In the Shoukai Changyi Garden community outside the East Fifth Ring Road in Beijing, three high-rise residential buildings are arranged in a triangular pattern with twelve units distributed. It only takes seven or eight minutes to walk around here.

Starting from the southwest gate of the community, a brand new "Civilized Dog Keeping" warning sign is erected every 15 meters. The security guard said that these brands have not been replaced for long. On a sunny winter afternoon on January 7th, there was only one elderly person walking a small dog in the community. The old man only moved here in 2023. When talking about the "pet poisoning incident" that occurred here in 2022, he shook his head and said he was not aware.

And Li Yihan moved out of this community in 2022. She was the direct victim of the poisoning incident - her beloved dog Papi accidentally sniffed the poison bait and died in her arms. Since then, Li Yihan has embarked on a long journey of pursuing the culprit. On the internet, she has a more well-known name called 'Papi Mom'.

On December 30, 2025, more than a thousand days after the incident, Li Yihan and others came to a final decision: the poisoner Zhang Mouhua stated to the court before the end of the appeal period that he would not appeal, and the criminal part of the first instance judgment would soon take effect.

On December 11th, the Chaoyang District People's Court in Beijing sentenced Zhang Mouhua to four years in prison for the crime of "releasing dangerous substances" in the first instance. This case has become the first criminal prosecution case of its kind in Beijing due to the release of highly toxic substances in public areas, endangering public safety. Wang Zhong, the lawyer representing Li Yihan and a lawyer at Beijing Yingke (Lanzhou) Law Firm, stated that this sentence is already the "highest standard judgment" for such cases.

But for Li Yihan, the matter is not over yet, and the civil lawsuit she filed is still ongoing. She is more concerned about the actual execution of the defendant's judgment.

For her persistence, doubts never ceased: "Isn't it just a dog?" But her answer remained consistent: "This is never just about dogs, it's about people

Victimization

On the morning of September 14, 2022, at 8 o'clock, Li Yihan took her beloved West Highland Papi out for a walk as usual. Papi is her dog that she has been raising for many years, with a lively personality. After walking the dog, Li Yihan went out to work. However, less than 2 hours later, the family suddenly called: Papi suddenly vomited, vomited blood, and had severe convulsions all over her body at home.

The family immediately sent Papi to a nearby pet hospital, and Li Yihan arrived within half an hour. The doctor told her that since the morning of that day, the hospital has received more than ten pets with similar symptoms, but they cannot be saved anymore. Seeing Papi's condition continue to deteriorate, Li Yihan transferred him to a pet hospital in Shunyi District, several tens of kilometers away, in the afternoon, which has the conditions for a full body blood transfusion. However, after several hours of continuous rescue efforts, Papi still passed away.

The pathological report issued by the pet hospital shows abnormal elevation of liver indicators, high blood potassium, and a surge in creatine kinase, concluding that it is highly suspected of poisoning. This confirms Li Yihan's initial speculation - it is likely that someone intentionally poisoned. She immediately dialed the emergency number. On September 14th alone, there were 24 emergency calls from the community.

Afterwards, Li Yihan learned that more than ten pet dogs had died of poisoning in the Changyi Garden community where she was located that day, and Papi was the one with the longest rescue time and longest persistence.

After reporting to the police, they quickly arrived at the scene to understand the situation. The initial report receipt that Li Yihan received stated that the cause of the case was intentional damage to property, which was classified as civil tort liability. After the drug test results were released, the case was upgraded from a civil case to a criminal case, and many plainclothes detectives appeared in the community. Later, when Li Yihan communicated with the police, she learned that the toxic substance released in the community was identified as sodium fluoroacetate, which is a component of rat poison and highly toxic.

On the day of Papi's cremation, Li Yihan received three packages containing new clothes that she had originally planned to take Papi to the beach for Mid Autumn Festival. On the same day, Papi's ashes were sent home. The room was still filled with the smell of poisoning, vomiting, and incontinence, and Li Yihan couldn't sleep inside. She slept in the car for several days in a row, and her weight dropped by more than ten pounds.

According to residents' recollection, after the poisoning incident, several stray cats that were originally fed in the community disappeared for several months, and residents dared not walk their dogs. Their children were also held in the arms of their parents and dared not play on the ground. The entire community was shrouded in anxiety and sadness for a long time.

Poisoning

About half a month later, Li Yihan heard that the poisoner Zhang Mouhua had been arrested, and the case was changed to the crime of provoking trouble. The original poisoner was a neighbor in the community, but she had never seen him before. Many victims don't know why he poisoned them.

Zhang Mouhua later confessed in court that he hated dogs. Dogs once peed on the tires of his old man Le (a low-speed electric scooter commonly known as) and had poisoned dogs before, but the dogs vomited the poisoned food and did not die.

During the first instance trial, the victim gained a clearer understanding of Zhang Mouhua's poisoning process.

On the evening of September 13, 2022, Zhang Mouhua mixed rat poison (identified to contain sodium fluoroacetate) with boiled and chopped chicken necks in a container, placed it in the community's express delivery cabinet and nearby, and threw the container into the community's garbage bin, causing 11 animal deaths, including 9 deaths on the same day, 2 survivors, and two stray cats who died after picking up food. Later, brown solids and meat chunks were detected near the crime scene, both of which contained sodium fluoroacetate.

Shortly after the incident, the police discovered that the poisoning site was located adjacent to the children's play area in the community. The sodium fluoroacetate used was a highly toxic compound with extremely strong toxicity and rapid action. The lethal dose to humans and animals was extremely low, not easily volatile, and there was no specific antidote. It is a hazardous chemical strictly controlled by the country.

In December 2022, the filing notice received by Li Yihan showed that the Chaoyang Branch officially filed a case against Zhang Mouhua for the crime of "releasing dangerous substances". This is the first case of pet poisoning in Beijing that has reached the criminal prosecution stage.

Thirteen months after the incident, during the first trial in October 2023, Li Yihan met with Zhang Mouhua. In Li Yihan's impression, Zhang Mouhua is over 60 years old. His language expression is chaotic and contradictory, "sometimes saying he likes dogs, and sometimes saying he hates dogs". When asked by the judge, he replied with more words such as "yes, yes, yes", "good, good", and "trust the judge's judgment". When Li Yihan asked Zhang what the medium of poisoning was, he couldn't understand the word "medium".

Li Yihan remembers that Zhang Mouhua said that after poisoning, he knew he had "caused trouble" and fled to a property in Tongzhou. In the end, the police arrested him when he was about to go out and drive. When he was arrested, Zhang Mouhua said, "I will do things by myself," but there was no self surrender before that.

The time for the first instance trial was very sudden, one month earlier than the originally scheduled November 2023. The clerk told Li Yihan that the defendant's physical condition was not good and he needed surgery, so the trial had to be held earlier.

Other people who participated in the first instance verdict told reporters that the defendant Zhang Mouhua was ill, thin, and spoke very quietly. He was escorted into the trial court by two people. During the judge's reading of the verdict, his upper body leaned against the table beside him.

On the day of the verdict, Zhang had no relatives or friends present.

Postponement

On January 5, 2023, the court filed a case for the crime of "releasing dangerous substances", but due to the epidemic, the court hearing time has not been determined. On September 6, 2023, the clerk called to inform Li Yihan that the court hearing would be held at the end of the year.

Generally speaking, public prosecution cases are initiated by the procuratorial organs, and the victims themselves are parties to the criminal proceedings. But if the victim suffers material losses due to the criminal act, they may file a criminal incidental civil lawsuit before the first instance judgment is announced, or file a separate civil lawsuit after the judgment takes effect. After careful consideration, Li Yihan filed a criminal incidental civil lawsuit to claim civil compensation and participate in the trial throughout the process.

At the beginning of 2023, Li Yihan found the last victim and gathered all 11 victims, more than half of whom were middle-aged and elderly people. She explained and persuaded them that it was difficult to participate in the trial as a "criminal subordinate to the people", but after one-on-one communication, the other victims finally agreed to participate in the case. Li Yihan sorted out all the victims' ID information, including their home addresses down to the house number, and wrote a complaint. They all submitted it to the court in early March.

On October 26, 2023, the first trial of the "Zhang Mouhua poisoning case" was held in the Wenyuhe Criminal Court of Chaoyang District People's Court. Li Yihan and 11 other victims appeared in court as parties involved.

Zhang admitted in court to the poisoning of sodium fluoroacetate, but he did not acknowledge a direct causal relationship between the deaths of the 11 affected animals and the poison he administered. According to Li Yihan's recollection, the defendant's defense lawyer believed that there was no correlation between the defendant's placement of chicken bones and the victim's property losses. "With the same wording, he said it a total of 11 times in court, which means he does not recognize any compensation for the incidental civil parts of our 11 victims.

The public prosecutor also did not approve of the defendant's attitude of pleading guilty and accepting punishment. He changed the three-year sentencing proposal to three-and-a-half years in court and asked the defendant on the spot whether he accepted it. Zhang accepted it.

After the trial, the judge told Li Yihan that the prosecutor had once again revised the sentencing recommendation for Zhang Mouhua, from three and a half years to four years. The defendant had signed a four-year confession and acceptance letter, but Li Yihan did not know why the sentencing recommendation was revised again after the trial.

Afterwards, 11 victims including Li Yihan began to wait for the day of sentencing, but unexpectedly, the sentencing was postponed 9 times. In December 2024, when notified of another extension of the trial, Li Yihan publicly released a recorded phone call on social media platforms asking the court about the reason for the extension. The other party replied, "The case has not been concluded according to law, and many questions cannot be answered.

According to relevant national regulations, public prosecution cases should be sentenced within two months after acceptance. In special circumstances, an extension of three months may be granted with the approval of the higher court. If an extension is still needed, it should be submitted to the Supreme People's Court for approval. Every three months before the deadline for extending the trial, Li Yihan would post a countdown video on various social media platforms to welcome the verdict. She once self mockingly referred to herself as a "countdown blogger". Most videos can quickly exceed 100000 likes. Thousands of people are keeping an eye on the progress of the case in the "Papi Mama's Group Chat" on various platforms.

Jiang Weijie, founder of Beijing Haoluo Law Firm and president of Haoluo Criminal Defense Academy, who previously served as deputy chief judge of a criminal court in Beijing, told Economic Observer that the multiple delays in the trial of the case may be due to its being a new and difficult case with significant social controversy, public perception being torn apart, and opinions being inconsistent among judicial organs and even within judicial organs. "Generally, such new cases with high social attention and controversy may undergo multiple rounds of repeated consultations and research and argumentation by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and only after careful study will a final decision be made and judgment be pronounced.

Evidence

As the representative lawyer for the criminal part of this case, Wang Zhong joined the case after the first instance hearing in December 2023.

As a volunteer who has long been interested in the field of companion pets, Wang Zhong has received many consultations on cases similar to pet poisoning, but most of them have not entered the criminal procedure, or even the public security filing procedure. And he did not expect that cases that had already been tried in the first instance would have their verdicts postponed 9 times.

When preparing to accept the agency and understand the case, Wang Zhong asked Li Yihan based on the relevant judicial interpretations of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on the criminal case of banning highly toxic chemicals, whether other toxic substances were still stored in Zhang's home? Where does the poison come from? What is the specific dosage? This may affect Zhang Mouhua's conviction and sentencing - according to judicial interpretations, illegal storage of banned toxic chemicals such as poison rat powder, raw liquid, or preparations weighing more than 500 grams is punishable by imprisonment for more than ten years, life imprisonment, or even the death penalty.

Following this clue, Li Yihan asked the investigating police if they had obtained more specific evidence. But she found that due to the fact that the investigators did not consider this case as a "serious case" and did not collect information such as the container containing the highly toxic substance, the dosage used, and the frequency of administration when collecting evidence on site, more details could not be verified.

Another direction of effort is the recognition of pet value. Cui Can, a lawyer from Taihe Tai Law Firm, told the Economic Observer that there is currently no statutory pet price appraisal agency for determining the value of pets, whether in criminal or civil litigation; Some courts adopt the method of market inquiry, that is, relevant personnel collect recent transaction prices of pets of the same breed, same appearance, similar age, and health condition from local pet stores, pet markets, and legitimate trading platforms, calculate the average price or reasonable range, and use it as the basis for price determination.

Many pet owners feel helpless that although such inquiries can provide a reasonable market level figure, they cannot cover the owner's long-term feeding investment, and it is even more difficult to measure the unique emotional connection between humans and pets. These parts that cannot be priced are precisely the most precious values in the hearts of many homeowners.

In this case, the price appraisal of the victim animal was ultimately not made, citing the lack of evaluation parameters. Li Yihan has compiled all cases related to the crime of dangerous substance poisoning and pet poisoning from 2018 to 2022 on the judicial document website. Some pet price appraisals can be accepted, while others cannot.

Judgment

After more than two years of waiting, the case was sentenced in the first instance. On December 11, 2025, Beijing is about to experience the first snowfall of this winter, with a maximum temperature of 3 degrees Celsius.

At 8 o'clock in the morning, the Wenyuhe People's Court held a hearing. The sentencing lasted for one hour, with volunteers distributing milk and hand warmers on site, and some holding up signs supporting 'Papi Mama'. The Wenyuhe People's Court has only one entrance and exit, and the crowd waiting at the door is gradually increasing. There are media, volunteers, enthusiastic supporters of "Papi Mama", as well as other victims of pet poisoning cases who have come from other provinces. Three or four police officers are starting to clear the passage.

At 9:05, Li Yihan, along with other victims and lawyer Wang Zhong, walked out of the court and discussed the verdict at the entrance for more than ten minutes. At 9:20, Li Yihan loudly read out the just announced verdict outside the court to more than ten media cameras: the defendant Zhang Mouhua was convicted of the crime of releasing dangerous substances and sentenced to four years in prison. Zhang Mouhua appealed in court.

The case has also been labeled as "the first criminal public prosecution case of pet poisoning in Beijing" and "the top case judgment of pet poisoning related cases". Since the first trial verdict in December 2025, it has triggered public opinion discussions far beyond the case itself. Related topics have been on the hot search list for many times, and the cumulative number of videos broadcast on the Tiktok platform and the number of microblog topics read has exceeded 100 million times.

At present, the criminal part of the case has come into effect as the defendant Zhang Mouhua has stated to the court before the end of the 10 day appeal period after the first instance judgment that he will not appeal. Li Yihan and other parties involved in the incidental civil lawsuit have raised objections to the criteria for determining the price of dogs in the judgment, and have appealed the incidental civil part. The second instance court will review the dispute focus. As of press time, Li Yihan is still waiting for news regarding the appeal.

In the public discussion, there is a voice that believes the case will effectively promote the progress of animal protection laws. However, Qian Yefang, a professor at the Law School of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, told the Economic Observer that "this case is ultimately not an animal protection issue, but a public safety issue. Qian Yefang said that although the poisoner subjectively wants to poison pets, releasing dangerous substances in public areas will inevitably cause harm to unspecified people and the biological environment. "However, animal protection issues are sensitive and easily resonate with the public, and the public is prone to confuse the core of the case.

Wang Zhong has repeatedly emphasized on different occasions that the crime in this case is the "crime of throwing dangerous substances", which is a behavioral offense. As long as the defendant commits poisoning, they will be guilty of this crime and sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison; When there is a situation that causes death, serious injury, or significant loss of public or private property, it will be considered an aggravated act, with a sentence starting from 10 years and up to the death penalty. Therefore, Zhang's act of poisoning in public was already a violation of the law, and the 11 animals that were harmed were the consequences of this behavior and were included in the sentencing considerations.

Cui Can, a lawyer from Taihe Tai Law Firm, also explained that if the circumstances of subsequent cases differ significantly from this case, especially if there are no elements such as "toxic substances" or "endangering public safety", then the reference value of this case will also be weakened.

It is worth noting that if the pet did not die in this case, Zhang Mouhua is likely not to have committed the crime and may even have been sentenced. Wang Zhong explained that the judgment in this case extensively elaborated on whether Zhang Mouhua's subjective behavior of poisoning dogs was guilty, including it in the field of endangering public safety. From the outcome, it will also deter potential drug users.

Concept

After Papi left, Li Yihan resigned from her job and devoted herself wholeheartedly to investigating the case. In order to maintain her livelihood, she began to try live streaming at the end of 2024, but as a result, she fell into a vortex of public opinion. Doubts poured in from all directions: "Is it worth the fuss for a dog?" "Just trying to hype it up, right

Li Yihan has long been accustomed to not being understood. Seven days after the poisoning incident, Li Yihan and other victims lit candles and placed snacks that the puppy loved to eat in the community. These items were quickly cleared away by the property management.

After the verdict of the case, different voices and opinions were presented with unprecedented intensity: supporters believed that the verdict not only defended the bottom line of public safety, but also showed countless pet owners the respect and response of the judiciary to the value of life; Another voice attributed the poisoning behavior to uncivilized dog ownership, believing that "dogs only trigger retaliation when they suffer from disasters".

But a passage in the verdict gave Li Yihan more courage to face questioning??

The conflict between humans and dogs reflects the contradictions between people. In the face of conflicts and disputes, it is necessary to express opinions in a rational way, solve problems through the rule of law, and never adopt extreme methods that touch the legal red line. Every dog owner has the obligation and responsibility to raise dogs in a civilized manner, but the uncivilized dog raising behavior of individual people is not a reason for poisoning or animal abuse to carry out extreme behaviors. Harmony, rule of law, and friendliness are important contents of the socialist core values. Social stability and harmony include the harmonious coexistence of people, people and animals, and people and the environment in multiple dimensions, requiring the joint participation, compliance with laws and regulations, and understanding and mutual assistance of every member of society.

The first instance judgment of this case consists of 32 pages, and this paragraph appears in the third part of the judgment, "Court's reasoning", which is about 200 words and occupies approximately half of page 31.

Li Yihan has reviewed dozens of similar case judgments, but this written expression is the first time she has seen it.

Jiang Weijie said that after a long period of careful research and argumentation, new and difficult cases, once opinions are reached and conclusions are drawn, are highly likely to become guiding cases, providing guidance for similar cases that may arise in the future. The reasoning part of the judgment in the guiding case provides important reference ideas for the judgment of similar cases.

After the verdict of the first trial, Li Yihan saw some of the victims in the plot and their new family members: the owner of Akita Dog raised "Little Autumn" almost exactly like "Autumn" more than a month after the crime; After the incident, the owner of "Lucky" took long-term anti anxiety medication. She decided not to keep a dog anymore and accepted the new "Lucky" under the persuasion of her son... Except for Li Yihan and another girl studying abroad, the other nine families welcomed new members, most of whom were the same breeds as their previous pet dogs.

On January 6th, the Pet Industry Branch of the China Animal Husbandry Association released the "2026 China Pet Industry White Paper", which showed that the total number of urban dogs and cats in 2025 was 126 million, a year-on-year increase of 1.8%. If we refer to the seventh national census data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the total number of urban dogs and cats has exceeded the number of children aged 0-4, and the number of pets is about twice that.

(At the request of the interviewee, Li Yihan used a pseudonym; our intern Chen Feier also contributed to this article)