Disturbing texts in ‘body box' death
In April 2021, Rongmei Yan received a mysterious message from her daughter, Qiong.
It was a short video clip – no longer than a few seconds – of what appeared to be her daughter's pet cat Anchun being stroked by a woman's hand.
There was no face accompanying the clip or message of safety, save for the accompanying text which read: 'I am fine, I have Anchun keeping me company.'
On the Crown's allegation, this innocuous message hides a darker truth - that it was not Qiong Yan at all sending this message, and something afoul had happened to the Chinese national during her stay in Australia.
In reality, Qiong was already dead when the message was sent.
Her flatmate, Yang Zhao, is alleged to have murdered her some time in September 2020 and stuffed her body into a large toolbox, which he kept locked on the balcony of an apartment in Hamilton, in Brisbane's northeast. Qiong Yan, 29, was allegedly killed in September 2020 by her flatmate Yang Zhao, who left her body inside a large box stored on the balcony of his Hamilton unit in northeast Brisbane for 10 months. Supplied Credit: Supplied Zhao has pleaded not guilty to Ms Yan's murder, but guilty to a charge of misconduct with a corpse. Supplied Credit: News Corp Australia
It would not be until July 2021 that police would eventually discover the grim fate Ms Yan met, upon Zhao's arrest an entire state away.
The message – along with the thousands Zhao is alleged to have sent Ms Yan's family, friends and associates – are now at the centre of a criminal trial that has gripped Brisbane Supreme Court for the past week.
Zhao has pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder.
The Crown contends Zhao not only killed Ms Yan, but that he took her phone and used it to pose as his flatmate for some 10 months, keeping up a ruse that she was alive all along.
NED-13671 Zhao texts to police
All the while, he allegedly had access to her apps and banking details, transferring thousands of dollars from her account into his own.
The deception is also alleged to have extended to Rongmei, who lives in Shanghai, China.
Upon receiving messages supposedly sent from her daughter's account over the social media messaging app WeChat, Rongmei sent her daughter some $400,000. Rongmei Yan, Qiong Yan's mother, has told a jury contact with her daughter became more 'sporadic' and she was sent a bizarre message of what appeared to be a woman's hand stroking a cat, accompanied by the following message: 'I am fine. I have Anchun keeping me company'. NewsWire / John Gass Credit: News Corp Australia
Rongmei has flown in from China to give evidence at the murder trial - last week telling a jury she became more suspicious of her daughter's messages after contact with Qiong became more 'sporadic' and she continued asking her for more money.
In one exchange, she attempted to call Qiong, only for her daughter to respond that the signal was 'not good', the court was told.
'Over the next six or seven months, did she ask for large sums of money again?' Crown prosecutor Chris Cook asked.
'Yes,' Rongmei answered.
'When you were sending those messages after September, you didn't know who was on the other end of the phone?' Mr Cook continued.
'No,' Rongmei answered.
In April 2021, Rongmei messaged her daughter on WeChat: 'I only want to video call you'.
In response, a short video was sent from her daughter's account - appearing to depict a female hand stroking a cat.
The accompanying message read: 'I am fine. I have Anchun keeping me company'.
A missing person's report was filed to NSW Police that same month. Zhao (centre) is alleged to have sent the video to Rongmei, in addition to contacting NSW Police over Ms Yan's WeChat account where he says: 'Hi, I'm sorry to waste your time and resources, I'm fine. My mother is looking for me because she thinks I spend too much of her money. It's family problem, sorry again to trouble you'. Supplied / 9News Credit: Supplied
Officers eventually made contact with Ms Yan's WeChat account, urging her to come to a police station as soon as she could.
The message sent read: 'Hi, this is Constable Huang from St George Police. Please tell us your current location. Police need to see you in person to check your welfare.'
'Essentially we explained we're from the police and she's not in trouble, we're just trying to find her, and sight her as a missing person,' Senior Constable Kurt Zambesi, one of the officers who responded to the initial missing person's report, told the court.
Instead, Zhao – allegedly still using Ms Yan's phone – sent the following message to police:
'Hi, I'm sorry to waste your time and resources, I'm fine. My mother is looking for me because she thinks I spend too much of her money. It's family problem, sorry again to trouble you.'
Constable Zambesi went on to tell the court he saw Ms Yan's account posted a status update by April 20, written in Mandarin.
'The rough translation was: 'My life is drunk… confusing, or I'm confused,'' he said.
Zhao has maintained he did not kill Ms Yan, but pleaded guilty to putting her body into the box in a moment of panic, after realising she had died.
His story has been put under the microscope during cross-examination, after he chose to give evidence in the witness box.
The jury was told Zhao felt 'immense shame' for maintaining the 'lie' Ms Yan was still alive after he took her phone and responded to messages.
During his opening, defence barrister Andrew Hoare KC told the jury they would hear evidence from Zhao of how he and Ms Yan were consuming nitrous oxide canisters in order to relax at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Zhao gave evidence he spent the night consuming nitrous oxide canisters with his flatmate, only to wake up and realise she had died and her body was 'cold to touch'.
Mr Cook spent much of the cross-examination picking apart alleged 'lies' Zhao told police, including how he allegedly told NSW Police he felt a 'sense of relief' upon his arrest, that he had 'no regrets'. During cross-examination, Zhao agreed he had sex with a woman 'metres' from Ms Yan's body, and the position where she was killed. Supplied Credit: News Corp Australia
'You're a liar … a coward … only interested in yourself (and) self-preservation,' Mr Cook continued, to which Mr Zhao answered 'yes'.
'You profited from Qiong Yan's death?' Mr Cook asked.
'Yes,' Mr Zhao said.
'You murdered her for money,' Mr Cook put to Mr Zhao.
He responded by saying: 'I did not kill her'.
Zhao also admitted he had sex with another person metres from Ms Yan's body and metres from 'where she died'.
The trial continues, with Mr Cook and Mr Hoare due to give their closing arguments in the coming days.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
3 hours ago
- Perth Now
Key revelations from mushroom cook's testimony
The Victorian mother-of-two at the centre of a mushroom poisoning case had the opportunity to tell her own story this week as she took the stand at her triple-murder trial. Erin Patterson, 50, is facing trial after pleading not guilty to the murders of her husband's parents and aunt, and the attempted murder of his uncle. Simon Patterson's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, died in the week after the lunch after falling ill from mushroom poisoning. Prosecutors alleged she deliberately poisoned the beef Wellington lunch on July 29, 2023, with death cap mushrooms intending to kill or seriously injure her four guests. Erin Patterson and her estranged husband Simon Patterson. NewsWire Credit: NewsWire Her defence, on the other hand, has argued the case is a 'tragic accident' and Ms Patterson also consumed the death caps and fell sick, though not as sick as her guests. Over five days this week Ms Patterson sat in the witness box about 7 m from the 14 jurors selected to hear her case, answering questions, firstly from her barrister Colin Mandy SC and then from Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC. Her opportunity to tell her own story came after the jury spent five weeks hearing from more than 50 witnesses for the prosecution as Ms Patterson sat in silence at the back of the Morwell courtroom. Mushroom cook agrees death caps in lunch may have been foraged In her testimony to the jury, Ms Patterson conceded death cap mushrooms 'must' have ended up in the beef Wellington lunch she prepared and served for the four guests. The morning of the lunch, she told the court, she started to prepare the duxelles, or mushroom paste, by cooking down two punnets of fresh sliced mushrooms she had purchased from Woolworths. 'So, as I was cooking it down, I tasted it a few times and it seemed a little bland to me, so I decided to put in the dried mushrooms that I'd bought from the grocer that I still had in the pantry,' she said. A court sketch of Ms Patterson in the witness box on Monday. NewsWire / Anita Lester Credit: News Corp Australia Ms Patterson told the jury she had purchased a packet of dried mushrooms in April the same year from an Asian supermarket in Melbourne, initially intending to use them for a pasta dish but deciding against that because they had a strong flavour. She said she now accepts it was possible she had stored wild mushrooms she foraged from her local area and dehydrated in the same Tupperware container. 'At that time, I believed it was just the mushrooms that I'd bought in Melbourne … Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well,' she said. Ms Patterson told the jury she first became interested in foraging for wild mushrooms during Covid and educated herself online. Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC is leading the case against Ms Patterson. NewsWire/ David Crosling Credit: News Corp Australia Over a period of months, she said she grew confident to identify 'field mushrooms and horse mushrooms' growing on her property before deciding to eat some. 'When I got to a point I was confident what they were, I cut a bit off, fried it up with butter, ate it and saw what happened,' she said. 'They tasted good and I didn't get sick.' Ms Patterson said she had purchased a dehydrator on April 28, 2023, to begin experimenting with preserving mushrooms because they had a short shelf life. Crown alleges photo shows Ms Patterson calculating 'fatal dose' Under questioning from Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC, Ms Patterson was taken to a photograph of sliced mushrooms on a dehydrator tray being weighed. The weight recorded was 280.0g and metadata from the photo showed it was last modified on May 4. Ms Patterson agreed the photo was 'likely' taken by her and contains her kitchen bench. Ms Patterson told the jury she loved mushrooms and would buy them one or two times a week. Supplied. Credit: Supplied Previously, the jury heard from mycologist Dr Tom May that the mushrooms pictured were 'consistent with amanita phalloides (death caps) at a high level of confidence'. Questioned on if she accepted the mushrooms pictured were death caps, Ms Patterson said: 'I don't think they are'. She also denied she had foraged these mushrooms in the nearby town of Loch on April 28 after seeing a death cap mushroom sighting post on citizen science website iNaturalist on April 18. Dr Rogers suggested the image recorded Ms Patterson weighing the mushrooms to calculate the 'weight required for the administration of a fatal dose'. 'Disagree,' Ms Patterson responded. The trial is being heard in the country Victorian town of Morwell. NewsWire / Josie Hayden Credit: News Corp Australia Mushroom cook tells jury she lied to health authorities because she was scared Ms Patterson said she first learned her in-laws had fallen ill the day after the lunch on a phone call with her estranged husband on July 30. The following day, she told the court, she attended the local Leongatha Hospital too seek treatment for gastro when the resident doctor, Dr Chris Webster, said 'we've been expecting you'. 'I think I said to him, 'Why? Why are you asking?', and he said that there's a concern or we're concerned you've been exposed to death cap mushrooms,' she said. 'I was shocked but confused as well … I didn't see how death cap mushrooms could be in the meal.' Crowds have lined up outside the court to sit in the public gallery. NewsWire/ David Crosling Credit: News Corp Australia Ms Patterson told the court she first began to suspect foraged mushrooms may have ended up in the lunch at Monash Medical Centre when Simon accused her of poisoning his parents. In his own evidence, at the start of the trial, Simon Patterson told the jury he did not say this to his wife. Ms Patterson told the jury on August 2, the day after her release from hospital, she disposed of her dehydrator at the Koonwarra Transfer Station. 'I was scared that they would blame me for it,' she said of the decision. 'Surely if you loved them (her in-laws) you would have notified health authorities about the possibility of the foraged mushrooms in the container?' Dr Rogers asked. 'Well I didn't,' Ms Patterson replied. 'I had been told people were getting treatment for possible death cap mushroom poisoning so that was already happening.' Erin Patterson appeared emotional at times on the stand. Brooke Grebert-Craig. Credit: Supplied Ms Patterson confirmed she did not notify anyone of her suspicions and lied to both police and health authorities in the following days by claiming she did not forage for mushrooms. She was taken to a series of messages exchanged with public health officer Sally Anne Atkinson, where Ms Patterson insisted the only mushrooms in the meal were from Woolworths and an Asian grocer. Asked what her state of mind was in relation to the Asian grocer, she said she 'still thought it was a possibility, but I knew it wasn't the only possibility.' Ms Patterson told the court she first learned of Heather and Gail's deaths as police searched her home on August 5 and continued to lie. 'It was this stupid knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying. I was just scared, but I shouldn't have done it,' she said. Simon's parents Don and Gail Patterson died a day apart in early August. Supplied Credit: Supplied Ms Patterson claims she vomited after deadly lunch Ms Patterson also told the jury she had long struggled with both her weight and relationships to food since childhood – describing it as a 'rollercoaster'. 'Mum would weigh us every week to make sure we weren't putting on too much weight … I went to the extreme of barely eating then to, through my adulthood, going the other way and bingeing,' she said. She told the court she had engaged in binge eating until she was sick then 'bringing it back up' since her 20s and no one knew. Erin Patterson legal team including Colin Mandy SC, Sophie Stafford and Bill Doogue. NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui Credit: News Corp Australia In the lead up to the July 29, 2023, lunch, Ms Patterson said she had been engaging in this behaviour 'two or three times a week'. She told the court that at the lunch with Don, Gail, Heather and Ian, she only ate some of her serving, but consumed about two-thirds of an orange cake after her guests left. 'I had a piece of cake and then another piece of cake and then another,' Ms Patterson said. 'I felt sick. I felt overfull, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again.' Ms Patterson is expected to return to the witness box and continue giving evidence when the trial resumes on Tuesday.
West Australian
3 hours ago
- West Australian
Erin Patterson trial: Four takeaways from alleged beef Wellington poisoner's week in the witness box
The Victorian mother-of-two at the centre of a mushroom poisoning case had the opportunity to tell her own story this week as she took the stand at her triple-murder trial. Erin Patterson, 50, is facing trial after pleading not guilty to the murders of her husband's parents and aunt, and the attempted murder of his uncle. Simon Patterson's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, died in the week after the lunch after falling ill from mushroom poisoning. Prosecutors alleged she deliberately poisoned the beef Wellington lunch on July 29, 2023, with death cap mushrooms intending to kill or seriously injure her four guests. Her defence, on the other hand, has argued the case is a 'tragic accident' and Ms Patterson also consumed the death caps and fell sick, though not as sick as her guests. Over five days this week Ms Patterson sat in the witness box about 7 m from the 14 jurors selected to hear her case, answering questions, firstly from her barrister Colin Mandy SC and then from Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC. Her opportunity to tell her own story came after the jury spent five weeks hearing from more than 50 witnesses for the prosecution as Ms Patterson sat in silence at the back of the Morwell courtroom. Mushroom cook agrees death caps in lunch may have been foraged In her testimony to the jury, Ms Patterson conceded death cap mushrooms 'must' have ended up in the beef Wellington lunch she prepared and served for the four guests. The morning of the lunch, she told the court, she started to prepare the duxelles, or mushroom paste, by cooking down two punnets of fresh sliced mushrooms she had purchased from Woolworths. 'So, as I was cooking it down, I tasted it a few times and it seemed a little bland to me, so I decided to put in the dried mushrooms that I'd bought from the grocer that I still had in the pantry,' she said. Ms Patterson told the jury she had purchased a packet of dried mushrooms in April the same year from an Asian supermarket in Melbourne, initially intending to use them for a pasta dish but deciding against that because they had a strong flavour. She said she now accepts it was possible she had stored wild mushrooms she foraged from her local area and dehydrated in the same Tupperware container. 'At that time, I believed it was just the mushrooms that I'd bought in Melbourne … Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well,' she said. Ms Patterson told the jury she first became interested in foraging for wild mushrooms during Covid and educated herself online. Over a period of months, she said she grew confident to identify 'field mushrooms and horse mushrooms' growing on her property before deciding to eat some. 'When I got to a point I was confident what they were, I cut a bit off, fried it up with butter, ate it and saw what happened,' she said. 'They tasted good and I didn't get sick.' Ms Patterson said she had purchased a dehydrator on April 28, 2023, to begin experimenting with preserving mushrooms because they had a short shelf life. Crown alleges photo shows Ms Patterson calculating 'fatal dose' Under questioning from Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC, Ms Patterson was taken to a photograph of sliced mushrooms on a dehydrator tray being weighed. The weight recorded was 280.0g and metadata from the photo showed it was last modified on May 4. Ms Patterson agreed the photo was 'likely' taken by her and contains her kitchen bench. Previously, the jury heard from mycologist Dr Tom May that the mushrooms pictured were 'consistent with amanita phalloides (death caps) at a high level of confidence'. Questioned on if she accepted the mushrooms pictured were death caps, Ms Patterson said: 'I don't think they are'. She also denied she had foraged these mushrooms in the nearby town of Loch on April 28 after seeing a death cap mushroom sighting post on citizen science website iNaturalist on April 18. Dr Rogers suggested the image recorded Ms Patterson weighing the mushrooms to calculate the 'weight required for the administration of a fatal dose'. 'Disagree,' Ms Patterson responded. Mushroom cook tells jury she lied to health authorities because she was scared Ms Patterson said she first learned her in-laws had fallen ill the day after the lunch on a phone call with her estranged husband on July 30. The following day, she told the court, she attended the local Leongatha Hospital too seek treatment for gastro when the resident doctor, Dr Chris Webster, said 'we've been expecting you'. 'I think I said to him, 'Why? Why are you asking?', and he said that there's a concern or we're concerned you've been exposed to death cap mushrooms,' she said. 'I was shocked but confused as well … I didn't see how death cap mushrooms could be in the meal.' Ms Patterson told the court she first began to suspect foraged mushrooms may have ended up in the lunch at Monash Medical Centre when Simon accused her of poisoning his parents. In his own evidence, at the start of the trial, Simon Patterson told the jury he did not say this to his wife. Ms Patterson told the jury on August 2, the day after her release from hospital, she disposed of her dehydrator at the Koonwarra Transfer Station. 'I was scared that they would blame me for it,' she said of the decision. 'Surely if you loved them (her in-laws) you would have notified health authorities about the possibility of the foraged mushrooms in the container?' Dr Rogers asked. 'Well I didn't,' Ms Patterson replied. 'I had been told people were getting treatment for possible death cap mushroom poisoning so that was already happening.' Ms Patterson confirmed she did not notify anyone of her suspicions and lied to both police and health authorities in the following days by claiming she did not forage for mushrooms. She was taken to a series of messages exchanged with public health officer Sally Anne Atkinson, where Ms Patterson insisted the only mushrooms in the meal were from Woolworths and an Asian grocer. Asked what her state of mind was in relation to the Asian grocer, she said she 'still thought it was a possibility, but I knew it wasn't the only possibility.' Ms Patterson told the court she first learned of Heather and Gail's deaths as police searched her home on August 5 and continued to lie. 'It was this stupid knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying. I was just scared, but I shouldn't have done it,' she said. Ms Patterson claims she vomited after deadly lunch Ms Patterson also told the jury she had long struggled with both her weight and relationships to food since childhood – describing it as a 'rollercoaster'. 'Mum would weigh us every week to make sure we weren't putting on too much weight … I went to the extreme of barely eating then to, through my adulthood, going the other way and bingeing,' she said. She told the court she had engaged in binge eating until she was sick then 'bringing it back up' since her 20s and no one knew. In the lead up to the July 29, 2023, lunch, Ms Patterson said she had been engaging in this behaviour 'two or three times a week'. She told the court that at the lunch with Don, Gail, Heather and Ian, she only ate some of her serving, but consumed about two-thirds of an orange cake after her guests left. 'I had a piece of cake and then another piece of cake and then another,' Ms Patterson said. 'I felt sick. I felt overfull, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again.' Ms Patterson is expected to return to the witness box and continue giving evidence when the trial resumes on Tuesday.
Herald Sun
15 hours ago
- Herald Sun
Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial: Erin Patterson two faces claim
Mushroom cook Erin Patterson had 'two faces' and was pretending to love her in-laws before she allegedly murdered them with a deadly beef wellington meal, a prosecutor has claimed. The mother of two has spent every day this week testifying in her own triple-murder trial and on Friday faced another grilling by Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC. Ms Patterson is standing trial in Morwell, accused of murdering her estranged husband's parents Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, along with Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66. The prosecution alleges she served them individual beef wellingtons she had deliberately laced with lethal death cap mushrooms at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023. Heather's husband, pastor Ian Wilkinson, 71, was the only guest to survive. Ms Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one of attempted murder, claiming she may have accidentally added foraged mushrooms into the meal along with dried mushrooms she purchased from an Asian grocer. Under cross-examination, Dr Rogers suggested Ms Patterson did not love Don and Gail, pointing to expletive-laden messages to her Facebook friends where she described them as a 'lost cause' and 'wanted nothing to do with them'. Dr Rogers asked: 'In fact, you had two faces: a public face of appearing to have a good relationship with Don and Gail … agree or disagree?' Ms Patterson replied: 'Are you asking me to agree if I had two faces?' When pressed again, she said: 'I had a good relationship with Don and Gail.' Dr Rogers asked: 'I suggest that your private face was the one you showed in your Facebook Messenger use, correct or incorrect?' She replied: 'Incorrect.' Ms Patterson also disagreed that she was angry they took their son Simon's side amid a child support dispute in December 2022. 'They did love me and I did love them. I do love them,' she told the Supreme Court. Dr Rogers put to Ms Patterson that if she 'had loved them' she would have immediately notified the authorities when she realised on August 1 there was 'possibility' foraged mushrooms were in a container with the dried mushrooms from the Asian grocer. 'Well I didn't … I had been told that people were getting treatment for possible death cap mushroom poisoning, so that was already happening,' she said. She confirmed she 'did not tell anybody' about that possibility. The court heard Ms Patterson invited the guests and Simon to lunch after a church service on July 16, with Simon testifying that she said to him she had some 'important medical news' to share and had invited everyone 'to discuss that topic'. 'No, that's not what I said to him,' Ms Patterson replied. 'That wasn't the purpose of the lunch or the purpose of the invitations.' Dr Rogers took her to the text she sent Simon after he pulled out of the lunch on July 28. 'That's really disappointing. I've spent many hours this week preparing lunch for tomorrow which has been exhausting in light of the issues I'm facing … I may not be able to host a lunch like this again for some time,' she wrote. After a series of rapid-fire questions, Ms Patterson said she did tell Simon she wanted to discuss some 'medical stuff', but she denied that she wanted advice and that it was the purpose of the lunch. The jury has previously heard she misled her guests when she told them she may need treatment for cancer, but she testified on Friday she was 'confronting' medical issues, since she was planning to have gastric bypass surgery. Ms Patterson denied she prepared a poisoned beef wellington for Simon 'just in case' he turned up at the lunch. 'And when he didn't show up for lunch … you threw it in your rubbish bin,' Dr Rogers said. 'I did put the pastry and mushrooms in the rubbish bin,' she replied. Dr Rogers also asked Ms Patterson why she invited the Wilkinsons to lunch. 'I really liked them and I wanted to have a stronger relationship with them,' she said. Dr Rogers suggested she invited them because she thought it would make it more likely that Don, Gail and Simon would come, but she denied that was the reason. Later, Ms Patterson was asked about records that showed a map about death caps – on citizen science website iNaturalist – was accessed on May 28, 2022, on a computer in her house. 'I don't have a specific memory of this day or this internet search, but my evidence is it's possible, because I remember at some point wanting to find out if death cap mushrooms grow in South Gippsland and finding out that they do not,' she said. Ms Patterson told the jury on Wednesday she found out mushrooms growing on her property were 'probably toxic to dogs' and she wanted to see if death caps grew in the area. The trial, before Justice Christopher Beale, continues.
