Man pleads not guilty after telling police victim asked him to kill her
A man accused of murder impersonated his dead housemate for financial gain, a court has been told.
Then 26-year-old Yang Zhao was arrested in July 2021, the same day police found 29-year-old Qiong Yan’s badly decomposed body in a toolbox.
Detectives made the discovery while searching Mr Zhao’s Brisbane apartment as part of an investigation into Ms Yan’s disappearance.
The Chinese national had been reported missing by her friends and family in April that year.
The Newport building in Hamilton, in Brisbane’s north, where the woman’s body was found. (ABC News: Michael Rennie)
Police alleged Mr Zhao killed Ms Yan by “a blow or a number of blows to the head”, followed by strangulation.
He then allegedly accessed her phone and bank accounts, transferring himself hundreds of thousands of dollars while also convincing friends and family that Ms Yan was still alive.
Mr Zhao has pleaded guilty to interfering with Ms Yan’s body, but pleaded not guilty to her murder.
In his opening statement to the Supreme Court in Brisbane, Crown prosecutor Chris Cook said it would be alleged that Mr Zhao had killed his former flatmate to gain access to her money.
Qiong Yan was reported missing on April 12, 2021. (Supplied: Queensland Police Service)
Mr Cook said Mr Zhao “loved the high life” and regularly gambled on the stock market and at poker, despite having no job and living in Australia on a student visa that had expired in 2020.
Ms Yan had come into “a significant settlement” from the sale of her late father’s estate in Shanghai in August 2020, which the prosecution argued formed a motivation for Mr Zhao to murder her.
“Mr Zhao lost money. He wanted money. Ms Yan had money. He wanted her money,”
Mr Cook said.
Mr Cook said the day after the alleged murder, Mr Zhao drove to a Bunnings in Newstead and purchased a De Walt toolbox, gloves and duct tape.
The prosecution alleged Mr Zhao had gained access to Ms Yan’s phone and used the social media app WeChat to message her mother Rongmei Yan, sending her more than 2,000 messages over the next 10 months.
During that period, he allegedly convinced the deceased woman’s mother to send more than $400,000 in separate transactions.
Crown prosecutor Chris Cook alleged the murder accused sold Ms Yan’s computer and cancelled her gym membership. (ABC News)
Mr Cook said Mr Zhao transferred a Porsche Panamera, worth more than $300,000 and belonging to Ms Yan, into his own name in the months after her death.
He said Mr Zhao also sold a MacBook belonging to Ms Yan on Facebook Marketplace and cancelled her membership at Anytime Fitness.
Mr Zhao also allegedly sent Rongmei Yan a video of a woman’s hand petting a cat in an effort to convince her that her daughter was alive.
By April 2021, Lu Xu had grown suspicious of the “strange” WeChat messages she was receiving from former flatmate and friend, Ms Yan.
The court heard Mr Zhao used messaging app WeChat to contact the dead woman’s mother. (Reuters: Dado Ruvic)
She reported her missing to NSW Police, who contacted Ms Yan by WeChat when they couldn’t locate her.
It’s alleged Mr Zhao responded to the messages posing as Ms Yan, writing “Hi, I’m sorry to waste your time and resources, I’m fine.”
Police interview played in court
Mr Zhao allegedly lied to police multiple times about where Ms Yan was, telling them she owed him money and that she’d moved to Melbourne six months earlier.
In July 2021, Mr Zhao was arrested by NSW Police in Sydney.
The court heard a video recording of the subsequent police interview, in which Mr Zhao described Ms Yan’s death.
Police said the accused also asked them “how convincing” he was during the arrest, and whether he would receive the death penalty.
Mr Zhao allegedly told police he and Ms Yan had formed a “suicide pact” and she had asked him to kill her.
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He described hitting her in the head with a gas canister multiple times, after which her head was “covered in blood” and “deformed”.
“If I stop now, she’ll look ugly the rest of her life,” he said in the police interview.
Mr Zhao said he choked Ms Yan for “about half an hour or an hour”.
In evidence to be presented to the court, the Crown alleged Ms Yan’s phone and Mr Zhao’s phone “moved in unison” after her death.
Mr Cook argued that showed Mr Zhao had taken Ms Yan’s phone with him.
After the arrest, the victim’s phone — which had duct tape covering the cameras — was found at Mr Zhao’s Sydney home.
The murder trial is expected to hear from roughly 20 witnesses, including Rongmei Yan, friends, police officers and experts.
