By Erin Pearson
A Chinese student will be deported after serving as little as seven more years behind bars after killing two women in their homes, hours apart.
Xiaozheng Lin, 24, killed sex workers Yuqi Luo, 31, and Hyun Sook Jeon, 51, before robbing them of their personal belongings in what a judge described as the senseless killing of two entirely vulnerable and defenceless women.
Huntingdale man Xiaozheng Lin killed Yuqi Luo on December 27 and Hyun Sook Jeon hours later, the court heard.
On Thursday, Lin was sentenced to 14 years in jail, with a non-parole period of nine years after striking a deal with prosecutors to downgrade his charges from murder to manslaughter on the eve of his Supreme Court trial. With time already served, he could be released in 2031.
Luo was found naked and fatally strangled. Jeon’s remains lay undiscovered for days and were so badly decomposed, her cause of death could not be determined.
“As each of them lay helpless … in their own homes, you showed them no mercy,” Justice Stephen Kaye told Lin.
Hyun Sook Jeon.
“Instead, you callously set about taking from them, not only personal safety and dignity, but also their valuable personal belongings.”
Former Victoria state MP Fiona Patten, who campaigned for the decriminalisation of sex work in Victoria, called the sentence “unjust and unfair”.
“It seems an incredibly small punishment and sentence for such a heinous crime, for two heinous crimes. It does feel in a sense that their lives were less important than others,” Patten said.
“This was one of the reasons we fought for decriminalisation, was to address violence against sex workers and to ensure that they were treated fairly and to ensure that sex workers had confidence in reporting violence.
“This is not going to send that message.
“I feel that the life of a sex worker, the life of an unknown sex worker, has been treated as less important than if it were myself or if it was other people in the community.”
Fiona Patten was herself a sex worker before entering politics.Credit: Eddie Jim
On December 26, 2022, Lin’s friend drove him to a brothel in Oakleigh before later driving him to Luo’s apartment on La Trobe Street.
There, he became angry when Luo told him oral sex would cost extra, before assaulting her and pressing her head into the bed.
He told police he then took valuables, including $7000 cash, before leaving, maintaining she was still alive and gasping for air when he left.
While in the car with his friend, he admitted to robbing Luo.
She was later found dead in her apartment by a friend. A pathologist report found numerous bruises and abrasions to her eyes, ears, cheeks, lips, neck and skull, and other injuries consistent with asphyxiation.
The following day, Lin travelled to Docklands shortly after 10pm to meet Jeon.
While the circumstances of her death remain unknown, Lin pleaded guilty to killing the 51-year-old before fleeing the property about 12.30am with luxury items, keys and electronics.
The court heard he later used her bank cards to make $17,000 in online purchases, before placing some of the stolen items in a neighbour’s recycling bin.
On December 29, the neighbour reported the find to police, who discovered Jeon’s remains inside her home.
“By your violent and criminal actions, you’ve taken the lives of two innocent fellow human beings. Two victims who were each in their own homes where they were entitled to feel safe,” Kaye said.
“Each were entirely vulnerable and defenceless.
“In departing from the premises of each of the two women, you left them lying in a state, and in positions, that had no respect or regard for their personal dignity.”
Kay noted both were much-loved members of their families, who now lived with profound sorrow and anguish over their deaths.
Lin, who had no prior convictions, came to Australia in 2000 on a student visa and was here illegally at the time of the killings, working in Geelong as a plasterer.
The court heard he had suffered a basketball injury as a child, which left him with a limp, and because of this Lin, had never had a girlfriend and hired sex workers.
The court heard he had a substantial gambling addiction after first being introduced to it as a six-year-old when his mother would give him coins to put in slot machines at the local cultural centre.
With Emily Woods
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