Ma Jiajue was born on May 4, 1981, in a poor farming village located in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southern China. His parents, Ma Jianfu and Li Fengying, raised him along with his older brother and two sisters. As a child, Ma was considered bright and diligent. He attended Binzhou Middle School for junior high, where he was known as a top student. He later studied at Binyang Middle School for high school, though his academic performance reportedly declined during this period.

In November 1999, feeling overwhelmed and anxious about his future, Ma ran away from home before the national college entrance exam, the gaokao. He was located by police in the city of Guigang and brought back home. After returning, he received a formal reprimand from school authorities. Despite this incident, Ma went on to pass the gaokao and enrolled at Yunnan University in September 2000, becoming the pride of his family. His parents gave him their savings to support his education. At the university, he studied biochemistry and shared a dormitory with four other students.

Though intelligent, Ma struggled socially and financially. He came from a modest background, unlike many of his wealthier classmates. Tensions began to build between Ma and his roommates over time. Reports suggested he often felt bullied or looked down upon, especially over minor disputes like a card game and disagreements about plans for the Lunar New Year.

Between February 13 and 15, 2004, in his final year at Yunnan University, Ma Jiajue murdered all four of his male dormitory roommates inside their shared room. According to Ma’s confession, he used a hammer to strike each victim, killing them by blunt-force trauma. The victims were all fellow students at the university. He later claimed that he committed the murders after a series of humiliations, including being accused of cheating in a card game and being mocked about his holiday plans.

After the killings, Ma hid the bodies in a closet within the dormitory. The dorm room remained locked during the university’s Lunar New Year break, delaying the discovery of the crime. When students and staff returned on February 23, they discovered the decomposing bodies inside the closet. The gruesome discovery sparked a national manhunt.

Ma fled the scene after the murders and remained on the run for 21 days. Police quickly named him the prime suspect and issued a 200,000 yuan (approximately $24,000 USD) reward for information leading to his capture. On March 15, 2004, Ma was arrested in Sanya, Hainan Province, nearly 900 kilometers from the university where the murders had taken place.

On April 24, 2004, Ma Jiajue was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by the Intermediate People’s Court of Kunming in Yunnan Province. The verdict was automatically reviewed by the Yunnan Provincial Higher People’s Court, which upheld the sentence. On June 17, 2004, just under three months after his conviction, Ma Jiajue was executed.