Prosecutors in Gansu province have charged a suspected serial killer with multiple counts of murder, rape and mutilating corpses.

Gao Chengyong, 52, is accused of killing 11 people in the province and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region from May 1988 to February 2002, according to the Ministry of Public Security. His youngest alleged victim was an 8-year-old girl.

Gao has been in custody since he was arrested on Aug 26 at a grocery store in Baiyin, the city in Gansu where nine of the killings occurred.

The city's prosecuting authority announced via social media on Monday that the suspect had been charged.

Details previously provided by the ministry said Gao sought out young women dressed in red and would rape and kill them by cutting their throats after following them home, and that he also mutilated his victims' bodies.

According to the police, Gao confessed to 11 murders during interrogations, but said he had no particular motive for the killings.

A Baiyin police officer, who did not want to be identified, told Beijing News after the arrest: "No suspect I've seen before behaves likes Gao. He looks calm and can specifically describe how he did the crimes and escaped.

"There was no expression on his face, and he answered our questions fluently, including details in each case. He rarely mentioned his wife and children, often keeping silent when asked why he did not contact his family during the interrogation process."

In his confession, Gao said he committed the first murder because the woman woke up when he was stealing something from her home in Baiyin, according to police.

Twenty-eight years later, he told police that he remembered the victim's face, adding that he took her photo albums after the killing.

Cui Jinping, another victim, was stabbed 22 times before her throat was cut and her body dismembered in her home in November 1998. Her hands and other body parts were never found, Beijing News reported. He body was discovered by her mother.

"My mother couldn't stop crying after learning of Gao's detention," the paper quoted Cui Xiangping, the dead woman's brother, as saying. The family never stopped thinking about his sister, even after 20 years.