A 30-year-old man, Yang Zhao, has been convicted of murdering his flatmate Qiong Yan, 29, in September 2020 at their apartment in inner Brisbane. The Supreme Court jury reached their decision within two hours after a two-week trial, during which Yan’s mother, who had travelled from Shanghai, was visibly emotional.
Zhao, who had previously denied the murder charge, admitted to tampering with Yan’s corpse, which authorities discovered hidden in a large toolbox on the balcony of their unit nearly ten months after the incident. The court heard from crown prosecutor Chris Cook, who stated that Zhao killed Yan by striking her with a metal bottle and strangling her.
Following the murder, Zhao impersonated Yan, deceitfully soliciting $463,000 from her mother through bank transfers. He argued in his defence that Yan’s death was accidental; he claimed they had both consumed nitrous oxide, colloquially known as “nangs” or “laughing gas,” before Yan passed out and subsequently stopped breathing while he was asleep on a couch nearby.
Zhao suggested he concealed her remains due to fears of being prosecuted for drug charges. He also testified that he used Yan’s phone to communicate with her mother, pretending to be her for several months. Yan was a Chinese national and worked as the director of a migration agency.
Evidence revealed that after Yan’s death, Zhao engaged in activities such as drinking alcohol and using nitrous oxide in the vicinity of her body. During the trial, he claimed that his confession to police was influenced by intoxication and was a blend of memories and fictional narratives from movies and TV shows.
In Queensland, a murder conviction carries a mandatory life sentence with a non-parole period of 20 years. Zhao will receive his sentence at a later date.