WARNING: This story contains graphic content.
A man accused of second-degree murder in the killing of a West Vancouver millionaire described how he tried to dispose of the victim’s body and clean the scene of blood and other evidence in a videotaped police statement.
Li Zhao, 56, is on trial before Justice Terence Schultes in B.C. Supreme Court for murdering his wife’s cousin, 42-year-old Gang Yuan at the British Properties home they shared, and interfering with human remains by chopping up Yuan’s body.
In an English translation of a videotaped statement played in court Friday and Monday, Zhao described how his wife and mother-in-law returned from a walk shortly after he shot Yuan with a rifle in the driveway.
“They were horrified,” he said to the Richmond police officer who was conducting the interview in Mandarin. “They were so horrified. ... I felt they were going to break down, going to lose their mind.”
“So I told them to hurry and leave, hurry and leave. This has nothing to do with you.”
After the women left, Zhao said, “I dragged, dragged Yuan Gang to the garage. ... I saw so much blood. Then I did the cleaning.”
Zhao said he wasn’t sure how to dispose of Yuan’s body.
Zhao told the officer he used an electrical saw to cut up Yuan’s body, then put the body parts into a black plastic bag in the garage.
At one point that evening, an employee described as a “nanny” came home and “she saw my hands full of blood,” said Zhao.
Zhao said the nanny couldn’t see Yuan’s body because a vehicle in the garage was blocking her view. Zhao said the nanny assumed he had gone hunting.
“I said yes, I hunted a bear,” said Zhao. He said he told the woman to take the rest of the day off.
Zhao said afterwards, he washed the saw in the kitchen sink, along with a hunting knife and the hammer the two men had fought over in the driveway.
He said he put the gun he shot Yuan with back in the gun cabinet inside the house.
He also told the police officer he’d thrown the spent bullet casings into the backyard.
Zhao said in the statement that he’d gone to sleep for a while after cleaning up, then got up, had a shower and made himself some noodles.
But at that point the phone rang multiple times, he said. When he eventually answered, it was the police, telling him to come outside.
At one point during the interview, the police officer taking the statement asked Zhao in Mandarin if he had thought of calling 911 during the incident.
“I was very scared,” said Zhao. Zhao said he decided to “leave it to fate.”
Earlier in the statement, Zhao described how Yuan had offered to give him a 50 per cent share in a joint venture company if Zhao would let Yuan marry his daughter. The two men fought, and Zhao said he’d shot Yuan in the driveway with a rifle.
At one point during the interview, Zhao told the officer a lawyer had told him not to say anything.
The videotaped statement was played during a voir dire, a legal procedure held to determine if evidence should be admitted during the trial.
Defence lawyer Ian Donaldson has told Schultes he will argue that the statement should not be admitted while Crown prosecutor Kristin Bryson will argue it should be admitted.
The trial continues.
