You might have noticed this little nugget o’ fun in the news yesterday:

A deputy chief judge of the Zhejiang High People’s Court was arrested on Monday for murder and the dismemberment of a corpse, China News Service reported.

The report said Pan Huashan’s arrest was approved by Hangzhou Lin’an People’s Procuratorate.

According to Pan’s reported confession, he invited the victim, surnamed Qian, to his home for lunch on Jan 8. There, the two argued over a lawsuit before Pan killed Qian, cut his corpse into pieces and disposed of them in Lin’an in the provincial capital of Hangzhou.

After the remains were discovered by a farmer nearly three weeks later, Pan was detained by police on July 26.

That was the China Daily English version; they notoriously whitewash all cases of High Court judges mutilating people. It’s a standing editorial policy.

I managed to track down a Chinese version in Xinhua that include some additional detail (I am not making this up):

1. Pan was out and about on July 8 when he ran into his victim and invited him home for dinner. (Talk about being a bad host!)

2. The two argued about a lawsuit. Nothing new for a judge, I suppose, but: a) they are supposed to be impartial; and b) well, see below, they aren’t supposed to react that way either.

3. Pan killed the victim, cut him up into several pieces, and dumped them somewhere in Lin’An (in Hangzhou).

4. On January 21, a farmer found the trunk (i.e., the head, legs and arms that had been cut off were not with the rest of the body). Is this great or what?

5. On the morning of February 21, police found the head and remaining body parts, which were eventually matched with the trunk (and the victim). Xinhua fails to note what the condition of the body parts was at the time police discovered them, but you have to wonder what a head looks like after it has been absent from its owner for almost seven weeks (well, I’m wondering).

6. The cops created a portrait of the victim from the skull (again, I’m speculating, but I don’t think too much flesh was still hanging around) and circulated it to determine identity. I remember seeing this in an old Quincy TV show from the late ’70s. I guess they’re even better at this kind of thing now.

Quite a compelling story. I really want to know the details on that lawsuit than Pan and his victim were arguing about before the hammer came down. Must be something juicy.

Needless to say, this has TV movie written all over it. I’ve heard through the grapevine that Huayi Brothers has purchased the film rights and are talking to Tim Burton to develop the project; initial whispers are that Andy Lau might play the desiccated head.