Qiong Yan body-in-box murder: Yang Zhao obsessed with cash and ‘naked greed’ judge says about Brisbane killing

Qiong Yan’s body was still lying on the apartment floor when her murderer Yang Zhao began searching for her mobile phone password.

Motivated by what a judge later described as “naked greed”, Zhao rifled through her personal papers to find it.

After unlocking her phone, he impersonated his dead flatmate for months to swindle almost $500,000 from her mother.

He blew it all while leaving Ms Yan’s body to decompose in a tool box on their Brisbane apartment’s balcony.

Almost five years after Zhao strangled Ms Yan, a Supreme Court jury took just two hours to find the 30-year-old guilty of murder on Tuesday.

His two-week trial revealed Zhao loved the high life and fast cars.

Yet the Chinese national in Australia on a student visa struggled to pay the rent for the riverside apartment he shared with Ms Yan.

He never had a job, nor filed a tax return.

Obsessed with money, Zhao still gambled on the stock market and poker, losing up to $100,000 at a time.

“This is a man of champagne taste on a white-wine budget,” crown prosecutor Chris Cook said of Zhao at the trial.

Needing cash, Zhao became aware of Ms Yan’s mother receiving significant compensation from the Chinese government for relocating from her home.

Ms Yan, 29, was also a Chinese national and was the director of a migration agency.

She had no family in Australia but remained in close contact with her mother overseas.

“She thought you were her friend, she also trusted you,” Justice Martin Burns told Zhao at the trial.

“Whether on whim or as part of a plan hatched by you over a longer period of time, you decided to murder Ms Yan to gain access to (her mother’s) funds.

“This you did in the most brutal of ways.”

In a police interview video played to the jury, Zhao said he bashed Ms Yan in the head three times with a metal canister before choking her for up to an hour at their apartment in September 2020.

“I think I go crazy. I ask her why she wouldn’t die,” he said.

He later drove to a hardware store, buying duct tape, gloves and what he called a “body box”.

The 240-litre tool box would be where police discovered Ms Yan’s body almost 10 months later.

The last time Ms Yan contacted her mother via a video call was on September 20, 2020.

After that, her mother Rongmei Yan only received texts.

She did not discover until later that it was Zhao who had sent thousands of them.

He began impersonating Ms Yan after her September 25 death, sending messages on her phone via her WeChat account.

Just days after her daughter’s murder, Ms Yan’s mother received messages saying “goodnight mum” and “busy preparing to move to Melbourne” from the account.

More and more came over the ensuing months.

One included a photo of a country landscape and claimed Ms Yan was staying on a farm with poor reception that made video calls impossible.

Two months after Ms Yan was killed, the mother received another: “Happy birthday”.

“Thank you baby,” she replied.

More than 2500 were sent overall, with Zhao requesting bank transfers in order to steal $463,000 from Ms Yan’s mother.

By April 2021, the mother demanded video calls after Ms Yan’s friend in Sydney filed a missing-persons report to NSW Police.

The mother was sent a brief video with a female hand holding her daughter’s cat, Anchun.

It came with a text saying: “I am fine. I have Anchun taking care of me”.

Ms Yan had been dead for seven months by that stage.

Zhao even posed as Ms Yan in texts to police when they followed up the missing-persons report, agreeing to present at a station then apologising when it didn’t occur.

“Sorry to waste your time and resources I’m fine,” Zhao said while posing as Ms Yan.

“My mother is looking for me because she thinks I spent too much of her money. It’s (sic) family problem.”

Ms Yan’s body was finally discovered in July 2021 when police entered the apartment while Zhao was staying in Sydney.

The tool box adorned with “prayer notes” soon caught acting Detective Sergeant Tammy Storey’s attention.

“I looked in the box and saw a human foot,” she told the court.

“I immediately smelled the very strong smell of what I know to be a dead body.”

She quickly contacted NSW police, who happened to be interviewing Zhao about Ms Yan’s disappearance.

After his arrest, Zhao asked detectives about his Ms Yan impersonation.

“How convincing was I? Was I good? Did you know?” he asked.

When told a police interview was being recorded, Zhao asked: “Are you going to show this to her parents?”

Ms Yan’s mother eventually discovered Zhao’s “vile” deception after receiving the heartbreaking news about her daughter.

The mother was so traumatised she lost the ability to walk, requiring months of acupuncture to recover.

Zhao’s swindling had also left her “destitute”.

Ms Yan’s mother still flew in from Shanghai to testify at Zhao’s trial then sat in court through devastating evidence, shedding a tear when the jury delivered its guilty verdict.

“I feel sorry that all those days that the person I’ve been talking to was not my daughter ... at the time she had already become a skeleton,” she told the court, via an interpreter.

“I’m still full of anger and hatred. Every day I live in a deep abyss.”

Zhao showed no emotion when he received a life sentence.

He will be eligible for parole after serving 22 years.

If you or someone you know is experiencing family violence, phone 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Crisis Care Helpline on 1800 199 008.