Yang Zhao, 30, pleads not guilty to murder of former flatmate Qiong Yan
The mother of an alleged murder victim has sat in court hearing the accused killer describe to police how he beat her daughter over the head and then choked her, because she asked him to.
QLD News
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The mother of alleged murder victim Qiong Yan, whose body was found in a balcony toolbox at Hamilton months after she died, has sat in court as her accused killer described to police how he beat her over the head with a whipped cream bottle and then choked her, which he said was at her request.
Yang Zhao, 30, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms Yan in their shared apartment in September 2020.
Her mother Rongmei Yan had just finished giving evidence at his Supreme Court trial in Brisbane when the court was played an interview Zhao gave NSW Police after his arrest in Sydney in July 2021.
Queensland Police had hours earlier made the grim discovery of Ms Yan’s body in a tool chest on the balcony of their Hamilton apartment.
In the video recording Zhao said both he and Ms Yan were sad about life and had lost money that day on trading.
“So we talked about dying together,” Zhao, who was 26 at the time, said to police.
“But she’s trying to convince me not to kill myself because she think I still have future.
“She’s been trying to convince me to kill her and she promised me she would give me all the information she needs to pay my money back and she asks me to pretend to be her too, to use her phone to talk to the mother.
“That’s every that happened.”
He later told police that Ms Yan owed him $500,000.
He said in the lead up and after losing money on trading they were both inhaling gas from canisters used to make cream known as “nangs”.
“I used that to kill her,” Zhao told police in the interview.
“I asked her to sit on the floor … and she asked me to do it as fast as quick I can to smash on her head but I wasn’t strong enough. She struggled and asked me to choke her. She said why don’t you choke me.”
At one point Zhao asked police if they would show the recorded interview to her parents.
Mrs Yan is sitting in the back of the court watching the interview as an interpreter speaks into her ear.
Zhao went on to describe choking her for a long time.
He told police he was thinking of burning her body but decided to purchase the toolbox from Bunnings and put it in there.
Zhao said he put a blanket on her body “so she’s not too cold”.
In court Zhao spends much of the time in the dock looking down at documents, writing on them and at times nodding or shaking his head. This morning he occasionally glanced at himself on the screen talking to police.
In the hours before the incident Zhao said he and Ms Yan – who he described as his “best friend” – had gone through “two whole boxes” of gas canisters.
Zhao told police he choked Ms Yan for quite a long time and as he tried to pull away his hand she would move them back
“I was freaking out,” he 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.”
The arrest of Zhao, captured on police body-worn camera, was played to the jury.
The court has heard Zhao was being spoken to by NSW detectives about the disappearance of Ms Yan and was not a suspect when at the very same time Queensland Police discovered her body in the tool chest.
Det Sgt Michael Bugg could be seen explaining the missing person’s warrant obtained by Queensland Police that allowed them access to his and Ms Yan’s Hamilton apartment in July 2021.
“Are they going to find something in the unit?” the Sydney detective asked Zhao on the body-worn camera.
“There’s nothing in the unit?”
“Nothing,” Zhao responded.
“Nothing untoward, nothing illegal, nothing suspicious?” Det Bugg asked again.
“No,” Zhao said.
“We’ve just received a phone call about five minutes ago indicating that they found a female deceased in your unit, OK, anything you want to tell me about that?” Det Bugg said.
“No,” Zhao said.
“You know anything about that?” Det Bugg said.
“No,” Zhao said.
Zhao, who was in the Sydney suburb of Mascot at the time having left Brisbane, was placed under arrest.
Det Bugg, giving evidence at the trial on Wednesday, agreed that on the drive to the police station Zhao allegedly said:
“I could have hidden her body and you would never have found her.”
Zhao told police that sometimes he felt like he had done the right thing.
“I felt I’m helping her to relieve her pain because I was hoping for her to do the same thing but she wouldn’t,” he said.
He said he put Ms Yan in the tool chest because he didn’t want a body in his living room.
Zhao said he panicked when police started looking for her.
Asked why he never got rid of her body he responded: “I really don’t know how to treat body because I don’t want to be disrespectful to her.”
He said he never told anyone else because they wouldn’t understand.
Zhao said using Ms Yan’s Wechat account he asked her mother to transfer about 1.5 million Chinese Yuan.
Her mother had earlier told the court she never gave approval for Zhao to have her money.
“This man Mr Zhao did you ever allow him to have your money,” Crown prosecutor Chris Cook said pointing at the defendant.
“No,” Mrs Yan said.
The trial continues.
Originally published as Yang Zhao, 30, pleads not guilty to murder of former flatmate Qiong Yan
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