Intricate police work that helped track Ju Zhang’s killer, Joon Seong Tan
Joon Seong Tan told police his missing girlfriend had left the house in a dressing gown and slippers and never returned. Four days later, he Googled the jail sentence for murder.
Police & Courts
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Five days after he reported his girlfriend missing, Joon “Sam” Seong Tan found himself sitting inside a police station.
Wearing a grey hooded jumper and a surgical mask, the softly-spoken Tan told investigators Ju “Kelly” Zhang, 33, walked out of her Epping home wearing a pink dressing gown and slippers.
“She went out and never came back,” he said through an interpreter.
In reality, he had stabbed the young mother to death before dumping her body in a wheelie bin that he left on a street 10km away.
Missing persons squad detectives quickly formed the view Tan was involved in her disappearance but knew prosecuting him would be difficult without a body.
The search for Ms Zhang’s body was a marathon exercise in legwork, utilising technology and leaning on the expertise of those in the waste industry.
It started with Tan’s story which was instantly questionable.
Police started to put the movements of Tan, 38, and his relationship with Ms Zhang under the microscope.
It was clear that he was a controlling individual and that Ms Zhang, who had only been dating Tan for a month, did not see him as a long-term proposition.
Inquiries would later uncover that Tan had Googled “How many years for killing a person in Australia?” and “how is stinky garbage disposed of in Australia” four days after Ms Zhang was reported missing.
Detectives were quickly able to form the working theory that Tan had, after murdering Ms Zhang, placed her body in a neighbour’s wheelie bin and driven away.
The killer then hit the road, driving the suburbs looking for somewhere where bins were out and he could complete his grisly disposal job.
Investigators were to establish early on that he had travelled to the Heidelberg-Ivanhoe area.
On February 11, 2021, they would search a bushy area of Darebin Creek Reserve in Ivanhoe West.
The absence of more pinpoint tracking at that point in the investigation meant there was never any certainty and the search found nothing.
Later, more precise telecommunications data would trace Tan’s movements to a street in Heidelberg Heights where he stopped briefly.
That was on a bin collection night for that location.
Detectives requested details of waste trucks working the area and CCTV fitted to each.
There was no visible evidence of Ms Zhang’s body being transferred from a bin to a truck.
But a sharp-eyed investigator was later to find that the truck footage for the night Tan had stopped at Heidelberg Heights was missing.
The decision was taken that this was likely to be when she was dumped so waste contractors were contacted for information on where that collection would have been taken.
The destination was the Wollert Tip.
One lucky break came when the missing persons officers were told that there were GPS markers available for the location of previous loads.
Those who ran the facility put in long hours and were eventually able to give the investigators something to work with, an area of roughly 20m by 100m.
In June, the search began in an area where putrid layers of waste from subsequent collections had been laid over the February Heidelberg Heights collection.
It was filthy work and, by day four, hopes were surely fading.
Then came the breakthrough; under all that waste, the remains of Ms Zhang were uncovered — four months after she was murdered.
The body’s discovery gave some kind of resolution to the family of Ms Zhang and enabled them to give her a proper farewell.
Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper, speaking in 2021, summed up the family’s pain.
“They’re in a strange country, they don’t speak English, two weeks’ quarantine in Sydney, they are now staying with family locally and they are distraught as one would expect,” Insp. Stamper said.
“But they’re aware of what we’re doing, and we’re staying in constant contact with them.
“They’re just ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. My heart goes out to them.”
Critically for the investigation, it eliminated the possibility Tan could ever argue that she had vanished of her own volition.
The unpaid commitment of those from the waste company and Wollert Tip was credited with being a big factor in bringing the killer to justice.
It was a massive boost for the missing persons squad, which was already heavily committed to the high-profile disappearance of campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay from Wonnangatta in East Gippsland.
Tan was on Wednesday found guilty by a Supreme Court jury of Ms Zhang’s murder — bringing to an end a two-year long journey for justice.
Dozens of witnesses gave evidence during the nearly four-week long trial including Tan’s housemate, known as Mr Chan, who said he was asked to help dispose of Ms Zhang’s remains.
The evidence against Tan proved to be insurmountable and it took jurors just four hours of deliberations to unanimously convict him.
A lead detective on the case broke down in tears and sobs could be heard from the public gallery as the jury delivered its verdict.
Wearing a suit and tie, Tan showed little emotion as he learnt his fate through a translator.
He will return to court for a pre-sentence hearing next week.
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