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Joon Seong Tan, 38, was last week found guilty by a jury of killing Ju ‘Kelly’ Zhang in her Epping home in Melbourne’s north on February 2, 2021.
Tan had believed Zhang, his girlfriend of only one month, was cheating on him with another man so he killed her while her eight-year-old son was in another room.
He then cleaned up and moved Zhang’s body first to a laundry cupboard and then a wheelie bin.
Tan drove the bin to Heidelberg West where he placed it with other bins for collection.
The following morning, after driving Zhang’s son to school, he returned and watched the garbage truck empty the bin, before going back to Zhang’s home where he reported her missing.
It took police four months to find Zhang’s body at a Wollert landfill site.
She had suffered at least one stab wound to her heart.
During a pre-sentence hearing on Wednesday, Zhang’s mother Renqun Li told the Supreme Court her daughter was a studious woman who should have had a bright future ahead of her.
When they found out their daughter was missing, Li and her husband Xiaoyou Zhang dropped everything in China, using donations from friends to get to Melbourne.
For months, they believed she had been kidnapped and they would see their daughter alive again but they never did.
“We often wonder why God is so cruel, why he let us lose our only child when we’re entering elderly age,” she told the court through a Mandarin interpreter.
Zhang’s young son Jack still calls out for his mother, having persistent nightmares.
In his victim impact statement, the now-10-year-old told the court he felt alone and afraid without her.
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Li called on Justice Mandy Fox to hand down a severe punishment to Tan, noting their only child was killed for his own selfish means.
“We hope in the end justice will prevail over evil and justice will be given to our family,” she said.
Li pointed at Tan and yelled “you bastard” in Mandarin as she finished reading her victim impact statement.
She then broke down into heavy sobs and had to leave the court room before two workers from the Wollert tip read their statements.
Harry Taylor, the site’s landfill manager, described feeling both elated and depressed when he lifted Zhang’s small body from the mud-soaked garbage.
The tip’s risk manager Christopher Smith choked back tears, saying his team felt grief for a woman they never met.
“(Tan) could have saved so many from unnecessary pain and anguish,” he said.
Tan’s barrister Greg Hughan said his client was moved by the emotional statements and he now admitted he murdered Zhang.
The 38-year-old claims Zhang had a knife by her bed and she grabbed it first while they were having an argument about their children, the barrister said.
Hughan submitted the admission showed Tan had accepted responsibility for his crimes and he would not lodge an appeal on his conviction.
“He doesn’t want to perpetuate the grief,” the barrister said.
But Justice Fox said she would not accept Tan’s version of events, saying his admission did not demonstrate evidence of remorse.
Tan will be sentenced at a later date.
