A man who murdered his 19-year-old girlfriend after bingeing on five boxes of “nangs” in the days before has been sentenced to a maximum of 20 years behind bars for the “extremely violent and merciless” attack.
The couple’s Sydney apartment was littered with empty canisters of nitrous oxide, also known as “laughing gas”.
Liqun Pan, 19, was stabbed to death by her boyfriend in her Wolli Creek apartment.Credit: NSW Police
Weijie He stabbed Liqun Pan to death inside the Wolli Creek unit on June 27, 2020, before jumping four floors and spending months in a coma.
Justice Julia Lonergan found he was under a “self-inflicted drug-induced transient psychosis” at the time of the murder from prolonged “nang” use, which He developed after the pair travelled from China to Australia to study together.
But, she gave little weight to his consumption of the drug, describing the attack as “extremely violent and merciless” by a “controlling and coercive” partner.
Sentencing He at the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Lonergan said the evidence suggested there was a struggle inside the apartment before He used knives and a hammer to kill Pan.
Lonergan found Pan had tried to fight back before she was murdered.
She said He, who was then aged 22, likely tried to kill himself after the attack by jumping four floors off a balcony. Police discovered Pan’s body a day after he was rushed to hospital.
He spent seven months in a coma before being charged with murder. He suffered a brain injury but was found fit to stand trial, though he ultimately pleaded guilty in late 2022.
When He began to wake up from his coma, Lonergan said his parents told him on at least two hospital visits to say nothing about having beaten up Pan in the past.
“Squeeze my hand if you understand,” his mother told him, the court heard.
He’s parents have not been charged with any wrongdoing.
When He was only able to write and could not yet talk, he was asked by a nurse if he knew why he was there. He wrote on a piece of paper, “kill girl”, the court heard.
He was taking nitrous oxide – inhaled recreationally to induce euphoria, relaxation and a hallucinogenic state for a matter of minutes – heavily in the months, weeks and potentially in the days before the murder, the court heard. But it was not clear if he was high at the time.
Police found empty boxes and canisters of the drug littered around the apartment. The court heard Pan complained to a friend He had consumed five boxes two days before she was killed.
The defence argued He was experiencing a psychotic episode related to drug-induced psychosis at the time, which would reduce his moral culpability. The Crown prosecutor argued he was simply high off the drug, which would not warrant a lesser penalty.
Lonergan found that in his drug-induced state, He “directed his rage to killing [Pan] in a frenzied attack”.
Lonergan said the evidence does not point to He using nitrous oxide in the immediate period before he killed her, but the act was “inextricably tied up with his use”, which only “marginally reduced” his culpability.
“He knew of and repeatedly sought out its intoxicating and disinhibiting effects,” she said.
The court earlier heard He was controlling and coercive towards Pan, threatening to “beat her up” if she did not do housework and making her sign a “contract” when on a holiday in China not to drink, go to bars, see certain people or have her phone on silent.
He told a friend he had invited Pan to go to Australia with him but now “couldn’t get rid of her”.
Crown prosecutor Rossi Kotsis suggested He was not psychotic and the murder was “just straight-up domestic violence”.
Lonergan said He had shown no sign of remorse and “maintained the fantasy that it was not him who killed” Pan to anyone who asked.
He was sentenced to 20 years in jail with a non-parole period of 13 years.
The sentence was backdated to January 20, 2021 and will expire on January 19, 2041. He will first be eligible for parole on January 19, 2034.
‘Hope and happiness evaporated’: Pan’s father
In an emotional victim impact statement tendered earlier to court, Pan’s grief-stricken father Zee Whu said Pan was the eldest of four children and grew up in a rural village in the coastal province of Guangdong in south-east China.
She was kind and took care of her younger siblings.
Coming from generations of farmers, Pan’s parents were supportive of their daughter’s wish to move to Australia to study at university.
“Our hope and happiness evaporated the moment her life was viciously taken away in 2020,” Pan’s dad wrote.
“The moment when the police officer described the extensive and horrific injuries that Liqun had sustained … I felt the blood drain from my heart.”
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence
Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) and Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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