The short answer

  • Once the person is dead, the criminal proceedings must stop. Article 16(1)(5) of the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC provides that where the criminal suspect or defendant has died, criminal liability is not pursued, and a case already being pursued must be withdrawn. Withdrawal only means her criminal liability is no longer pursued; it does not mean no compensation is owed.
  • Civil compensation is a separate, independent track: against an offender who has died, the claim can be brought against her estate; against an offender who is a minor, her guardian can be sued directly.
  • Both girls were only 16. Article 1188 of the Civil Code of the PRC provides that where a person with limited capacity for civil conduct causes damage to another, the guardian bears tort liability; where that person has property of her own, payment is made first from that property, and the guardian compensates the shortfall. This liability is not extinguished by the child’s death.
  • Compensation is mainly for material loss: medical expenses, nursing, nutrition and rehabilitation costs, and disability compensation where disability results; the cat that was thrown to its death counts as property loss. On emotional-distress damages, the courts in general do not accept the claim.
  • The hardest part is not the judgment but getting the money: the other side’s mother lives outside China, so a judgment would have to be taken abroad for recognition and enforcement; where enforcement recovers nothing and the family is in hardship, state judicial assistance (国家司法救助) can be applied for.

The facts: “go downstairs and look for the cat” became 25 stab wounds

According to public reports, in Hangzhou in March 2026, Xiao Chen, aged 16, took in a friend of the same age who was low in spirits and was suspected of suffering from depression, and booked her an appointment with a psychiatrist for the next day. That day the friend threw Xiao Chen’s cat from upstairs, killing it; when Xiao Chen said she was going downstairs to look for the cat, the other girl picked up a fruit knife and stabbed her 25 times, stopping only when neighbours broke the door open. Xiao Chen suffered severe damage to her internal organs, assessed as a second-degree serious injury (Chinese forensic grading); the medical costs were at least RMB 100,000, with further rehabilitation still to be funded. The attacker then jumped from the building and died, and the police withdrew the case after filing it. Reports say her mother lives in Russia, shows little willingness to mediate and refuses to pay; Xiao Chen comes from a single-parent family.

The above is as relayed by the media; the details of the injuries are governed by the public security documents. This article discusses the legal structure behind these facts, which applies equally to other cases in which the offender commits suicide and the victim is seriously injured.

She is dead — why can the criminal case only be withdrawn?

It is not that the police did not want to proceed; the law has closed the road. Article 16 of the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC lists six situations in which criminal liability is not pursued, and item (5) is “the criminal suspect or defendant has died”; the handling is withdrawal of the case, non-prosecution, termination of the trial, or a verdict of not guilty.

Two points need to be made clear. At 16 she had already reached the age of criminal responsibility (Article 17(1) of the Criminal Law of the PRC), and stabbing another person with a knife causing serious injury corresponds to Article 234(2), three to ten years’ imprisonment; but for the death, the case would have proceeded as intentional injury causing serious injury. Withdrawal, however, is a procedural termination, not a clarification of the facts, and still less a finding of innocence — in compensation negotiations these three characterisations are very far apart.

Withdrawal is not exoneration: civil compensation is a separate track

In the normal course a victim may bring an incidental civil action joined to the criminal case (Article 101 of the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC). But once the case is withdrawn there is no “course of criminal proceedings” for the claim to attach to, and a separate civil suit must be brought — many people stall at this point, assuming that “the case was dropped, so no one is responsible”, and let the three-year limitation period run out.

The substantive basis is Article 1165(1) of the Civil Code of the PRC: a person who through fault infringes another person’s civil rights and interests and causes damage bears tort liability. With 25 stab wounds, fault, damage and causation are all present, and the existence of liability is barely in dispute.

For a 16-year-old attacker, who bears the liability?

This is the most important provision. Article 27 of the Civil Code of the PRC provides that parents are the guardians of a minor child; Article 1188 provides that where a person with limited capacity for civil conduct causes damage to another, the guardian bears tort liability, that the liability may be reduced where the guardian has fulfilled guardianship duties, and that where that person has property of her own, payment is made first from that property with the guardian compensating the shortfall. This is an independent liability imposed directly by law, not “paying the child’s debts”, so the child’s death does not extinguish it — many people assume that once the offender dies the parents are off the hook.

Divorce of the parents makes no difference either (Article 1084: the relationship between parents and children is not eliminated by divorce). Even if only the mother raised her, or even if the mother lives abroad, the father is equally a proper defendant.

The guardian has a statutory defence — “reduced where guardianship duties have been fulfilled”: the court will look at whether the family knew of the illness, whether medical treatment was arranged, and whether the other child’s parents were told when she went to stay at a classmate’s home.

Where the attacker had property of her own, payment is made from that property first. After her death it becomes her estate; Article 1159 of the Civil Code of the PRC provides that the estate must first be used to pay debts, and Article 1161 provides that an heir is liable for the debts only to the extent of the actual value of the estate received and may decline liability by renouncing the inheritance; where there is no heir and no legatee, the estate goes to the State (Article 1160).

What is compensated, and how much: the bill for 25 stab wounds and the cat

  • Personal injury: Article 1179 of the Civil Code of the PRC provides for compensation of medical expenses, nursing, transport, nutrition, hospital food allowances and other reasonable costs of treatment and rehabilitation, together with income lost through inability to work; where disability results, the cost of assistive devices and disability compensation are also payable. Xiao Chen is still a student, so lost income is usually nil, but nursing, nutrition and ongoing rehabilitation costs can all be claimed.
  • Property loss: a cat is property. Article 1184 of the Civil Code of the PRC provides that property loss is calculated at the market price at the time of the loss or by another reasonable method. A valuable pedigree dog is easy to price; an ordinary domestic cat often has no calculable value, and that is the practical weakness of this kind of claim.
  • Emotional distress: the item most often overestimated. Article 175(2) of the Supreme People’s Court interpretation on the application of the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC states expressly that claims for emotional-distress damages arising from a criminal act, whether raised in an incidental civil action or in a separate civil suit, are in general not accepted by the courts.
  • Court fees: property cases are charged in bands according to the amount claimed, so a claim in the hundreds of thousands of yuan comes to a few thousand yuan; a party in financial difficulty may apply to defer, reduce or waive payment (Measures on the Payment of Litigation Costs).

A judgment is easy, the money is hard: what to do when she is in Russia

The first issue is jurisdiction and service. The tort was committed in Hangzhou, so under Article 29 of the Civil Procedure Law of the PRC both the court of the place of the tort and the court of the defendant’s domicile have jurisdiction; where the defendant has no domicile in China, a foreign-related case may likewise be heard by the court of the place of the tort (Article 276). Service follows the methods in Article 283: under a judicial assistance treaty where one exists, through diplomatic channels where there is none, and, where the defendant is a Chinese national, also through the Chinese embassy or consulate.

The second issue is property. Property preservation may be applied for at the time of filing (Article 103), seizing and freezing the other side’s real estate, bank deposits and shareholdings in China — establishing first whether there is any property in China, and then deciding how to proceed, is more useful than the judgment itself.

The third is enforcement. A Chinese judgment does not take effect abroad automatically; recognition and enforcement must be applied for separately in the other country, a long and costly process. The usual strategy is to settle if possible, writing into the agreement how much is paid in one go, when it is paid, and what happens if it is not paid; if talks fail, secure the assets in China first.

There is also a backstop. Part II, item (1) of the “Opinions on Establishing and Improving the State Judicial Assistance System (trial)” (《关于建立完善国家司法救助制度的意见（试行）》) provides that where a victim of a criminal case suffers serious injury or serious disability from the crime and, because the offender has died and has no means of compensation, cannot obtain compensation through litigation and is left in hardship, assistance shall be granted. It is supplementary and cannot replace civil compensation, but it is money that can realistically be used to cover medical bills.

Five things the victim can do immediately

  • Keep the police documents: the notice of case filing, the decision to withdraw the case, and the notice of the forensic assessment. Withdrawal does not mean there is no case file, and these are the best evidence in a civil case that the harmful act occurred and constituted a crime.
  • Apply to obtain the case file: in a civil case the court can be asked to obtain the interview records, the scene examination and the forensic assessment from the police; a written application to inspect and copy them can also be made first.
  • Organise the receipts into a file in date order: outpatient, inpatient, surgery, medication, rehabilitation, nursing, transport, nutrition. Future rehabilitation costs can be claimed on the basis of medical advice and the forensic assessment, or sued for later once actually incurred.
  • Establish the guardianship relationship and the property: whether the parents are divorced, who raised her, and whether there is real estate, savings or shareholdings in China — this determines how the defendants are listed and how preservation is carried out.
  • Have the mother sue as legal representative (Article 60 of the Civil Procedure Law of the PRC), and watch the three-year limitation period (Article 188 of the Civil Code of the PRC, running from the day the victim knew or ought to have known that the right had been harmed and who the obligor was).

A few limits that must be stated

First, the facts come from public reports; “depression” is as relayed, and whether it was diagnosed and with what conclusion this article cannot verify, though that does not affect the existence of civil liability. Second, the guardian’s liability is not unlimited: it may be reduced where guardianship duties are shown to have been fulfilled, and where the minor has property payment comes first from that property, so “the parents must pay in full” needs a discount. Third, the emotional-distress route is essentially closed, but that does not prevent raising it as a bargaining factor in mediation: the law not supporting it does not mean the other side will not pay it.

The wounds are real, the bills are real, and the legal liability is real too. Criminal liability is extinguished by the offender’s death; civil compensation does not fall to zero because of it — these are two different things. If you face a similar situation — a compensation claim for a victim of crime where the offender has died, guardian liability for harm caused by a minor, or cross-border service and enforcement — you are welcome to contact Lawyer Wang: phone 186-0113-9509, WeChat wang223040.

Quick answers

Why must the criminal case be withdrawn once the offender has died?
Under Article 16(1)(5) of the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC, criminal liability is not pursued where the suspect or defendant has died, and a case already filed must be withdrawn. Withdrawal is a procedural termination of the case, not a finding of innocence, and it does not affect civil liability.
Can the medical bills still be claimed after the case is withdrawn?
Yes. A separate civil suit can be brought against the estate of the deceased offender and, because she was 16, against her guardian under Article 1188 of the Civil Code of the PRC, which makes the guardian liable and lets the child’s own property be used first. Emotional-distress damages are in general not accepted by the courts.
Can a Chinese judgment be enforced when the defendant’s mother lives abroad?
Not automatically. Recognition and enforcement must be sought in the country where she lives, which is slow and costly. In practice the priority is to preserve assets inside China first, and where nothing can be recovered and the victim is in hardship, to apply for state judicial assistance.

This is an English edition of Wang Xin’s original Chinese article, 收留的闺蜜捅了她25刀后跳楼身亡：人死了、案撤了，医药费还能找谁要？. It explains the law of the People’s Republic of China in general terms and is not legal advice for any particular case; outcomes depend on the specific facts and on how local authorities apply the rules.