Robert Xie found guilty of murdering Lin family in 2009
“I am innocent.” These are the words Robert Xie uttered just moments after being found guilty of the murders of five Lin family members — including two of his young nephews — by a majority verdict of 11-1, after the jury failed to make a unanimous decision.
NSW
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- How jealous desire drove Robert Xie to murder
- The evidence that put a killer away
- EXCLUSIVE: Xie’s wife Kathy vows to stand by her man
ROBERT Xie has today been convicted of the brutal slaying of his in-laws and their sons in a crime that shocked Sydney.
The majority 11 to one guilty verdict in the Supreme Court has ended one of the state’s longest court sagas that stretched over four trials.
Xie has never given evidence at any of them.
The prosecution said Xie, 53, was an embittered jealous man whose simmering resentment of his brother-in-law Min Lin exploded on July 18, 2009 when he battered to death Lin, his wife Lily, their sons Henry, 12, and Terry, nine, and Lily’s sister Irene Yin.
“I did not murder the Lin family, I am innocent,” Robert Xie stood up and declared as the jury left the court after delivering its verdict.
His wife Kathy Xie cried as she was comforted by an officer from the Salvation Army.
The parents of Min Lin and Kathy Xie wept and hugged the prosecutor in the opposite side of the court.
They have become estranged from their daughter, who has stood by her husband even as the damning evidence has emerged.
Earlier today, the jury was told it could return a majority verdict of 11 to one after jurors today told Justice Elizabeth Fullerton they remained unable to reach a unanimous verdict despite eight days of deliberating.
Justice Fullerton called the jury back into the courtroom after 3pm after being told in a note for a second time today that they could not reach a unanimous verdict.
They asked the judge for instructions as to reaching a majority verdict.
“We have no reason to believe that with more discussions a unanimous verdict could be reached,” the note said.
Justice Fullerton has adjourned the case to February 10 for sentence.
Xie “found” their bodies in their blood-splattered bedrooms at their North Epping home when he went with his wife Kathy, the sister of Mr Lin, to see why the family had not opened their Rawson St newsagency.
Despite the horror, Kathy Xie has stood by her husband, convinced of his innocence even as the court heard how he confessed to have secretly drugged her before slipping out of their bed in Beck Street, Epping, to walk the 300m to her brother’s house in Boundary Rd and bludgeoned the family to death.
As her husband sat in the dock of the Supreme Court, Mrs Xie has sat during the trial as close to him as the seating in court would allow. She served him lunch every day, warming up his food in a microwave in a court kitchen.
The devastated parents of Kathy Xie and Min Lin, Yang Fei Lin and Feng Qing Zhu, have sat at the opposite side of the courtroom, now totally estranged from their daughter. Their grandsons had dinner at their home the night before they were killed and it had been Xie who took the boys home.
It is the fourth trial for Xie after a jury was unable to reach a verdict last year following a marathon nine-month trial, the longest criminal trial of a single accused in NSW history.
Two previous trials were aborted for legal reasons, one after shattering new evidence emerged and the other after the presiding judge fell ill.
The new evidence involved a teenager connected to the family who told police that Xie had been sexually assaulting her following the murders and who has given evidence in court against him. He has never been charged with the sexual abuse.
The jury heard how Xie murdered Mr Lin and his family because he felt humiliated and angry and “lost face” that his brother-in-law was seen as the better businessman.
His mother-in-law would tell her daughter that she could “get a better husband and more beautiful man” than Xie, who spent most of his days sitting at home after his Melbourne restaurant failed.
The prosecution case was that with a hammer-like weapon wrapped in a cloth, Xie went to the Lin home while the family slept after about 2am. He turned off the power, used his key to let himself in and first killed Mr Lin, 45, and Lily Lin, 43. Then he killed his nephews and Irene Yin, 39, as “collateral damage” in case they woke and could identify him.
A key piece of evidence was a blood stain found on the floor of his garage by forensic investigators a year after the murders. The prosecution said it contained the DNA of four of the five victims. Xie was charged with murder in May 2011.
Xie also wore Gel-Evation-style Asics sports shoes with soles that could have left the footprints in the blood on the carpet at the Lin house.
Xie had been on bail but that was revoked three days before Christmas pending the jury’s verdict.
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