A Chinese woman who says a murdered West Vancouver millionaire was the father of her child has filed a lawsuit demanding that DNA that could establish paternity be preserved.
Xuan Yang filed the lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court Wednesday asking for a judge’s order preventing the Vancouver Police Department or the B.C. Coroners Office from destroying DNA from the murder victim.
Yang said in her lawsuit the DNA is needed to legally confirm that her infant daughter, born in California, is the child of Gang Yuan, a wealthy businessman who was murdered and dismembered in his British Properties mansion May 2.
She added that since Yuan’s body was reportedly chopped into 100 pieces, she doesn’t know where his body parts ended up or whether DNA tests were done before remains were turned over to his brother.
She has asked in her legal suit that any DNA samples be submitted by authorities to a laboratory of her choosing so that a paternity test can be performed.
Yuan, who was 42, died without a will and the question of who will inherit his estate — estimated by lawyers at $20-$28 million and by Yang at $50 million — hangs in the balance.
Yang said in the suit she is concerned DNA might be disposed of before she can establish her daughter’s legal claim.
According to court documents, Yang first met Yuan in Beijing, then again in the U.S., where they spent time in Las Vegas together, then travelled to Miami and eventually to Cancun over a period of several weeks. Yang said the pair had sex multiple times during that time, which is when her daughter was conceived.
In the court documents, Yang stated Yuan not only acknowledged the child as his during his life, he also flew to Beijing to meet Yang’s parents, paid for her to come to Vancouver and live with him when she was pregnant and paid for her to fly to Los Angeles and give birth there at a clinic that caters to foreigners who want to make sure their children have U.S. citizenship.
The lawsuit states evidence includes more than 250 pages of text messages in which the couple discuss the birth, his wish that she not get an abortion, exchanges of ultrasound images and discussions of their plans to have the child in the U.S.
Yang noted Yuan is also listed as the child’s father on the birth certificate. But Yang alleges in her lawsuit that Yuan’s brother — who is now executor of his estate — warned her following Yuan’s murder not to come to Vancouver and “not to speak of the claims to anyone.” Yang came to Vancouver anyway and called the brother, demanding that a DNA test be done.
According to the lawsuit, the brother said he’d arrange it, and told her to go to a laboratory in Burnaby. Yang said she took her daughter there to give a blood sample, but added when she left the lab she was “contacted immediately by the brother and told to go back to China and not speak of the test or her daughter’s claims to anyone.”
Yang became suspicious that authorities that had custody of Yuan’s body following the murder hadn’t supplied the comparison DNA sample.
She sought advice from a lawyer who later confirmed the brother had supplied the sample.
Yang also claims that subsequently, after she cut off contact with the brother, he called her mother in Beijing and said Yuan’s remains had already been cremated.
Yang claims the conduct of the brother is “highly questionable,” noting that if a child’s paternity can be proven, under British Columbia estate law, that child stands to inherit Yuan’s multimillion-dollar estate. If no paternity can be proven, the brother will likely inherit the estate. “The brother then stands to gain access to a $50-million estate by disproving the infant’s claim,” according to the lawsuit.
Mark Thompson, lawyer for Gang Yuan’s brother, refused to comment on the case, saying he’d been asked not to say anything further. The day before, Thompson told a Province reporter that Yuan had at least one child and possibly as many as five. Thompson added one of those children has had a DNA test that confirms paternity. Thompson didn’t say whether that test result came from Yang’s daughter or another child.
Li Zhao, the husband of Yuan’s cousin, has been charged with second-degree murder and interfering in human remains in Yuan’s killing. He is in custody, pending a bail hearing.
The lawsuit to establish paternity is the latest twist in legal battles that have erupted among family members since the grisly murder.
On May 15, Yuan’s brother Qiang Yuan filed a lawsuit against Zhao and his wife Xiao Mei Li, claiming that the $5.8-million British Properties mansion all three lived in belonged to Yuan, even though it was registered in the names of Zhao and Li.
— with files from The Province
