Murder-accused admitted chopping up wife, court told

An Auckland man bashed his wife dozens of times with a meat cleaver before caving her head in with a hammer and knifing her, the High Court in Auckland was told today.

By the time Zeshen Zhou, 35, wielded the knife, Shunlian Huang, 24, was probably dead, said crown prosecutor John Dixon opening the murder case against Zhou before a jury of seven men and five women.

Zhou has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murdering his wife.

Mr Dixon said Zhou could not handle the fact that his marriage was ending -- "So he killed her."

Mr Dixon said that in the weeks leading up to Shunlian Huang's death on September 1 last year the couple had spoken of separating and the day she died they had talked to a real estate agent about selling their house.

"Within a matter of hours she was dead," Mr Dixon said.

Mr Dixon said Zhou took the meat cleaver and used it "dozens of times on her head, her neck, her shoulders and her forearms as she desperately but hopelessly tried to fend him off."

Zhou used the hammer to cave in the back of her skull, Mr Dixon said, and then knifed her dozens of times in her neck and chest, perhaps after she was dead.

Mr Dixon said it was a relentless, fatal attack by a heavily-armed man on a much smaller woman.

Police say Zhou admitted the killing when they arrived.

"He said, 'I chopped up my wife'," Mr Dixon told the court.

Mr Dixon told the jury they would hear from witnesses that the dead woman did not like Zhou gambling and he had not had a job for several years. They would also hear her family did not like him but accepted him because she loved him.

Shortly before she died the couple had gone to a money machine to check their account balances and she had told him if it was overdrawn their marriage was over.

Their joint account had a credit balance of $44 and Zhou's personal account was $1000 overdrawn.

They went to their Papatoetoe home and shortly after neighbours heard loud noises and screams and called the police.

The trial before Judge Judith Potter is expected to last all week and possibly into next week.

- NZPA