Auckland businesswoman Elizabeth Zhong, 55, wad found dead in the boot of her Land Rover in November 2020. Photo / Supplied
Auckland businesswoman Elizabeth Zhong, 55, wad found dead in the boot of her Land Rover in November 2020. Photo / Supplied
On the day that Auckland businesswoman Elizabeth Zhong went missing, close friend Wendy Wu had rushed to the 55-year-old's East Auckland house after she didn't answer the phone - finding blood spots on the Zhong's bedroom wall.
Moments later, she told a jury in the High Court at Auckland, she noticed her friend's entire CCTV system - secreted away in a cupboard underneath the stairs - had gone missing.
Wu's emotional testimony started yesterday and continued this morning at the murder trial of Fang Sun, a former business partner of Zhong's who prosecutors have described as having been furious after believing Zhong caused him and his family to lose more than $25 million.
Wu, who referred to her friend as "Elder Sister Zhong", had taken on a role of unofficial caregiver in the four weeks prior to the disappearance - ever since Zhong had attempted suicide one day after being declared bankrupt in court. She would often stop by the house or spend the night with her. But Wu hadn't stayed the night on November 27, 2020, because she wanted to attend prize-giving at her daughter's school.
The next morning she was planning to stop by with a slice of banana cake for her friend when she realised something was wrong, she testified.
"It was very weird about her phone," she recalled. "I called her five to six, seven to eight times and it was like the phone was turned off - I cannot reach her."
After the suicide attempt, Wu had told her friend that she would drop everything and rush to her friend if ever she didn't answer after three calls.
"I need to go to her house, right now," she told her husband and daughter.
Fang Sun is on trial for murder in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig
Wu, her husband and their daughter dropped by their own home to grab the key to Zhong's house before entering through Zhong's locked front door, she recalled. When they couldn't find her, her daughter and husband suggested that maybe she had gone shopping.
But it didn't feel right, and so they went upstairs again, she said.
"Mom, look at this," her daughter said. "There are blood spots on the wall here."
They decided to call the police after noticing the CCTV equipment, which her husband had previously helped Zhong install, was missing.
"We all believed that she attempted suicide again, so we reported a missing person," Wu said.
It was later that afternoon that police, having spotted Zhong's blood-smeared Land Rover parked on the side of the road in the same neighbourhood where both she and the defendant lived, decided to break into the vehicle. Inside the boot, they found Zhong wrapped in a blanket.
She had been stabbed more than 20 times, so violently that she was nearly decapitated, prosecutors have previously said, adding that the violent confrontation did not appear to be motivated by burglary.
Wu's husband, Matthew Pickering, testified after his wife about the weeks between the suicide attempt and Zhong's death. Upon describing the family's arrival at Zhong's house on the day she disappeared, Pickering's voice quivered as he choked back emotion.
"When we got there I stood back again. Wendy went in the house first," he explained. "It's because I didn't want a repeat [of discovering a suicide attempt], so I made an excuse to go into the garage to check if the car was there."
He was also asked to watch a series of short cellphone videos taken from inside a car behind his own as he dropped off Zhong at the airport earlier that month. In the video, he hugged Zhong goodbye and handed over her silver suitcase, which prosecutors said her body would later be stuffed into as her killer removed her body from her house.
