Man accused of murdering flatmate questioned over prayer bags on toolbox where body kept

A man accused of murdering his Brisbane flatmate has denied that a bizarre addition to the toolbox where he kept her body for months was to stop her from haunting him.

Qiong Yan shared a unit with Yang Zhao, the man accused of murdering her, in the Brisbane suburb of Hamilton. Picture: Police Media

A Chinese forex trader accused of murdering his Brisbane flatmate for financial gain has denied putting little prayer bags on the toolbox, where he kept her for months, to prevent her spirit escaping and haunting him.

Yang Zhao, now 30, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his best friend Qiong Yan, 29, also a Chinese national in their Hamilton apartment but has admitted to placing her in a “body box” on their balcony for months.

On his third day in the witness box in Brisbane’s Supreme Court the “real reason” Zhao put little bags on the chest’s locks was put to him by Crown prosecutor Chris Cook.

“The real reason you put those emblems on that box Mr Zhao is to keep her spirits in,” Mr Cook suggested.

No,” Zhao responded.

“You wanted her trapped in there so her spirit wouldn’t come and haunt you Mr Zhao,” Mr Cook said.

“No,” the defendant responded again.

In a police interview Zhao said he had put the prayer bags on the box because Ms Yan had been religious.

Yang Zhao told a Brisbane court he lied when he told police he had struck Ms Yan with a gas canister and then choked her. File picture

The Crown allege Zhao murdered Ms Yan in September 2020, 10 months before Queensland detectives found her decomposed corpse in the tool chest on the unit’s balcony following a missing-person report being lodged by a friend at the request of her Shanghai-based mother Rongmei Yan.

The trial has heard that following Ms Yan’s death Zhao posed as her on Chinese messaging app WeChat to both police, who wanted to catch up with her, and her mother who transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars at Zhao’s request.

Mrs Yan eventually became suspicious that the person who she was communicating with on WeChat wasn’t her daughter.

“You sent callous messages to Rongmei Yan hoping she’d stop looking for her daughter didn’t you,” Mr Cook asked.

“Yes,” Zhao answered.

“The only things that the jury should really believe that you said Mr Zhao is that you murdered Qiong Yan?” Mr Cook said.

“No,” Zhao responded.

Rongmei Yan, the mother of Qiong Yan, at the Supreme Court in Brisbane. Picture: NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

In conversations with police following his arrest in Sydney in July 2021 Zhao told detectives he had killed Ms Yan, at her request, after a night of consuming nitrous oxide of laughing gas, something they did regularly, the court heard.

Zhao said he struck her with a gas canister and then choked her for up to an hour.

But in the witness stand Zhao said those were lies he told police because he wanted the death penalty as he felt ashamed for his actions in putting Ms Yan’s body in what he referred to as the “body box”.

He also said a $302,000 Porsche Panamera that had been registered to Ms Yan was actually purchased by him but placed in her name for insurance purposes.

On the stand Zhao agreed he caused Mrs Yan to transfer funds as he posed as her daughter.

Zhao said about $300,000 to $400,000 was transferred into the account of someone who did currency exchange.

Of that amount he said he received about $200,000 personally between October 2020 and March 2021.

On Friday he suggested he had refunded a lot of money to friends who Ms Yan had agreed to transfer funds.

The defence closed its case and Justice Martin Burns sent the jury home with closing statements by counsel to begin Monday.