A Chinese man has been sentenced to death after he admitted giving his wife sleeping tablets dissolved in milk so that he could murder her before cutting up the body and flushing it down the toilet.

He was caught after police saw this CCTV footage showing her arriving, but never leaving the family home, leading to them suspecting her body at least was still in the property shortly before some of her remains were discovered in a communal cesspit.

The court heard that as well as buying butchering knives, the defendant also purchased tape so that he could cover her mouth and nose to make sure she did not scream, and after suffocating her with a pillow, dragged the body to the bathroom to butcher her without making a mess.

The shocking details came as Xu Guoli, 56, pleaded guilty to premeditated murder with malice at the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court.

The crime that shocked the country was partly motivated by the fact that he was feeling increasingly worried about two properties the couple owned being devalued and he argued with his wife about how they were going to pay for their daughter’s education.

He said he had been frustrated over the couple’s economic situation and had become resentful towards his wife for reasons he could not explain, adding that he “loved his wife very much”.

After dissecting her body when she fell into a deep sleep after consuming the tablets, he then flushed most of her body down the toilet with other parts dumped at various places around the city of Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province.

He then reported his 51-year-old wife, who worked as a cleaner, as missing, and offered a large sum of money for help in trying to find her.

The man, who worked as a driver, said that he found his wife missing when he woke up on July 5, 2020, and said there had been nothing wrong previously and that they had spent a “happy and harmonious” day with their daughter.

These CCTV images showed the woman, identified as Ms Lai, entering the building with her daughter at around 5pm on 4 July. He filed the missing person complaint two days later.

He was caught when officers became suspicious of discrepancies in his story including the fact that there was no footage showing her leaving the building, and they then found human tissue in the septic tank in the community facilities where he lived.

It took more than a day to extract all the waste and it was then sent to a special lab where a team of experts separated various components and eventually identified human tissue.

The Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court of Zhejiang Province which heard the case has now confirmed that the defendant Xu Guoli was guilty of intentional homicide criminal and sentenced to death.

He was also deprived of his political rights for the remainder of his life and ordered to pay compensation to their daughter of RMB 200,000 (GBP 22,175.37) for the financial resources that she would have had available if her mother continued to live and been able to provide for her.

In its judgement, which can be appealed, the court said: “The facts of the case are clear, the evidence is reliable and sufficient, and the charges by the public prosecution agency are convincing.”

They continued: “Xu Guoli deliberately carried out a murder, destroyed the corpse, fabricated false information, and concealed the crime.

“The level of malignancy here is extreme, matched only by the level of cruelty. The crime of such seriousness that only the maximum penalty is appropriate.”