Derek Barrett says he has little memory of killing niece
A MAN who brutally murdered his niece and dumped her body in a blowhole claims he killed her in a drug-fuelled rage and remembers little of what happened over the next three days.
NSW
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A MAN who brutally murdered his niece and dumped her body in a blowhole claims he killed her in a drug-fuelled rage and remembers little of what happened over the next three days despite documenting his sadistic killing with a series of photographs.
Former IT worker Derek Barrett, 29, took to the stand today at his sentencing for the murder of University of Technology Sydney graduate Michelle (Mengmei) Leng, 25.
“All I remember is having an argument when she got home and then I remember seeing the reflection of myself in a mirror and blood in the sink,” Barrett told the court.
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“The next day I can remember highway and bush and I only remember parts of what happened.”
When his barrister Peter McGrath SC asked him: “When you lied when you first gave a very detailed statement to police were they just lies or were they true memories?”
Barrett: “They were true memories and there were some gaps so I filled them in with lies.”
Throughout his evidence Barrett repeatedly told the court he had used ice and synthetic cannabis for three weeks leading up to the murder but when he was arrested on April 29 he told the Department of Justice Health that he had not taken any drugs in the four weeks prior.
Earlier though forensic psychologist Dr Richard Barry Furst told the court during his evidence he didn’t believe Barrett’s account of having no memory and questioned claims he was a regular user of ice and synthetic cannabis.
“It is true that they (people who use ice) tend to be more alert and aware of things as opposed to forgetting things which is more likely to occur when using a sedative like alcohol,” he said.
Crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen, SC, asked Dr Furst: “Do you think he (Barrett) may have exaggerated his ice use to you and downplayed it to Justice Health and that the truth lies somewhere in between?”
Dr Furst replied: “Yes.”
The final horrifying moments of Ms Leng’s life will remain a mystery after Barrett repeatedly told the court under cross-examination Ms Cunneen he could not remember what happened in the 48 hours when Ms Leng was killed and her body dumped at the Snapper Point blowhole.
“I remember seeing her face distressed, I remember apologising at some point, I believe she was alive,” Barrett told the court.
‘I don’t remember the actual stabbing part itself.”
Cunneen: “Only you know what happened in that time?”
Barrett: “Yes I was the only one present.”
Cuneen: “Are you now saying to this court you cannot remember what happened from Friday until Sunday?”
Barrett: “Not, not all of it.
“I remember coming home at some point (on Thursday night), I remember Ms Leng was home she was hiding away in the bedroom, then I went into mine to smoke (cannabis), I remember I was staring to drift off and that is it.”
Barrett’s sentencing was adjourned until Friday when Justice Helen Wilson will deliver her judgment.
Earlier Mei Zhang, the mother of Ms Leng, provided a victim impact statement which was read to court by an interpreter.
The 50-year-old, who had flown to Australia and was surrounded by family and relatives in court, said she and her family had been devastated by the loss of her only child after they gave up everything to send her to Australia so her daughter could have a better life.
“The dream of my life was completely broken down. I can still not accept that she was brutally murdered and that this thing had unlawfully detained Mengmei on the night of her murder and event took videos of the whole process,” the court heard.
“He deliberately murdered Mengmei and abandoned her to the seas.
“I had only one child and according to the Chinese tradition that child will look after the parent as they grow older and now that this child’s gone my whole life is shattered.
“No parent should be at the funeral of their child.
“The murderer must receive a fair punishment and must never be released. I trust in the Australian justice system and I ask that it consider life imprisonment.”
Police were able to trace the movements of Barrett in the hours and days after he brutally murdered Ms Leng.
The bloodied body of Ms Leng was hidden inside a western Sydney unit for two days following her murder at the hands of her aunt’s husband as he tried to cover up his crime.
Barrett murdered his niece in April 2016, stabbing her more than 40 times before dumping her body into a blowhole on the state’s Central Coast.
During their investigation police were able to trace Barrett’s movements after the murder through the analysis of a security swipe card for the apartment complex, CCTV footage of his car and phone calls made from his mobile phone.
About 3.19am on Sunday, April 24, the day he dumped Ms Leng’s body, Barrett used his swipe card to access the apartment lift and access the garage and moments later his car was captured leaving the apartment’s garage.
Less than 10 minutes later Barrett was captured on CCTV footage buying petrol at the Budget petrol station in Campsie.
About 7.30am Barrett’s mobile phone records show it used a cell tower located only 13km from Snapper Point where he dumped Ms Leng’s body.
Barrett appeared before the NSW Supreme Court today for his sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty to murder, taking or detaining a person with the intent to obtain advantage and three counts of committing an act of indecency on a person aged more than 16 years of age.
According to the statement of facts, Barrett carried out his assault on the morning of Friday, April 22, while he was alone with Ms Leng in the Campsie apartment they shared with his wife and a stepdaughter from a previous marriage.
Barrett bound and gagged Ms Leng and then took more than a dozen photographs of her while she was alive before savagely killing her.
A post-mortem report revealed Ms Leng was stabbed and cut at least 40 times and remained alive for some time after the fatal wound — a 40mm-deep stab wound to the neck almost transecting the larynx — was delivered.
Two days later on Sunday, April 24, he placed her body — which was wrapped in a black, plastic sheet — in the boot of his car, before driving up to Snapper Point in the Munmorah State Conservation Area on the NSW Central Coast.
According to the statement of facts, it was here Barrett threw her body off the cliff over the blowhole and stopped to take several pictures of the scene on his mobile phone.
Two witnesses later told homicide detectives they remembered seeing Barrett there and reported that he told them: “I wouldn’t recommend going down there”.
Both witnesses looked over the edge as Barrett walked away but couldn’t see anything unusual, but later that morning Ms Leng’s body was found facedown in the blowhole by tourists.
The day after he dumped the body, Barrett went to Campsie police station with his wife and reported Ms Leng missing, with police later matching the body they found at Snapper Point to the missing person’s report filed by Barrett and his wife.
A few days later police interviewed Barrett, his wife and the stepdaughter and collected Ms Leng’s toothbrush to conduct DNA analysis.
On April 27, Barrett tried to throw police off the scent by attending Campsie police station and giving a statement before the body had been formally identified.
He told them the victim had been going out to parties, nightclubs and had been drinking alcohol, dating and using online dating apps.
After police had matched Ms Leng’s DNA using a toothbrush, they arrested and charged Barrett with her murder.
It was revealed in August Ms Leng spent her final hours with friends at the Sydney Fish Markets before shopping at Myer in Sydney’s CBD on Thursday, April 21.
Her last known contact was a text message she sent to a friend about midnight that same day.
Ms Leng — also known by her Chinese name Mengmei — moved to Australia from China about five years ago and had been living with Barrett, her cousin and aunt.
Her aunt, who was married to Barrett and had her daughter in a previous relationship, took some last-minute shifts where she worked in Wollongong on the weekend Ms Leng was killed.
Horrifyingly while Ms Leng was lying tied up and dead inside the apartment, Barrett’s stepdaughter arrived at the Campsie unit and spent more than three hours at the unit, unaware Ms Leng was dead somewhere inside her home.
During that time Barrett stayed in the bathroom running the shower and, according to the statement of facts, Ms Leng was likely tied up dead in the bathroom.
And little did the young woman in her 20s realise she could have been Barrett’s next victim — for he had previously filmed her naked in the bathroom and even taken video which showed him fondling himself in her bedroom while she slept, according to the statement of facts.
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