Beautician stabbed savagely by suicidal client over a bill

By Zou Qi  |   2008-7-4  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

A WOMAN who owed money to a beauty salon stabbed one of the salon's workers 11 times with a kitchen knife before fleeing and killing herself by jumping into a river.

Both the women were aged 19. The beautician who was stabbed is surnamed Sha, from Jiangsu Province, and she is still being treated in Minhang District Central Hospital.

Sha told police that her attacker, a girl called Shen, was a customer of the beauty salon. On June 20 Shen had a beauty treatment at the salon but did not have enough money on her to pay for the bill, over 500 yuan (US$73).

She told Sha she had the money at home and Sha went with her to her home in Songjiang District. But there, as she stood and waited in the bedroom, Shen suddenly appeared at the doorway °?°?- not with money but with a kitchen knife.

She stabbed the hapless beautician 11 times. The girl struggled with her attacker, trying to escape through a second-story window, where one of the neighbors saw her desperate fight and called the police.

Emergency services rushed to the scene and managed to get Sha to hospital but Shen fled in the confusion. Two days later her body was found in a nearby creek and police believe she committed suicide.

Shen's brother and two sisters came to Shanghai from their hometown in Shandong Province after hearing of their sister's death.

Shen's brother, Shen Zhengjun, said his sister must have been lured to the beauty salon by the promise of free treatments. "My poor sister must have been enticed into the salon but after the treatment was then told she would have to pay," he said.

The beauty salon's public relations manager Guo Min said Shen had been a regular customer. But Shen's brother said this could not be the case. "My sister earned 1,200 yuan every month and she sent 500 yuan home every month. It would have been too expensive," Shen said.