He admitted to committing a total of 20 serious crimes between 1996 and 2005, including raping and killing eleven women in Ulanqab and Hohhot in Inner Mongolia.

Zhao committed his first murder on 9 April 1996, raping and strangling a young textile mill worker surnamed Yang in a public toilet in Hohhot.

[1] Her body was discovered by an 18-year-old Chinese Mongol named Huugjilt, who was mistakenly accused of the murder, forced to confess by investigators, and sentenced to death on 23 May 1996.

At the same time, local authorities were seriously worried about the serial killings, offering a reward of 2,000 yuan for information about the killer's identity and whereabouts.

In June 2005, Yun Wen, a resident of the village of Tali in suburban Hohhot, where Zhao committed his last killings, identified the killer from a photo shoot.

However, on 15 December 2014, the Hohhot District Court posthumously acquitted Huugjilt, publicly apologizing to his relatives and paying them 330,000 yuan in compensation.