Police said a serial killer has confessed to having raped and killed 11 women and girls between 1988 and 2002 in Baiyin, Gansu Province. The confession shocked his family and neighbors.

Gao Chengyong.

Gao Chengyong, dubbed "China's Jack the Ripper," committed his crimes at victims' homes in Baiyin and Baotou decades ago. He often mutilated his victims, cutting off their breasts, ears, vagina and hands. The youngest victim was only 8 years old when she was killed.

But Gao, now 52, managed to evade justice until Aug. 26, when he was arrested at a retail store at a local school in Baiyin.

The Beijing News reported the key to the arrest was finger prints. Baiyin police had collected all the finger prints of male residents in the city; however, they hadn't recorded those in rural areas, including Gao's hometown. Gao, at that time, avoided submitting his finger prints.

The case made slow and stalled progress over the decades, but when the leadership of the provincial public security department shifted last year, top offcials demanded the cracking of the case. Authorities re-opened the investigation and found the DNA tests led to the Gao family in Chenghe Village. They got the family's finger prints and DNA information, including Gao's, which eventually made him the primary suspect.

Sources said Gao was in a panic when he gave his finger prints and DNA information. People close to the investigation revealed on Sunday that Gao said he had murdered the first victim because he'd been caught by her during a theft attempt.

The 23 year-old victim in the first case was cut in the throat, stabbed 26 times in her upper body and was nearly nude when she was killed on May 26, 1988.

According to his neighbors, Gao was an introverted, honest and silent man. "He never revealed what he really meant when he talked. But I never knew he hid so much," said one villager familiar with Gao.

In other neighbors' recollections, Gao once had aviation dreams and applied for aviation college but failed. He also loved gambling, dogs and dancing.

Gao Junwei, a neighbor, remembered that Gao once told him the urban legend of the Baiyin murderer in details, but he never thought the man who told him stories was the real life criminal.

After Gao's last murder in 2002, he went out to work as a migrant worker in many places across China. In recent years, he had worked with his wife in a school as a small shop owner.

His two sons were enrolled in key univeristies in China. The elder son now is working in a science and research institute.

"I'm shocked, but I didn't really knew him," Gao's elder son said. "We didn't talk too much. And I just can't understand why he did those things."

During the 28 years of the pending case, victims' families and policemen had never really stepped out of the shadow.

In 2011, there was an open letter posted online allegedly from a policeman who was involved in investigating the case. One sentence from it reads, "I was not able to get you in the end. I feel that I will be a guilty man for the rest of my life."

"I thought the case couldn't be solved," Cui Xiangping, brother of victim Cui Jinping, said.

In 1998, Cui Jinping became Gao's sixth victim. She was cut in the throat at home and stabbed 22 times in the torso. The murderer also took away her breasts, hands and ears.

Her brother added, "After getting the news of the arrest last night, my mother is unstable and has been crying. At first I couldn't believe it, but now I know the wait is over. I only hope the police can reveal more details about the case soon."

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