Nunawading murder suicide: Coronial inquest reveals horrific family violence before Wei Hu stabbed wife Ying Ying Zhou to death

A Scotch College librarian threatened to rape his wife and said his family ‘would all die together’ in a series of angry outbursts months before a tragic murder-suicide.

Horrific details of family violence have been revealed in a coronial inquest into the deaths of Wei Hu and his estranged wife Yingying Zho.

At Scotch College where he worked in the leafy suburb of Hawthorn, Wei Hu was known as being kind-hearted and a role model to students.

But at home with his family, the IT pro and private school library technician was a monster.

He was moody and had a short fuse.

The father of one would order his young son to kneel on the ground for long periods as punishment.

He also reportedly beat the boy with a chopstick and slipper.

The boy’s mother, Ying Ying Zhou, 36, often intervened to protect her only child.

But in doing so, she too became a victim of Mr Hu’s hands.

In the ultimate act of violence, Mr Hu, 40, stabbed his wife, before turning the knife on himself, in front of their eight-year-old son at their Nunawading home in September 2019.

Mr Hu’s shocking history of family violence and details of the months leading up to the driveway murder-suicide were revealed in a coronial inquiry into the tragic deaths.

The court heard that Ms Zhou and Mr Hu had been unhappy in their relationship for some time.

Ying Ying Zhou and her estranged partner, Wei Hu, had been unhappy for some time.

He was putting pressure on her to have more children, but medical issues made it difficult for her to conceive.

In June 2019, after almost 14 years of marriage, she told Mr Hu she wanted a divorce.

Then the psychological abuse began.

The couple began sleeping in separate rooms at their Blackburn home.

But he started to sneak into her room and make threats, including to rape her.

Ms Zhou’s parents also lived at the property and often overheard Mr Hu’s raised voice.

“Do you have to go to the situation where the family is broken, and the people are dead,” Mr Hu yelled at his wife one night.

When she questioned him as to what he meant by that, he replied: “We will all die together.”

Ms Zhou later sent a text message to her concerned father reassuring him that Mr Hu had only “said these things because he was angry”.

Between July 23 and 25, 2019, Mr Hu sent news articles and text messages to Ms Zhou with content about children who had become criminals or had suicided after their parents’ divorce. On July 31, 2019, he crept in her room and tried to lay down in her bed with her, telling her he wanted sex.

He indicated to her he might engage the services of a sex worker.

She did not mind him doing so, but said he could not do it in their family home.

He then threatened her: “I might come back in sometime tonight and have sex with you, and then you can then call the police on me for rape.”

A coronial inquest found Wei Hu, 40, also threatened to rape his wife months before the tragedy.

A scared Ms Zhou went into the bedroom her son and parents shared to sleep.

But, according to her parents, Mr Hu followed.

“He was angry,” Ms Zhou’s mother described. “He was standing over (Ying Ying).”

She said Mr Hu then threatened his wife that he would “fix you” so she could never work and “I’ll make your parents feel sad every time they see you”.

“I only need one bottle of boiling water to finish you off,” he reportedly said.

“I’m going to make it more difficult for you to live than to die.”

Mr Hu also reportedly made threats to destroy Ms Zhou’s life and write to her employer to make her “feel embarrassed and ashamed”.

He even threatened to have her parents deported back to China.

The following day, on August 1, Ms Zhou walked into her local police station to report the abuse.

Coroner John Cain said what happened next was a police probe plagued with “deficiencies”.

Mr Hu was issued an order prohibiting him from committing family violence, and staying in the family’s home.

He instead moved out into what is understood to be their investment property in Mount Pleasant Rd, Nunawading, which would later be the scene of his horrific crime.

Judge Cain said police protocols for family violence cases were not followed, with key witnesses to the July 31 assault, including Ms Zhou’s son and her mother, not interviewed.

A full statement of what happened was also not taken from Ms Zhou.

A police interview of Mr Hu, which lasted less than three minutes, was “suboptimal”, Judge Cain said.

Wei Hu also reportedly made threats to destroy his estranged wife’s life by writing to her employer to make her “feel embarrassed and ashamed.”

Officers at the station had also not been trained in a new family violence report rolled out.

A “protracted process” meant unlawful assault charges against Mr Hu were not authorised to be laid until September 10 — four days before he went on his killing spree.

On September 14, 2019, Mr Hu and Ms Zhou, along with their son, had been out shopping together.

He needed to buy homeware items for the Nunawading house, which included the purchase of a knife.

On the way back to Mr Hu’s residence, they stopped for food at McDonalds, where CCTV footage shows the couple in an argument.

Moments later, their Audi SUV pulled into the driveway of the Nunawading home.

Ms Zhou waited in the car with their son, while Mr Hu dropped off the shopping.

When he returned, he wielded the knife he had purchased, lunging at Ms Zhou in the front passenger seat and stabbing her to the left side of her neck.

He then plunged the knife into his chest.

Their terrified son ran from the back seat to a neighbour’s property to raise the alarm.

When paramedics arrived at 6.14pm, the couple were dead.

An autopsy would find he had no alcohol or drugs in his system.

The pair, both born and raised in China, had met online in 2003 while Ms Zhou was living in Shanghai and Mr Hu was studying in Australia.

The crime took place in the driveway of the estranged couple’s investment property. Picture: Sarah Matray

They began dating, meeting for the first time in 2004, before getting engaged in April 2005.

In August 2005, Ms Zhou moved to Australia to live with Mr Hu, with the couple marrying in Melbourne three months later.

Their son was born in June 2011, with Ms Zhou’s parents coming to Australia to help care for him the following May.

Her grief-stricken parents are now the full-time carers of their grandson.

They detailed how their grandson was “terrified” when police brought him to their house and broke the news to them their “hardworking” and “kind, quiet, warm” daughter was dead.

“At that time, our minds were blank,” her father told the coroner. “It is heartbreaking.”

But fighting back tears, he said, they had to suppress their own grief and focus on comforting their innocent grandchild.

They are now devoted to providing him “love, care and education”, he said.

Originally published as Nunawading murder suicide: Coronial inquest reveals horrific family violence before Wei Hu stabbed wife Ying Ying Zhou to death