up with a man like Yi Dong.
[19:41] Later that month, after she had literally just met his parents,
[19:45] Yi Dong's anger towards Chao Feng increased.
[19:49] One morning, the two of them got into a heated argument, but Chao
[19:52] Fung was due in at work very quickly.
[19:54] This argument was going to make her late and so she actually had
[19:57] to try and leave in the middle of it.
[19:59] Well, she tried to calm it down but he wasn't calming.
[20:03] So in the end, she had to just go and get in her car and drive
[20:06] to work. But as she was driving, out of
[20:09] nowhere, Yi Dong suddenly runs out into the middle of the road
[20:13] and like forces her to stop. It turns out he had taken a
[20:16] shortcut. He had like ran.
[20:19] To where she was going to be at that point in the road so that
[20:22] he could continue the argument out on the street.
[20:25] Now make her late for work. When he came over he demanded
[20:29] that she hand over her phone and her car keys and she did that
[20:34] and and he ran away with them. She had literally just been
[20:37] robbed by her boyfriend in broad daylight on her way to work.
[20:42] What the fuck is happening? She was just so confused and so
[20:47] upset and she felt so alone. Like that is her partner that's
[20:51] the person that she's supposed to go to in times like this
[20:54] where she's feeling sad and scared and anxious but he's the
[20:57] man that just caused this. Chao Fung was sat in her car
[21:02] that obviously couldn't go anywhere now he'd taken her keys
[21:05] and she was just sobbing. She eventually got out of her
[21:08] car and started running around to try and flag down another
[21:12] passerby so that she could borrow their phone and get
[21:15] someone to come and help her. So she called her brother who
[21:18] very quickly came to rescue Chao Fung and her car.
[21:21] And this was actually the first time that Yi Dong ever met Chao
[21:26] Fung's older brother was when he had to go and take back the
[21:30] items that Yi Dong had stolen from her.
[21:33] This guy training for like the Olympics in bad First
[21:36] impressions. This is insane.
[21:38] Later that night when You Dong and Chao Fung were reunited, I
[21:42] think back at the apartment, she tried to break up with him.
[21:45] I mean this was ridiculous and so unforgivable and he is just
[21:51] not having it. He actually sent her a video
[21:54] right? And this bit made me laugh not
[21:56] even going to lie I was laughing at him.
[21:58] He sent her a video of him crying and begging for
[22:03] forgiveness. It's giving that one Snapchat
[22:05] screenshot of like feel like pure shit.
[22:07] Just want her back like he was he was giving her the ick I fear
[22:11] but he was sending her all these videos like so many of him
[22:14] saying that he can't live without her, he needs her back
[22:17] his life is nothing without her He was really trying to
[22:20] manipulate her he was really trying to say that if you don't
[22:23] come and get back with me then my life is ruined and something
[22:27] bad might happen. And while we can all acknowledge
[22:29] in this moment that Yi Dong was no good for Chao Fung, we have
[22:33] to remember that this was her first ever relationship.
[22:37] This was her only experience of love, or what love is supposed
[22:42] to be, and so she really didn't know any different.
[22:45] She didn't know that this isn't actually what it's supposed to
[22:48] be like. She didn't realise how much
[22:50] better it could be with a different person, with someone
[22:54] that's actually nice to her, someone that cares about her
[22:56] feelings. Yi Dong was older than her, he
[22:59] was more experienced in relationships and he was much
[23:02] more confrontational. Full stop.
[23:05] Chao Fung was so out of her depth in this relationship and
[23:09] every time that Yi Dong was done being so awful to her, he would
[23:13] then switch up and immediately shower her with love and
[23:16] affection and all that love bombing would come flooding back
[23:19] and she'd be worn down by it all and she would take him back.
[23:23] So she forgave him. Their relationship was back on,
[23:26] but then literally 3 weeks later, everything would go wrong
[23:30] again. One day in April, Chao Fung had
[23:33] a dance competition with her school and it was a trip that
[23:36] she was going to be going on and that morning Yi Dong was
[23:39] insistent that he was coming with her.
[23:42] It's a little bit weird, like why do you need to come?
[23:44] You don't need to be on her work trip with all of these little
[23:48] kids that she teaches dance. I don't know, there's something
[23:50] about that to me. But anyway, he hops in the car
[23:52] and he's coming along with her. And as they were driving, as per
[23:56] usual, he starts an argument. And all their fights were pretty
[24:00] much the same. They were on the same few
[24:02] topics. He was mad that she had her own
[24:05] money and her own job. I think he was very jealous of
[24:07] that. As much as he couldn't be
[24:09] bothered going out and getting it for himself, I think he
[24:11] wanted that financial independence and just didn't
[24:14] have it. But another one of their
[24:15] arguments, his favorite kind of argument, was that he was just
[24:19] so jealous of other men. He was convinced that Chao Fong
[24:23] was speaking to other men, or that she liked other men, or
[24:26] like another man was going to come in and like, I don't know.
[24:29] I don't know. He was just always complaining
[24:31] about other men. And Chao Fong had never Even so
[24:34] much as looked in another man's direction the whole time she'd
[24:37] been with him. She couldn't understand where
[24:39] that jealousy was coming from. But why was it coming?
[24:42] Yi Dong was just so obsessed with Chao Fong in such an
[24:46] unhealthy way. And I mean, him tagging along on
[24:48] this work trip is a prime example example of that, of how
[24:51] he needed control over her at all times.
[24:54] He wanted eyes on her. He didn't have his own life.
[24:58] Chao Fung was his life. So when they actually arrived to
[25:02] this performance, the plan was that Chao Fung was going to go
[25:05] in. She was going to, you know, do
[25:06] the job, work with the kids, do the performance.
[25:08] It was going to be great. This whole time, Yi Dong was
[25:11] supposed to be waiting in the car for her return.
[25:13] But after a few hours after the performance, when she did
[25:16] eventually return to the car, Yi Dong was gone and the car was
[25:21] trashed. It was so vandalized.
[25:24] He'd completely smashed up her display screen.
[25:27] He had ripped the bumper off. All of this damage costed
[25:31] thousands. And Chao Fung drove a brand new
[25:34] Mercedes. Oh my God, it pains me to even
[25:37] think about it. He knew as he was doing all of
[25:41] that damage that those repairs were going to be so expensive.
[25:44] I'm not entirely sure what she did after that or how she got
[25:47] home, but she did, you know, later that evening, she was in
[25:51] her apartment when she hears banging on the door.
[25:54] Of course it's Yi Dong. But this was actually around
[25:57] midnight. He had woken her up from her
[25:59] slumber and she just did not want to deal with him right now.
[26:03] So she refused to let him in. And so he got so angry that he
[26:07] starts kicking the door down. And just bear in mind, he didn't
[26:11] live there. He had just practically kind of
[26:14] moved himself in rent free. But there was never an official
[26:16] conversation. This was never for a thing that
[26:19] he lived there. So he is literally breaking into
[26:22] her apartment right now. And Chao Fung was terrified.
[26:26] She called up her brother. She was in tears telling him
[26:28] that Yi Dong was trying to force his way into her apartment.
[26:32] So her brother puts his shoes on and rushes as quickly as he can
[26:35] over to her house. And as soon as he arrives, Yi
[26:39] Dong runs away. What?
[26:40] So he can be this aggressive and intimidating with a woman, but
[26:44] as soon as a man gets involved, he's scared.
[26:47] By this point all of Chao Fung family hated Yi Dong.
[26:51] They were constantly encouraging her to split up with him and
[26:54] move on and find someone better. In fact, her grandparents had
[26:57] actually gone to a psychic and done like a whole birth chart
[27:01] reading on the couple and this psychic had even said these are
[27:06] a match made in hell, do not let them stay together.
[27:09] Her family began to pray that fate would break the couple up
[27:14] and soon their prayers would be answered.
[27:16] The two of them wouldn't be together much longer, but not
[27:19] because of a breakup. It would be death that would
[27:22] part them. In reality, Chao Fung felt like
[27:25] it was virtually impossible to leave You Dong and move forward
[27:29] with her life. In relationships like this, when
[27:32] the victim tries to get away, it's likely to be a very long
[27:36] drawn outbreak up even quite dangerous.
[27:40] And Chao Fung knew that, but she was very brave, and she ended
[27:44] things with him for a second time.
[27:46] And like clockwork, just as he felt her slipping away from his
[27:50] control once again, Yi Dong turned on the waterworks.
[27:54] He got the camera out. He got the selfie phone back
[27:56] out. Selfie phone?
[27:57] How old am I? He got the phone back out, got
[28:00] the selfie camera out. And he starts sobbing on camera
[28:03] to her again, just giving her the ick, begging for her
[28:06] forgiveness. And you know what?
[28:07] As much as I'm laughing at that as a technique to try to get
[28:10] someone back, we don't know what he was at actually saying in
[28:12] these videos and it sounds manipulative as hell.
[28:16] And it worked for a second time. She ended up going back to him
[28:20] because she just felt so bad. But like the emotional roller
[28:24] coaster that this relationship was, peace between them never
[28:28] lasted very long. Remember earlier on in the
[28:30] episode when we said that Yi Dong might have had a clothing
[28:34] company, but he never really seemed to do any work and never
[28:37] really talked about it? So did it even exist?
[28:39] Well, it turns out Yi Dong had been very busy attending to a
[28:42] different kind of business instead.
[28:45] His gambling. At the end of April, Chao Fung
[28:48] had discovered that Yi Dong had run up so much debt it was
[28:53] insane. It was clear that gambling had
[28:56] become an addiction for him, and he was losing a lot through it.
[29:01] So we can add financial insecurity to the long list of
[29:04] reasons why Chao Fung felt like she needed to get away from this
[29:07] man. Because with gambling, it's not
[29:10] even just the loss of money, but it's everything that
[29:13] unfortunately comes along with it.
[29:15] It's not uncommon for people that are in the pits of that
[29:19] kind of addiction to begin lying and stealing money and
[29:23] manipulating the people around them in order to feed their need
[29:27] to gamble. It can turn people very angry,
[29:31] and Yi Dong was already emotionally turbulent as it was.
[29:35] So when Chao Fung discovered his growing debt, she broke up with
[29:40] Yi Dong for 1/3 time. She was hoping she'd be able to
[29:44] get out of this relationship before the consequences of his
[29:47] gambling could reach her, but it was already too late by now.
[29:52] Now that they're on breakup #3 I bet Yi Dong felt like there
[29:55] wasn't much point in trying to beg and cry on video for her to
[30:00] come back. You know, his usual MO.
[30:02] Instead, it seems he tried to juice her for every penny that
[30:07] he could before she was fully out of his life.
[30:10] One day while she was at work put first break up, Yi Dong had
[30:14] hired a locksmith to come over and change the locks to her own
[30:19] house so that he could break in and rob her while she was at
[30:23] work. Of course, as soon as Chao Fung
[30:26] discovered this, she called the police and it was very clear who
[30:29] had done this. Everyone knew that it was Yi
[30:31] Dong, but in that moment, Chao Fung felt really bad for him.
[30:36] I mean, now that he was going to be facing criminal charges, she
[30:39] felt like she had to protect him.
[30:41] And so she told the police that he hadn't broken in it.
[30:45] She doesn't think it was him, and she doesn't want to press
[30:47] charges on him. She was just such a sweet and
[30:50] empathetic person to her own detriment.
[30:53] I mean, she could tell that Yi Dong had gotten to this point
[30:56] through addiction and she just felt bad for him.
[30:59] She couldn't feel any animosity when she knew that this person
[31:03] was wasn't well. And I guess this was a new
[31:06] possible explanation for his terrible treatment of her.
[31:10] He was unwell, he was battling addiction, and she really didn't
[31:15] want to see him go to prison for this.
[31:17] She just had such a big heart, so she managed to kind of save
[31:22] him from the police pressing charges and all of that kind of
[31:25] stuff and to apologize to her and to try to win her back.
[31:29] Yi Dong went out and bought Chao Fung a puppy, which you know,
[31:33] sounds, sounds wonderful, but the actual implications of
[31:37] having a puppy meant that this couple were now bonded together
[31:42] even more than before. Now that they were dog parents.
[31:46] He had essentially trapped her even and more.
[31:49] Just as she was starting to get away from him, he goes and gets
[31:52] them a dog together. Over those three months from
[31:55] February to May, the couple had broken up and gotten back
[31:59] together three times. And obviously it was always Chao
[32:02] Fung being the one doing the breaking up and Yi Dong being
[32:06] the one begging to get back together with her.
[32:08] He was just too good at wearing her down and soon his grip on
[32:13] her would extend beyond her own reality and he began controlling
[32:18] her virtually. In late May, the two of them
[32:21] decided to go on a bit of a like romance repair trip, a bit of a
[32:26] make or break trip. They were going to go away and
[32:28] try to rekindle the flame and fix things as if a weekend away
[32:34] can fix this man. So they went to the city of
[32:36] Hangzhou and it has this like really famous lake that kind of
[32:41] wraps around the city. And so the two of them go on a
[32:44] boat trip. And it was on this boat trip
[32:46] that the two of them would record that video of Chao Fung
[32:49] that ended up going viral. And little did she know that
[32:53] video would be the start of a whole new nightmare.
[32:57] So the two of them are on this boat admiring the gorgeous
[33:00] views. And then Yi Dong pulls his phone
[33:03] out and begins to record Chao Fung.
[33:05] It has this like, trending song over the back of it.
[33:08] This song was massive on Do Yin at the time.
[33:11] And Chao Fung sat there just doing some cute little hand
[33:13] moves. She looks really pretty.
[33:15] It's got all like the background of the lake in the back.
[33:18] It's like really aesthetically pleasing.
[33:20] So it's no surprise that when you Dong actually posted this
[33:24] video onto Do Yin, it blew up. TikTok is such a funny thing,
[33:28] and I wonder if Doyen is the same.
[33:31] Well, it seems it actually, it just, it takes just the most
[33:33] simple stuff to really hit with an audience and to blow up.
[33:37] I guess it was the combination of like a trending sound, her
[33:41] being so beautiful, the setting on the lake, like she was just
[33:45] dancing, having fun. It was good vibes, whatever it
[33:48] was this video hit and it did numbers.
[33:52] It literally got like 1.8 million likes.
[33:56] Chao Fung was just a normal girl, but suddenly she had
[34:00] millions of eyes on her and they wanted more from her.
[34:04] As the likes rolled in, so did the financial possibilities, the
[34:08] brand deals. Yidong's eyes basically lit up
[34:11] with dollar signs. This was an opportunity and he
[34:15] was going to earn. I believe the account was just
[34:18] his like personal doe in Page that he had.
[34:21] He'd never posted anything before so this video really was
[34:25] so random. They never planned to be a
[34:28] sensation or to be influencers. The account obviously wasn't
[34:31] even branded with Chao Fung's name, it was her boyfriend's
[34:34] account. But after that first video blew
[34:36] up, in the space of a month after that, between the 26th of
[34:39] May and the 26th of June, he had forced Chao Fung to film 59
[34:45] different videos, and they'd all been uploaded to this same
[34:48] account, and they were all doing pretty damn well.
[34:51] He would spend hours researching on Do Yin, finding all the
[34:54] trending sounds, all the trending dancers, all the
[34:56] different concepts, and forcing Chao Fung to film and do brand
[35:02] deals and and gain more followers.
[35:04] And this constant posting meant that their accounts skyrocketed
[35:08] to nearly half a million followers in that month.
[35:13] But this wasn't an account that Chao Fung had any authority
[35:17] over. She had no say in it.
[35:20] It was Yi Dong that was accepting all of these brand
[35:22] deals on her behalf. He was the one taking the
[35:25] payments into his bank. So now that all these contracts
[35:28] are signed and they've agreed to do these brand deals, well, Chao
[35:32] Fung had no choice. She was forced against her will
[35:36] to record videos promoting products and dancing while
[35:39] receiving none of the money. She made it clear to Yi Dong
[35:43] that she did not want to be an influencer.
[35:45] She wanted to live this quiet life, just teaching dance to
[35:48] kids. She would always tell him how
[35:50] much she didn't want to record videos.
[35:52] She didn't really enjoy it, but he wouldn't listen to her.
[35:55] He would just tell her, well, we've accepted more brand deals,
[35:58] so you have to. You don't have a choice.
[36:01] Chao Fung would eventually give in every single time and just
[36:04] film these videos for him just because she wanted to avoid his
[36:08] violent rage. Because yeah, it appeared as the
[36:12] things had gotten worse in their relationship.
[36:16] Up until this point, Yidong's rage had been been mostly
[36:19] verbal. He would shout at her and call
[36:21] her awful things, or he would take out this violence on her
[36:25] belongings. He would break her stuff.
[36:27] He would slam doors. But Chao Fung family had an
[36:30] awful feeling that he was putting his hands on her too.
[36:34] I mean, there was no way that he could be filled with so much
[36:36] violent Rage Against so many inanimate objects and not once
[36:41] put a hand on Chao Fung herself. From what we could find when
[36:45] researching, there was never any evidence of her having like big
[36:49] bruises or cuts or like obvious injuries from him.
[36:53] But that doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
[36:56] Chao Fong was constantly begging him to just ease off on Do Yin,
[37:00] like don't make me film any more videos.
[37:03] But he didn't want to hear it. He actually turned around to her
[37:05] and said, well I've signed two more brand deals this morning
[37:08] for £450 each so you better start dancing.
[37:12] After this interaction, Chao Fong felt so defeated.
[37:15] She really felt hopeless, like she didn't have a way out of
[37:18] this life. And so she was messaging her
[37:20] friend privately saying he is trying to make Do Yin a career.
[37:24] I told him I want to stop being on it, but he wants to live off
[37:28] it. To which her friend replies,
[37:29] essentially telling her that this guy's taking the piss.
[37:32] He's meant to be your boyfriend, but he's using you to make
[37:34] money. All of her friends begged her to
[37:37] leave him. They had seen her going through
[37:39] hell at his side. And so finally, with the
[37:43] confidence that this conversation with her friend had
[37:45] just given her, Chao Fung decided that she was finally
[37:49] going to leave him for good. But she knew that straight up
[37:52] breaking up with him, like breaking things off completely
[37:55] wouldn't work. He would go crazy.
[37:57] Not only was she his girlfriend, but she was also his cash cow.
[38:01] And she knew that he wouldn't take lightly to losing both of
[38:04] those in one. So she decided to try and
[38:07] distance herself from him first to, you know, make excuses
[38:11] whenever he wanted to see her. She would say that she was
[38:14] already busy or she was at work, but none of this was really
[38:17] working. She just couldn't get rid of him
[38:18] because obviously now she was his income and so he wasn't
[38:23] really letting her out of his sight.
[38:24] And I mean, we've already said that this man doesn't have much
[38:27] going on with his life. He didn't have anything else to
[38:30] spend time doing other than wondering where she is and when
[38:32] they can make another doe in video.
[38:34] In the middle of the night on June 20th, 2018, Chao Fung was
[38:39] sleeping soundly in bed beside Yi Dong, who was still awake.
[38:43] He stayed up and while she couldn't do anything about it,
[38:46] he transferred himself a £1000 from her bank account.
[38:51] When she woke up the next morning and saw this, she was so
[38:55] heartbroken again. She just tried to kick him out.
[38:58] She was just so done with this man and the many ways that he
[39:01] was ruining her life. She just didn't want to see him
[39:04] anymore. But of course he refused to
[39:07] leave. And so she actually starts to
[39:09] like try and push him out of her door all by herself because fuck
[39:13] this. Fuck having this man in her life
[39:16] anymore. During all of this commotion, I
[39:18] I think as she was trying to push him out of the door, he
[39:21] ended up grabbing hold of it and pulling on it so hard that the
[39:24] whole damn thing came off her front door.
[39:27] So she literally didn't have a door to her house anymore.
[39:32] How unsafe and how horrifying to see such a display of of
[39:37] violence and aggression and strength.
[39:41] So she called her family in floods of tears, begging for
[39:44] help because, well, I mean, her apartment wasn't safe to live in
[39:48] anymore. It didn't have a front door.
[39:50] And for her family, this was beyond the final straw for Yi
[39:55] Dong. They desperately wanted to get
[39:57] her away from this man, but they knew that there wasn't much that
[40:01] they could actually do. I mean, Chao Fung was a fully
[40:04] grown woman. If she wants to stay in the
[40:05] city, and if she wants to see this man again, then she's
[40:09] gonna. But her parents did have one
[40:11] thing over her, and that was that they bought her apartment,
[40:14] the place that she was living in, the city that Yi Dong would
[40:17] always go and stay at as well. Well that was owned by her
[40:19] parents. So they came up with a plan.
[40:22] They told her that they had to sell that place, she couldn't
[40:25] live there anymore and in the time being, until they find her
[40:28] a new place, she would have to come home and stay with them in
[40:31] their house. So she moves back home and her
[40:34] parents are breathing a sigh of relief because I mean now they
[40:37] have eyes on her, they can watch her, they can protect her.
[40:40] And for the first couple of weeks that she was away from
[40:42] him, things really seemed to calm down between her and Yi
[40:46] Dong. That was until the 12th of July,
[40:48] when she officially broke up with him for what would finally
[40:52] be the last time. After that, she blocked him on
[40:56] everything. She changed her phone number.
[40:58] She didn't want this man tracking her down and trying to
[41:01] contact her ever again. This would finally be the end to
[41:05] such a horrific first relationship.
[41:07] But literally within days of her changing her phone number, he
[41:11] had managed to find her new number.
[41:14] And he was contacting her, calling her, texting her, and
[41:16] not even just off his own phone. He was getting different phones
[41:19] so that different numbers would go through to her because
[41:22] obviously she knew to block his. So he was getting burner phones
[41:26] just to harass and stalk this woman until eventually he
[41:30] employed what would be his most sadistic tactic yet.
[41:35] He was calling her again and again and again and she was
[41:38] refusing to pick up. She was just trying to ignore
[41:41] him getting back into her life. She would decline his calls
[41:44] again and again and again, and eventually she texted him saying
[41:47] you can't fix things this way, but all he said back to that was
[41:51] answer the phone answer. She didn't.
[41:53] She kept declining his calls until eventually Ye Dong sent
[41:56] her a video of him abusing the puppy that he had bought for her
[42:02] as an apology gift. In this video he is literally
[42:06] holding the dog up by its lead, dangling her out of the window
[42:11] on a really high up floor. He was texting Chao Fung saying
[42:15] if you decline I will make you watch her die.
[42:18] Of course this absolutely shattered Chao Fung when she saw
[42:22] that video and she wasn't having it so she rushed right to where
[42:26] he was to rescue that dog. She actually ended up giving him
[42:30] money, about 420 lbs in exchange for the dog's life.
[42:36] Let me remind you, this is the dog that he had gifted her as an
[42:39] apology present as a make good, and now he was threatening to
[42:44] kill it. After this, Chao Fung had
[42:46] rescued the dog and she desperately wanted to try and
[42:49] cut every single tie that she could possibly have to this man.
[42:54] She didn't want him to have any singular, even tiny reason to
[42:58] have to get in in touch with her or to have to have a problem
[43:00] with her. So one thing she did was
[43:02] actually hand back that envelope of money that his parents had
[43:06] given her on the Lunar New Year. I assume she'd already spent it,
[43:09] but you know, she gave back that same amount of money so that he
[43:13] couldn't hold that over her. Towards the end of July, Yi Dong
[43:16] was still doing everything he could to follow Chao Fung around
[43:20] to keep in touch with her, to keep stalking her.
[43:23] He was physically stalking her. There was one time when she went
[43:26] to go and meet up with one of her guy friends in the park.
[43:29] They were literally just walking around.
[43:31] She of course didn't know that Yi Dong was hiding in the
[43:35] shadows somewhere, watching her and him seeing her with another
[43:38] man. Even though it was just a
[43:39] friend, it sent him over the edge.
[43:43] And Yi Dong hadn't come to the park unarmed.
[43:47] He had a knife in his pocket as he was stalking her.
[43:51] As soon as he saw her and this guy getting a little bit too
[43:54] close, Yi Dong raced out of the shadows and charged at the two
[43:59] of them. He was verbally and physically
[44:01] attacking the two of them, mainly the guy, and then all of
[44:04] a sudden he pulls the knife from his pocket, totally willing to
[44:09] use it. Chao Fung screamed and called
[44:12] the police, and this actually panicked Yi Dong.
[44:15] He didn't actually use the knife in the end, he just threw it to
[44:18] the side and ran away. And luckily her friend was fine.
[44:21] No one was majorly hurt that evening, just super, super
[44:25] shaken up. But now, someone else had laid
[44:28] witness to Yi Dong's violence. Up until this point, Chao Fung
[44:32] had been kind of keeping that part of everything a secret.
[44:36] I mean, her parents already really didn't like him just
[44:38] because he was a bum and he was rude, so of course she hadn't
[44:41] told them that he can get violent and aggressive and mean.
[44:44] And now he was fucking running at them with a knife.
[44:48] And so this his friend went and told Chao Fung's parents about
[44:51] how dangerous Yi Dong really is. And her family were petrified at
[44:56] how easily he had managed to track her down, what with her
[44:59] blocking him on everything, blocking his number.
[45:02] How had he managed to stalk her everywhere?
[45:06] They were actually really worried that he might have put
[45:08] in a secret tracker on her car and been able to, you know, find
[45:12] her at the park that way. And so they said to her, please
[45:16] don't go anywhere on your own. Like if you want to go
[45:19] somewhere, call one of us, we'll give you a lift there.
[45:22] Don't come home from work on your own.
[45:23] Like nothing. Don't do anything alone.
[45:26] And how upsetting is that? That this woman simply wanted to
[45:30] end a relationship, something that you should be allowed to do
[45:33] without fearing for your fucking life.
[45:35] Yi Dong was just so obsessed with her.
[45:38] It was starting to feel like if I can't have you, no one can.
[45:42] Over the next few days, he continued to send her those
[45:45] videos of him like kneeling on the floor literally begging her,
[45:49] crying, sobbing, pleading. And she didn't respond to a
[45:53] single one of these videos and there were multiple.
[45:56] Like he was really, really trying.
[45:58] And then on August 1st, Chao Fung woke up to a text from
[46:02] Yidong asking if she could meet him.
[46:05] And of course she ignored that too.
[46:07] There was no chance she was going to meet up with him.
[46:09] As the hours passed with his videos and texts going
[46:12] unanswered, his tears began to turn to threats.
[46:17] At 4:23 PM he texted her saying you're done, fuck it, you've
[46:21] completely pissed me off, let's die together.
[46:24] And then a minute later he followed up basically saying
[46:27] along the lines of fuck you, you'll go to hell, just you
[46:31] wait. He is just so full of rage and
[46:34] he wants to see Chao Fung living in his hell too.
[46:38] And he was so serious about these threats.
[46:42] And receiving these kind of messages wasn't a new thing for
[46:44] Chao Fung. She'd had it through their whole
[46:46] entire relationship. For the past six months, she had
[46:49] had to put up with verbal abuse like this, especially over text.
[46:52] So of course she was scared, as she was every time she read
[46:56] another text like this. But by this point, she was also
[46:59] largely numb to his abuse and to his threats.
[47:03] At 5:31 PM that day, she texted her mother saying that she
[47:07] didn't actually need a lift home from work because she was going
[47:09] to go to the cinema with friends.
[47:11] Her mom mum instantly replied saying OK that's fine, but she
[47:14] did advise her not to go to the cinema if there were going to be
[47:18] any men there because well, you know what Yidong would do if he
[47:22] stopped her to the cinema and saw her with another man.
[47:25] Chao Fung assured her mother that it would be fine and at
[47:28] 8:00 PM she left the dance center and got into a friend's
[47:32] car. Little did she know, Yidong was
[47:35] in the car right behind them. He was watching, waiting, and
[47:39] following as she and her friend were pulling into the mall car
[47:43] park. Chao Fung actually noticed that
[47:45] Yi Dong was behind her and Thea shot through her body.
[47:49] Not only was she so scared for her own safety as she always was
[47:53] with Yi Dong, she was very aware of the fact that it wasn't just
[47:57] her in danger right now. It was her friend too.
[48:00] And Chao Fung, the selfless woman that she was, she didn't
[48:04] want to risk any harm coming to her friend, and so she jumped
[48:08] out of the car and just began running.
[48:10] She was heading for the business district, which would have been
[48:13] quite full. Lots of workers walking around
[48:15] at this point in time, and there would be safety in front of so
[48:19] many people, so many witnesses. By now, it was 8:55 PM Yi Dong
[48:24] had leapt from his own car and began chasing down Chao Fung on
[48:28] foot. And what was even more
[48:30] terrifying, he was now wearing a mask.
[48:33] Whatever he was about to do, he did not want people to see his
[48:37] face. He ran until he eventually
[48:40] caught up to Chao Fung, grabbing her and dragging her into a game
[48:44] store. He cornered her right in front
[48:46] of some claw machines. You know, the grabbing machines.
[48:48] He forcibly hugged Chao Fung while she screamed for help.
[48:52] She knew that this wasn't an innocent hug, that this wasn't
[48:56] an innocent meeting. He was going to hurt her, but
[48:59] her cries wouldn't save her. In front of that arcade machine
[49:03] filled with the cutest stuffed animals, Yi Dong pulled a knife
[49:08] from his pocket. His gaze locked on the woman
[49:12] that no longer wanted him. The knife he had brought had a
[49:15] serrated edge. It was like a bread knife, you
[49:18] know, with those jagged edges. It wouldn't make a clean cut.
[49:21] It would make, quite frankly, a mess.
[49:23] Chow Fung screamed again at the sight of this massive weapon,
[49:27] and she tried to wriggle free, but he held her tightly in this
[49:31] hug while he pushed the knife into her stomach.
[49:35] He then twisted it inside her before pulling it back out and
[49:40] repeating again and again and again.
[49:44] After 10 or so of these excruciating twisting, stabbing
[49:48] motions, Chao Fung lost all of the energy in her body, all of
[49:53] her strength, and she fell forward.
[49:55] It seemed like You Dong had been holding her up with one arm
[49:59] while he was stabbing her with the other arm.
[50:01] So then once she slipped, she fell forward but he didn't stop
[50:06] the attack. He then began just stabbing her
[50:09] in the neck. The shop owner had seen this
[50:11] happening and he had actually tried to interfere.
[50:14] He had tried to get Yi Dong away from Chao Fung.
[50:17] He got out of broom and started like trying to hit him with it.
[50:20] But when he did, Yi Dong tried to turn on him and we're not
[50:24] 100% sure if he just attempted to or did actually stab the shop
[50:29] owner as well. This whole ordeal lasted only
[50:33] three minutes, but there would be the last three minutes of
[50:38] Chen Chao Feng's life. At 8:58 PM, just three minutes
[50:43] after he had chased her in there, Yi Dong left the shop and
[50:47] left Chao Feng's body behind. At only 22 years old, Chen Chao
[50:52] Feng, the beautiful, kind, adored dancer who had dedicated
[50:57] her life to teaching children, was publicly murdered by her
[51:03] obsessive, abusive, controlling ex-boyfriend.
[51:07] In her autopsy, it was found that some of her stab wounds
[51:10] were as large as 40 centimeters. That's 40.
[51:15] We believe that he was kind of going in angled, like pointing
[51:19] it up and pointing it in different directions to try to
[51:22] inflict as much damage as possible.
[51:24] Because honestly, when I first heard a 40cm deep wound, I was
[51:30] thinking surely that would have gone all the way through her.
[51:33] And I'm not entirely sure about that, but the first theory is
[51:37] just so horrifying, so disturbing.
[51:40] She had been stabbed 16 times in total and from the way that he
[51:45] had been twisting that knife, her wounds were so big they were
[51:50] like cut out triangles. Soon after, the police and
[51:54] ambulances began to arrive as a swarm of people had already
[51:57] gathered around the shop. Chao Fung had run into this
[52:00] densely populated area shouting for help on purpose, thinking
[52:05] that he couldn't possibly do anything to her in front of all
[52:07] of these people. She thought she had found safety
[52:10] in such a large crowd. But instead of acting as a
[52:13] shield for Chao Fung, the public just stood by as an audience to
[52:19] her murder. And there's actually a name for
[52:22] when this happens. It's called the bystander
[52:24] effect. It's a theory that suggests that
[52:26] people are a lot less likely to help out if there are loads of
[52:29] other people around as well. The more bystanders there are,
[52:33] the less likely anyone is to help, because the responsibility
[52:36] to act is shared among so many more people.
[52:40] And this happens all the time. Like, they have observed this
[52:43] effect in every country in practically every walk of life.
[52:47] And it's just so horrifying to think that something so terrible
[52:51] could be going on literally in front of people's eyes, but
[52:54] they're not going to do anything for you.
[52:56] For example, IN2020 on a busy London Underground tube, a girl
[53:01] was raped by a complete stranger in front of the rest of the
[53:06] carriage, and no one stepped in to help her.
[53:09] It's believed that the more people are present, the more
[53:11] likely people are to kind of lose a little bit of empathy and
[53:15] become desensitized to whatever it is they're witnessing.
[53:20] And this desensitization was happening right now in real
[53:23] time. People were recognizing Chao
[53:25] Fung as the dancer from Doyen that they'd seen on their
[53:29] newsfeed. And just like she couldn't
[53:31] escape having the phone shoved in her face when she was alive,
[53:35] she was now being exploited and subjected to the same thing in
[53:39] death. People were filming the scene
[53:41] and taking photos of the paramedics that were trying to
[53:44] work on her body. She was forced to live and die
[53:48] online. It's heartbreaking.
[53:51] By 9:30 PM that same night, Yi Dong had actually handed himself
[53:55] in to the police. He knew that he had been caught
[53:58] on CCTV. There was a trail of
[54:01] incriminating texts that he had sent to her phone, like there
[54:05] was no way that he was ever going to get away from this.
[54:07] And so he thought that handing himself in might mean a lesser
[54:11] sentence. In the months that awaited the
[54:13] trial, Chao Fung's family started sorting through all of
[54:16] her belongings to help build a stronger case against the Dong,
[54:20] and they discovered that on the day that she was killed, she had
[54:24] less than 1 LB in her bank account because he had drained
[54:29] everything from it. And remember, her job brought in
[54:32] over £1000 a month and she was currently living with her
[54:35] parents, so she probably should have had a bit of something in
[54:38] the bank. There wasn't much that her money
[54:40] was going on other than when he stole it.
[54:43] When her family read through her phone, they saw so many texts of
[54:47] this man emotionally manipulating her, verbally
[54:51] abusing her where their messages had started out all romantic and
[54:55] lovey dovey. He would say things like I love
[54:57] you, I can't spend a single day without you.
[55:00] Well, in the recent months and weeks of their relationship,
[55:03] those texts had turned into threats that he was going to
[55:06] break into her flat and hurt her.
[55:09] And what made it even worse was that the public opinion at the
[55:12] time was just so wrong. Online, Chow Fung was being
[55:17] victim blamed so bad. People were saying that she was
[55:21] cheating on him, that she was a gold digger, that she was money
[55:24] hungry, and that he must have just lost lost his temper in a
[55:28] fit of rage and maybe she deserved it.
[55:30] It absolutely infuriates me to think that this is the
[55:34] conclusion that so many people jumped to.
[55:37] The misogynistic conclusion automatically assuming that
[55:40] there's no way in hell a beautiful woman like Chao Fung
[55:44] would ever be able to have her own job and pay her own bills,
[55:47] that she wasn't relying on a man to keep her stable.
[55:51] It was like they didn't believe that she was a human in her own
[55:53] right, that she couldn't earn her own money, that she must
[55:56] have been sleeping, been around and taking advantage and
[55:59] draining every man that she came across of their money.
[56:02] Which like, let me remind you of her name, the name that her
[56:05] parents had given her and that she had grown to suit so well.
[56:09] Chao Fung. She was a skilled worker.
[56:12] She was full of skill and technique, yet he was just the
[56:16] one that was benefiting from her.
[56:18] Remember, that was what his name meant.
[56:21] It just absolutely infuriates me to think that that was the
[56:24] conclusion that so many people jumped to her just because she
[56:27] was was a pretty girl. And I bet the fact that she was
[56:30] also seen as an influencer had a lot to do with that too.
[56:32] People judged her and didn't seem to like her right off the
[56:36] bat just because she was so pretty and she danced online.
[56:40] At the time in 2018, dancers on Doyen weren't regarded all that
[56:45] highly in China. Chao Feng wearing shorts and
[56:48] T-shirts, doing simple dances and looking pretty just wasn't
[56:52] that respected. People saw it as a slightly
[56:56] slippery slope up into more promiscuous sort of content.
[57:00] Obviously no one was accusing her of being an adult content
[57:04] creator at this point in time, but it's almost as if the next
[57:07] step up from what she was doing at that point would have
[57:10] practically been sex work in the eyes of society.
[57:14] Things have changed since and I believe the dancers aren't
[57:17] viewed as harshly as it's become so much more popular worldwide,
[57:21] but at the time that was one of the many reasons that Chao Fung
[57:25] didn't want to be a doyen dancer.
[57:27] She didn't want that as a job, especially because she was a
[57:30] kids teacher as well. I mean, all it would take is for
[57:33] one Karen parent to find one of her videos and call for her to
[57:37] be fired due to what they believe is inappropriate
[57:40] content. It wasn't just that she didn't
[57:43] enjoy filming all this content that he was forcing her to do,
[57:45] it was the fact that it could ruin her life, the life that she
[57:49] had been building for herself and he didn't care.
[57:52] And what is so horrifying about the aftermath of this case is
[57:56] that Yi Dong's family actually backed him up.
[57:59] They supported him and fueled his fire of lies that Chao Fung
[58:04] was a promiscuous, cheating gold digger just draining him of of
[58:08] his money. In China, capital punishment is
[58:12] still a thing. You can still get the death
[58:14] penalty for a serious crime in China.
[58:16] And the prosecution decided that Yi Dong could be facing this
[58:20] death penalty. And that's certainly what Chao
[58:23] Fung family were fighting for. They wanted him to lose his life
[58:26] just the way that he had taken hers.
[58:28] But his family were doing anything and everything they
[58:31] could to save their son's life. They were spreading lies all
[58:35] throughout the city and even online that Chao Fung had
[58:39] refused to return the money that they had given her for the Lunar
[58:43] New Year. They were saying that she had
[58:45] just taken that 1000 lbs from them and then broken Yidong's
[58:50] heart and left him in the mud, you know?
[58:52] And this was just so heartbreaking for Chao Fung's
[58:55] family to hear that her character was being smeared like
[58:59] this in front of the whole country, country.
[59:01] And they were believing it as well.
[59:03] And so to try to defend her, her brother and his wife made signs
[59:09] that they would go out and stand on the street with, and they
[59:12] would post photos with these signs.
[59:14] And these signs basically set the record straight.
[59:17] They had the facts on of what kind of person Chao Fung was.
[59:21] The two of them live streamed themselves doing this every
[59:24] night, going out into town with these signs, desperate to end
[59:27] all of these false accusations against Chao Fung, against a
[59:31] woman that doesn't have a voice to defend herself.
[59:35] But it wasn't until police released the details of this
[59:39] case and Yidong went to court that suddenly all of these wrong
[59:43] narratives were stopped because people finally saw the truth.
[59:47] Eight months after murdering Chao Fung on April 3rd, 2019, Yi
[59:52] Dong appeared in court on trial for her murder.
[59:55] He argued that he didn't intend to kill Chao Fung that night, He
[1:00:00] just wanted to talk to her, but she kept running away from him.
[1:00:04] So he said that he had pulled this knife out just to scare
[1:00:07] her, you know, just to make her stay and talk to him.
[1:00:10] But it only made the situation worse.
[1:00:13] At the sight of this knife, Chao Fung began screaming for help
[1:00:17] and. He just wanted to make her stop.
[1:00:19] He said that in that moment, he just kind of blacked out and
[1:00:23] mindlessly started stabbing her. Further into the trial, he
[1:00:27] actually went on to blame Chao Fong's own mother for her
[1:00:31] daughter's death, saying that if she'd have just picked her up
[1:00:34] from work that day and dropped her off at the cinema rather
[1:00:37] than her getting a ride with a friend, then Chao Fong would
[1:00:40] still be alive today. And that is genuinely one of the
[1:00:44] most callous things I have ever seen a murderer do in the
[1:00:48] aftermath of a case. It's like he was still trying to
[1:00:51] abuse her even in death by going after her mum.
[1:00:54] And when her poor mum heard him say this in front of the whole
[1:00:58] courtroom, that she was the reason that her daughter was
[1:01:01] dead, she fainted. What an evil thing to do to a
[1:01:05] woman who is freshly grieving her daughter and had probably
[1:01:09] already had these thoughts swirling through her head that
[1:01:12] she might have been able to change something.
[1:01:14] She might have been able to stop him.
[1:01:16] Of course, none of this was her mother's fault and she couldn't
[1:01:19] have stopped any of it, but him saying that is just so evil.
[1:01:24] But importantly, no one was buying his bullshit.
[1:01:27] The whole courtroom was siding with the victim.
[1:01:30] Thank God. After the deliberation, the
[1:01:32] judge had decided that Yi Dong had planned revenge because Chao
[1:01:36] Fung wouldn't take him back. It was clear that he had
[1:01:40] followed her into the city centre that night with the
[1:01:42] intention of it becoming a violent interaction if he didn't
[1:01:46] get the outcome that he wanted. I mean, he had literally taken a
[1:01:49] fucking serrated knife with him. He purposefully and
[1:01:53] intentionally murdered Chao Fong in anger because he could no
[1:01:57] longer control her. At the end of this trial, the
[1:02:00] judge sentenced Yidong to for death for his crime.
[1:02:04] He got the death penalty, although he did try to appeal it
[1:02:08] right away and it did go to court.
[1:02:10] And this time he kind of tried to change his tactic.
[1:02:13] He pleaded mental insanity and his family even got up and
[1:02:17] showed a medical certificate that proved that he had sought
[1:02:20] help. But it was literally only a few
[1:02:23] days before he ended up murdering Chao Fong.
[1:02:26] And he had only gone to seek help for depression.
[1:02:28] And I don't want that to sound reductive.
[1:02:30] Of course depression can be so debility for so many people, but
[1:02:35] I don't think this was a product of his depression really.
[1:02:38] I don't think a certificate from your psychiatrist saying, yeah,
[1:02:41] I treated him for depression once a few days ago.
[1:02:45] I don't think that can get you out of this babe.
[1:02:47] If anything, it kind of seemed just like a big excuse, maybe a
[1:02:50] pre planned excuse. He knew that he was getting to
[1:02:54] the point where he might kill Chao Fung any day now.
[1:02:57] So maybe he should go and check himself in with a psychiatrist
[1:03:00] just to just to lay the groundwork and let everyone know
[1:03:03] that he thinks is a bit a bit crazy.
[1:03:06] I don't know. Either way, the appeal was
[1:03:07] denied and his death sentence was upheld.
[1:03:10] He was going to be executed. August 31st, 2020 was the day
[1:03:16] that Yi Dong would be executed by the state.
[1:03:19] And that same evening, around 20 to 30 of Yi Dong's friends and
[1:03:24] family all swarmed around Chao Fung's family home, screaming,
[1:03:29] shouting and cursing at all of her family family members.
[1:03:34] They felt like it was Chao Fong's fault, the murder
[1:03:37] victim's fault that their son was being executed for murder.
[1:03:42] Make that make sense. His family had just been to
[1:03:46] their final visit in prison to say goodbye to him.
[1:03:49] And on their way back, they were so angry and so upset that they
[1:03:53] decided to take it out on Chao Fong's family, which is so
[1:03:57] disgusting. And I mean, it is a tricky 1
[1:03:59] because I can't even imagine what it would be like as a
[1:04:02] parent to say goodbye to your child in those circumstances.
[1:04:06] You know, going to visit him in prison, knowing that he had
[1:04:09] essentially killed himself, that that was the last time you're
[1:04:12] ever going to see and speak to that boy because he had gone out
[1:04:15] and killed someone. I mean, I imagine it's a
[1:04:18] nightmare all in itself for his parents, but surely they can
[1:04:22] imagine what a nightmare it must be for Chao Fung's family.
[1:04:25] And if you can acknowledge that, why the fuck would you then go
[1:04:27] and terrorize them at their house for simply being victims
[1:04:31] of your evil son? Tensions had escalated that much
[1:04:35] that the police came and they actually had to take Yi Dong's
[1:04:38] father away. And he was screaming and
[1:04:41] shouting on his way to the police car about how his son is
[1:04:44] gone. Yeah, and so is their daughter.
[1:04:46] So is Chao Fung. All because she wanted to escape
[1:04:50] an abusive man. But his family persisted.
[1:04:53] They did this day in, day out. They would go outside of Chao
[1:04:56] Fung's family home and just scream the most obscene shit at
[1:05:00] her surviving family members. Yidong's last act on this earth
[1:05:04] was to sign away his organs after his execution as an
[1:05:08] attempt for making up for taking Chao Fung's life.
[1:05:12] He wanted to give someone else theirs, but like all
[1:05:16] narcissistic men, this was just for sure.
[1:05:19] I mean, he didn't feel sorry for what he had done.
[1:05:21] It was so performative. If he actually felt sorry for
[1:05:24] what he had done, he would have apologized to Chao Fung's family
[1:05:27] in the aftermath. He would have written a letter,
[1:05:30] something. But he never said a solid word
[1:05:33] to them at all because he didn't care.
[1:05:36] Honestly, the whole time he just saw Chao Fung as his property in
[1:05:41] every sense of the word. Her body, her loyalty, her time,
[1:05:45] time, her money, it all belonged to him.
[1:05:48] She was his to kill. And as we've said a couple of
[1:05:52] times, he had absolutely nothing else going for him in life.
[1:05:56] He had no life, she was his life.
[1:05:59] But domestic violence isn't a cultural or country based issue.
[1:06:03] It's an anybody and any home issue.
[1:06:07] It's important to me to end these cases by showcasing an
[1:06:10] organization that we really, truly believe in.
[1:06:13] And today I want to give a shout out to Idas.
[1:06:16] It's a Yorkshire based charity that helps women and children
[1:06:19] across all the different counties in Northern England to
[1:06:22] escape domestic violence. So for my Yorkshire girls at
[1:06:25] home, if you need to, please reach out to IDAS, they can
[1:06:29] offer you help. If you've been affected by any
[1:06:31] part of Chao Fung's story or know someone that might, their
[1:06:35] link will be in the description of this episode.
[1:06:37] And for everyone else all around the world, not just Yorkshire, I
[1:06:40] want to call attention to the link tree that we have in the
[1:06:43] description of every single episode.
[1:06:45] If you're looking for resources or charities or even a helpline,
[1:06:49] if you yourself need help, please go and have a look.
[1:06:52] I'm so sure that there is someone on that link tree that
[1:06:56] can help you. And I just want to say on the
[1:06:58] back of our shout out to the wonderful charity IDAS, for
[1:07:02] everyone else that's maybe not in that region, please have a
[1:07:05] look at the smaller charities in your area.
[1:07:08] If you're looking for help or even if you're looking to
[1:07:10] support, the smaller local charities can be so helpful.
[1:07:14] And I feel like like not many people know of them.
[1:07:16] Since Chao Fung's death, her mother has never recovered.
[1:07:20] She continually cleans her daughter's bedroom and polishes
[1:07:24] all of her dance trophies. She is unable to move on with
[1:07:28] the fact that Chao Fung isn't here anymore.
[1:07:31] Before her death, her parents had actually built her a house
[1:07:34] on the same street that they lived in, and they imagined her
[1:07:38] moving in there one day with her husband and raising kids in
[1:07:41] there. And now she was never even going
[1:07:44] to see it completely. But sadly, the house just sits
[1:07:47] empty now. It will never get to see the
[1:07:49] beautiful life that Chao Fung was supposed to live, all
[1:07:53] because of a man that couldn't get his own way.
[1:07:56] And now both of their lives are lost.
[1:07:59] And that's everything we have for today's episode.
[1:08:01] Thank you so so much for tuning in.
[1:08:03] I really appreciate it. This has been another long one,
[1:08:06] huh? Thank you so much for listening
[1:08:11] to Usual Disclaimer. At this point, I just want to
[1:08:13] say that if you've been affected by any of the topics we
[1:08:16] discussed today, please check the description where we've left
[1:08:19] some helpful resources. If you want to hear more cases
[1:08:22] like this one, make sure to follow Usual Disclaimer on your
[1:08:25] podcast app so that you get notifications when we post new
[1:08:28] episodes. And if you really enjoyed, I'd
[1:08:31] love it if you could leave a rating and a review too.
[1:08:34] Usual Disclaimer with Eleanor Neil is an Audio Boom Studios
[1:08:37] production. See you next time.

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