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Yao Jiaxin was executed after the high court in north China's Shaanxi province turned down his appeal over the April 22 death sentence, China Central Television reported.

The execution was also approved by China's Supreme People's Court, which noted the "extremely despicable and odious" nature of the crime, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Yao, 21, was convicted of murdering 26-year-old mother Zhang Miao on October 20 after hitting her with his car on the streets of the provincial capital of Xian.

Zhang, who was riding her bike, only suffered minor injuries in the accident but instead of helping the woman, Yao stabbed her eight times with a knife as she eyed his car number plate.

Yao, a student at the Xian Conservatory of Music, fled the scene but was later caught and, according to an earlier Xinhua report, confessed that he killed her because he feared the "peasant woman would be hard to deal with" over the accident.

The crime has prompted hand-wringing over the country's so-called "rich second generation."

The term is applied to the wealthy offspring of people who have prospered with China's economic opening of the past 30 years -- youths seen as expecting privilege and sometimes lacking in morals.

It follows another notorious incident involving a 23-year-old man, Li Qiming, who was sentenced to six years in prison in January after attempting to exploit his father's senior police rank to flee a fatal drink-driving accident.

After running over two young women on a college campus in north China, killing one, he shouted, "my father is Li Gang," and dared onlookers to try to stop him leaving the scene.

News reports said Yao's family was neither especially wealthy nor well connected, but that both his parents worked for companies in China's defence industry, which has boomed in recent years as the country has rapidly modernised its military.

Reaction to Tuesday's execution on the Chinese Internet was mixed, with some saying Yao's actions could be the result of the huge pressure to succeed heaped on many youngsters by their parents, sometimes at the expense of moral values.

"He shouldn't have been killed, what a pitiful kid. Why can't we have a little compassion -- this entire episode has been good for neither family," said a posting from a sina.com user in south China's Guangdong province.

Another user from the eastern province of Shandong identified as Fenfang said: "What good is a college student if they cannot have just a little bit of humanity? The execution of Yao Jiaxin is a necessary result of the crime."

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner says the now-infamous crotch photo he sent via Twitter was a joke. If so, count Hollywood resident Denise Richardson among those who aren’t laughing.
“It kind of struck home with me. … I thought jokes were meant to be funny,” said Richardson, who recalls her ex-husband using the same “only a joke” excuse for inappropriate conversations he had in online chat rooms. The couple ultimately divorced, with Richardson convinced her ex’s online chats in fact led to in-person affairs.
In Weiner’s case, she said, the online transgressions alone are enough to warrant the “cheating” label.
“It’s not only shady, but it demonstrates poor judgment,” Richardson said. “It’s cheating all the way around.”
Technology like Twitter is only a few years old, so there is scarce research on public attitudes toward X-rated tweets and whether they fit the traditional definition of cheating.
The widespread condemnation of Weiner suggests many believe his conduct does constitute infidelity. In a similar vein, a 2004 ABC News pollfound that 64 percent of adults felt that “if a person who’s married or in a committed relationship has sex talk in an Internet chat room,” it would amount to being unfaithful.
“For most people who are in a committed relationship, the partner does see it as cheating,” says Shelley Green, a Nova Southeastern University professor who teaches in the school’s family therapy program and treats couples in private practice.
But ultimately, the question of is-it-or-is-it-not can only be decided by couples themselves, Green adds. Each relationship has its own set of boundaries.
“There’s certainly partners who feel like Internet porn is absolutely unacceptable,” she says. At the same time, other couples “are watching porn together and having that enhance their sexuality.”
Across the country, the Weiner photo controversy has sparked conversations about what’s acceptable and what is not.
Amy Austin of Minneapolis had a blunt assessment for her husband, Jon, as they watched Weiner’s stunning confession on television this week.
“You’d be dead,” she told him.
Still, there are others who insist that physical intimacy is necessary for cheating to occur. Charles Trattler of Palm Beach County says that if he caught his partner sending racy photos via Twitter or text, it would certainly be something to talk about, but it wouldn’t be an act of infidelity.
Trattler, who responded to an online query from The Herald, said his priority would be to “make sure there are no root issues in the relationship that are actually causing this behavior.”
“If it does not go any farther than exchanging photos and messages, it is flirting as far as I am concerned,” he said.
The practice of texting sexually explicit photos, or “sexting,” is often associated with middle- and high-schoolers. And while tech-savvy teens may be more likely to send racy texts, some grown-ups do it too. A May 2010 survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 15 percent of adults said they had received “a sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude photo or video” on their cellphone, and 6 percent admitted to sending such a text.