Yang Zhao pleads not guilty to murder of flatmate Qiong Yan in Hamilton apartment

A man accused of murdering his flatmate and storing her body in a box on his balcony for 10 months allegedly transferred a $302,000 Porsche from her name into his and moved $200,000 from her account after she died, a Brisbane court has heard.

Yang Zhao has pleaded not guilty to murdering Qiong Yan.

An international student has pleaded not guilty to murdering his flatmate in Brisbane’s riverside suburb of Hamilton.

Yang Zhao was arraigned at the beginning of his trial in Brisbane’s Supreme Court on Monday.

Zhao, then 26, pleaded not guilty to murdering Qiong Yan in their apartment complex “Newport” on Parkside Circuit in September 2020.

He pleaded guilty to improperly interfering with a dead human body.

The court heard the mother of Ms Yan, 29 at the time of her death and also an international student, will be called as a Crown witness.

Justice Martin Burns gave opening remarks to the jury of eight men and four women.

The jury was then shown a photo of Ms Yan’s foot stored in a “body box” on the balcony of the Hamilton unit.

“Body box, not my word, Mr Zhao’s word,” crown prosecutor Chris Cook said.

Mr Cook alleged the high stakes gambler attacked Ms Yan in the apartment and then stored her in the toolbox where she was kept for 10 months before being found.

Mr Cook said Zhao “loved the high life” and after allegedly murdering Ms Yan transferred a $302,000 Porsche Panamera from her name into his, moved $200,000 out of her accounts which he had access to and convinced her mother to transfer more than $400,000 into her daughter’s accounts.

Qiong Yan was 29 at the time of her death. Picture Police Media

“Murdering for money can be a profitable crime if you get away with it and that’s exactly what Yang Zhao did for 10 months,” Mr Cook said in his opening statement to the jury.

Zhao allegedly lied to police in two different states leading them “on a wild goose chase” as Queensland and NSW officers tried to track her down following a missing person’s report from a friend Lu Xu in April 2021, Mr Cook said.

Shortly after the filing of the report Ms Yan’s mother Rongmei Yan received a video message on WeChat of what appeared to be a female hand patting a cat, Mr Cook said. The court heard Yan owned a cat before her death.

“Once she was reported missing, ladies and gentlemen, the Crown alleges there is extensive self preservation by Mr Zhao – a man you might find later was driven by nothing but selfishness and cowardice,” Mr Cook said.

When NSW Police contacted him Zhao “lied”, telling officers he’d heard from her a few days earlier and she owed him $4000 in rent money and that she had moved to Melbourne, the court heard.

Police contacted Ms Yan on WeChat in April 2021 telling her to present at a police station to which Zhao, posing as her according to the Crown, agreed.

Police were sent an apology when she failed to turn up.

“Sorry to waste your time and resources I’m fine. My mother is looking for me because she thinks I spent too much of her money. It’s family problem,” Mr Cook said the message read.

“She’s dead, but somehow, messaging NSW Police because it’s Mr Zhao.”

Zhao was arraigned at the beginning of his trial in Brisbane’s Supreme Court. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

The court heard police contacted him again in July 2021 and Zhao told them he thought “people were coming for her because something she did in a migration business”.

The pair had previously lived together in Sydney where their home was broken into on several occasions, the court heard.

Ms Yan’s mother Rongmei and her friend Lu were in contact trying to establish her whereabouts.

“Now the defendant, though, trying to keep them away from him, away from the murder, you might think, he made up a story and wrote to Rongmei Yan … he said that she was taking laughing gas, smoking marijuana, she owed lots of money she was ashamed to come back and face her family,” Mr Cook said.

Queensland Police went to the Hamilton apartment in July 2021 – after a visit in April where they did not notice anything untoward, smell anything strange or look in the balcony box – but Zhao by that stage had gone to Sydney.

“Now he actually changed the locks to the door on the apartment so building managers, property managers, nobody could get in,” Mr Cook said.

A few days later police returned with a warrant and a locksmith to gain entry and found Ms Yan’s body in the box, the court heard.

At the same time NSW police were en route to speak to Zhao.

“(Queensland Police) ring them and go ‘hey we found her on the balcony, arrest him’ and that’s what they do the NSW Police,” Mr Cook said.

He claimed Zhao admitted on July 19 and 22, 2021, that he murdered Ms Yan and put her in the toolbox.

Zhao is represented by barrister Andrew Hoare, KC. Picture: Dan Peled / NewsWire

“But it’s obviously not up to me. Mr Zhao says he’s not guilty, it’s going to be up to you about this murder charge,” Mr Cook said.

He alleged Zhao attacked her in their apartment on or around September 25, 2020.

“The attack may have included delivering a blow or blows to her head and strangling her,” Mr Cook said.

He described Zhao as someone who “loves the high life, fast cars, expensive things”.

“You’ll see jewellery around this place, Louis Vuitton bags. But despite that, this is a man with no job,” he said.

“It seems the evidence will show that Mr Zhao is someone who loved to gamble. Now he’s not your average punter … who might go have a punt on the horses on a Saturday afternoon or play the pokies down the pub on payday. Mr Zhao’s someone who wanted to gamble on the stock market and other markets.

“He also liked to gamble on poker. And you’ll hear evidence, which will sound like pretty high stakes you might think, because at one point he talks about losing $100,000.

“So it seems he wasn’t a very good gambler at the stock market, at other markets and poker, and he lost lots of money.”

Mr Cook said it appeared Zhao lost money the day he allegedly murdered Ms Yan who owned a migration business.

Zhao is represented by barrister Andrew Hoare, KC.

The court heard Zhao said the Porsche purchased by Ms Yan from an Albion dealership was always his.

Zhao told police the two had discussed a “suicide pact” and that Ms Yan convinced him to kill her, the court heard.

After hitting her with a gas canister the Chinese national told police her head was deformed and she looked ugly and if he desisted she would have to go through life looking like that, the court heard.

But Mr Hoare said the things his client said to police over several interviews could not be trusted because of the inconsistencies.

After his arrest in Sydney he was taken by car to a police station asking officers during the ride whether Australia had the death penalty.

“What if I want it,” Zhao allegedly told a detective in the car.

Mr Cook said Zhao also asked police about how convincing he had been.

During an interview with police Zhao said Ms Yan owed him $500,000 in commissions from her migration business and money she’d borrowed to gamble, the court heard.

He said they were inhaling gas from whipped cream cans on the night in question, drinking and talking about life, the court heard.

“He claims they talked about dying, some sort of suicide pact you’ll hear…that there actually was no plan there actually was no suicide pact,” Mr Cook said.

“He told NSW police that during the night she convinced him only to kill her …that she would then allow him to pretend to be her, use her phone to talk to her mother.

“He said that she asked him to smash her on the head as fast and as quickly as he could with these gas canister things. He says he did that.”

Zhao, who is using an interpreter in court, told police that he then “freaked out” and “that her head was at that stage deformed” and she looked ugly, the court heard.

He claimed Ms Yan then asked him to choke her which he did for awhile before attempting to stop “but he said she’s grabbing his hand, making him strangle her around the neck” until she died, the court heard.

“She wouldn’t let me go. She wouldn’t let me release her, I was saying sorry ‘I can’t do it’” Zhao told police.

“I’m thinking, if I give up now, she, you know, after I smash her head, she goes very ugly, and her head was, yeah, changed shape. And so I think if I stop now, she’ll be ugly in the rest of her life.”

Mr Cook said the Crown case was “a relatively simple one”.

“Mr Zhao lost money. He wanted money. Ms Yan had money. He knew she had money. He treated her like a possession. He killed her, he posed as her he took her money. He took her mother’s money,” he said.

Mr Hoare asked the jury to consider the inconsistencies in the different versions of allegedly killing Ms Yan that his client gave to police.

“You might think that that difference in both the quality and content of his recall of that singular event -what the Crown says is the willful killing and intentional killing of Qiong Yan- is simply unclear, and you might think inconsistent,” Mr Hoare said.

“It’s not reliable.

“What he’s saying about causing the death of Qiong Yan is simply not true. Now, Mr Zhao is guilty of interference with a corpse but he is not guilty of the murder of Qiong Yan.”

The trial continues Tuesday.

The trial is expected to go into next week.

Originally published as Yang Zhao pleads not guilty to murder of flatmate Qiong Yan in Hamilton apartment