Crown prosecutor Gareth Kayes gave graphic detail of Elizabeth Zhong's murder as the prosecution gave it's closing statements in the trial. Video / Pool
A millionaire investor from China who stabbed to death Auckland business partner Elizabeth Zhong amid a heated court battle over control of their failing company will have to serve at least 18 years and six months of his life sentence before he can apply for parole.
Fang Sun returned to the High Court at Auckland today - two months after a jury found him guilty of murder - as Justice Neil Campbell determined his minimum term of imprisonment.
"Your offending involved calculated planning," the judge said, describing the murder as "brutal and callous to a very high degree".
"It was anything but impulse," he said.
"You left Ms Zhong without any dignity, even in death."
Auckland businesswoman Elizabeth Zhong, 55, was found dead in November 2020. Photo / Supplied
During a six-week trial that lasted from April to June, prosecutor Gareth Kayes said Sun believed Zhong had misappropriated money from their business, Sunbow Ltd, and he blamed her for causing more than $26 million worth of financial losses to him and his family. The two were once so close he at times lived in a guest bedroom of her house, but he would later tell a private investigator that she had ruined his life.
Zhong, 55, denied misappropriation during the year-long civil battle prior to her death. She was never charged with a crime.
Sun's attempt to wrestle control of their business ventures while she desperately tried to keep them afloat - often using her own money - contributed to their eventual failure, witnesses said during the trial. Zhong told multiple people, including the police, that she was fearful because Sun had threatened her life.
Fang Sun appeared at Manukau District Court in February 2021 after he was charged with Elizabeth Zhong's murder. Photo / Alex Burton
Prosecutors said Sun was so furious over the financial hit that he broke into Zhong's Sunnyhills home around 4am on November 28, 2020, and brutally attacked her in her bedroom.
Zhong was stabbed more than 20 times, so violently that she was nearly decapitated, before her body was stuffed into a suitcase and transferred to the boot of her Land Rover. Police found her body that evening inside the blood-smeared SUV, which had been left on the side of the road in the East Auckland neighbourhood where she and Sun both lived.
A tracking device that Sun's private investigator illegally placed underneath Zhong's SUV would later reveal to police that the vehicle was parked near Sun's home for 15 minutes and 18 seconds on the morning of the murder before it was moved to where her body was later found.
Zhong's adult daughter, who continues to have name suppression, stood at the opposite end of the courtroom today as she addressed Sun with a victim impact statement. She described her mum as "always soft, warm and glowing" and the best mother she could have had.
Elizabeth Zhong's daughter, who has name suppression, speaks to media outside the High Court at Auckland after Fang Sun was found guilty of murder in June. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
"I felt extremely hurt and confused because I believe my mum genuinely treated [Sun] with kindness," she said, explaining that she still struggles to come to terms with the death.
"Every time we think about how much my mum suffered in her last moments, we're truly devastated...He literally took the rug from under my feet and turned my life upside down."
The pain was made worse by the "relentless suffocation" caused by media coverage of the high-profile case, she said.
"I couldn't say anything publicly because I didn't want to jeopardise the police investigation," she said. "I have held my tongue back too many times."
Even more difficult, she said through tears, has been seeing the situation through the eyes of her children, who were 1 and 4 years old when their grandmother was killed. Her daughter, who considered Zhong her best friend, cries when another child's grandmother comes to read at her daycare, she said.
"I don't know how an adult is supposed to explain murder to a 4-year-old."
Elizabeth Zhong's Sunnyhills home is forensically examined in 2020. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Justice Campbell thanked the woman for her statement, adding: "Your mother would be very proud of you."
While determining the length of Sun's minimum period of imprisonment, Justice Campbell said he accepted that Sun should be given credit for previous good behaviour and for taking "a cooperative approach" during the trial that resulted in 40 witnesses not needing to be called. Sun also showed some empathy for Zhong and her family when interviewed for a pre-sentence report, but he can't receive credit for remorse while maintaining his innocence, the judge said.
Defence lawyer Sam Wimsett acknowledged that there's "little can be said" when his client maintains his innocence despite the guilty verdict.
