A Chinese man collapsed in court today as he was found guilty of brutally murdering two graduates in their home in Newcastle.
Guang Hui Cao, 31, fainted after the foreman announced that the jury had agreed unanimously that he had tied up, beaten and killed the young couple last summer.
The court heard that he tricked his way into the home of Xi Zhou and Zhen Xing Yang, both 25, to try to steal the hundreds of thousands of pounds that they had made selling forged qualifications and in an internet betting scam.
Cao, a restaurant worker in Morpeth, stood motionless in glasses and a white T-shirt in Newcastle Crown Court until the prosecution said they were pressing for a full life tariff. Proceedings were halted and an ambulance was called when he suddenly fell to the ground, apparently unconscious, with his eyes rolled back and his head lolling to one side.
When the hearing resumed Cao was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 33 years.
He had pretended he wanted to sub-let a room in the couple’s flat in Croydon Road, but once inside he murdered their pet cat and subjected the pair to a frenzied and sustained attack.
Known by their anglicised names of Kevin Yang and Cici Zhou, they were discovered by friends two days after they died on August 7, last year.
Miss Zhou was found lying face down on a bed. Her killer had bound her wrists with tape and then hit her over the head with a heavy weapon, possibly a hammer.
A piece of towelling was stuffed into her mouth, which had been taped shut. She had suffocated around 90 minutes after the ordeal began.
Mr Yang was discovered in the other bedroom, having been hit with a hammer in the face and head. His throat had been slashed after he had lost unconsciousness.
The court heard that the couple were involved in a lucrative internet betting operation which saw £233,000 pass through their bank accounts in three years.
Mr Yang was involved in sending information from live football matches to Chinese gamblers who benefited from a TV time delay of several seconds, allowing them to bet on events already knowing the outcome.
He also supplied fake education certificates and other documents to Chinese students who wanted to enrol on education courses in the UK, or get jobs on returning to China.
After the murder, Cao changed his clothes and fled from the property with laptop computers and mobile phones which linked him to the couple.
The phones were found dumped in a nearby park by two boys, with the batteries and SIM cards missing.
They were handed to police after the murders were featured on the Crimewatch programme and police discovered phone contacts between the couple and Cao.
He was arrested at his home and police discovered a speck of Mr Yang’s blood on Cao’s glasses, while more blood was found in two recesses of Cao’s watch.
In his defence, Cao claimed he had been blackmailed into unwittingly helping to set up the couple’s deaths after threats were made to his family in China.
He said he was in the flat at Croydon Road when they were killed, but was tied up and locked in the bathroom.
Cao had claimed that masked gunmen burst into the house and killed Mr Yang because he made someone “unhappy” with his behaviour.
He said he was afraid to contact police because he was frightened that his parents would be harmed if he came forward and because he had stayed in the UK illegally after his student visa expired in 2003.
Miss Zhou came to Britain as a student in June 2005, while her boyfriend arrived in 2003 and met her in Newcastle after he studied English and accounting in Cardiff.
The couple have been buried together in China. Their families watched the trial with an interpreter through a video link.
Miss Zhou’s father, Sanbao Zhou, said he felt “as if the sky had fallen on us” when he heard about his daughter’s death.
“We nurtured her for 25 years and now she is suddenly gone. Words alone cannot possibly convey the harm that has been done to our family.
“There is an ancient Chinese saying: ’The most suffering one can go through in one’s life consists of losing one’s mother when one is still young, losing one’s wife in the prime of one’s life and losing one’s children in one’s old age.'
“This is especially true when one’s child has been murdered. For us, anger and sadness is mingled together.”
Mr Yang’s mother, ShuZhen Qu, said: “This person did not just kill two people, he has killed two families. If this had not happened, we expected our son to return to China and the lives of our entire family would have been very different.
“We have now been sentenced to go to hell. Our family will never be able to have any future generations."
Source:The times
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