Murder victim's meal with mystery man

Xiukun Feng ran this massage parlour in New Lynn. Picture / Greg Bowker

Just over a week ago Xiukun Feng was laughing, drinking wine and enjoying dinner at one of her favourite Chinese restaurants.

Sitting in pink chairs at a corner table with a New Zealand man she had recently met, the 54-year-old and her companion seemed genuinely happy.

"They were quite satisfied that night," recalls the restaurant owner, a man who wants to be known only as Mark.

That special dinner was to be one of Ms Feng's last. Three days later she was found dead.

Mark and his wife say they have no idea what prompted someone to kill Ms Feng, a good friend they knew as Nancy.

"However big [a problem] is you should not kill someone, especially Nancy, because she was very nice to people and always considered others," said Mark.

The Chinese-born woman is believed to have come to New Zealand more than six years ago, and had since married. She is understood to have left behind an ex-husband and grown son who works in China as a policeman.

Soon after Ms Feng arrived in New Zealand a business deal she was working on turned sour and she lost money.

With few skills to offer prospective employees, Ms Feng turned to the sex industry, Mark said.

It was through her work, in the Night Pearl massage parlour next to the restaurant, that Mark and his wife first met Ms Feng several years ago. While they did not approve of her line of work, the couple say they often spoke and the trio became friends.

Mark and his wife paint a picture of Ms Feng as a generous woman who was fair to others, ethical in her business dealings and spoke fondly of her husband, an accounts clerk called Kerry Peterson, whom she married in 1999.

Mr Peterson would not talk to the Weekend Herald, but a niece who lived with the couple in their Mt Wellington home described Ms Feng as a great housewife and caregiver.

In the early days of their marriage, Mark said, Mr Peterson used to drive to New Lynn to pick his wife up after work each night.

More recently, however, that pattern had changed and Ms Feng drove herself to work.

In the past month, Mark said, she stopped going home some nights and instead stayed with a Chinese man who had given her bracelets and necklaces worth $1000.

Mark said Ms Feng and the Chinese man had seen a lot of each other in the past month, but much of that was spent quarrelling.

She was having problems with a group of young people outside her business, Mark said.

Recently, a young man was refused services because he was underage. Angered, he and his friends banged on the doors before going to the rear of the massage parlour and smashing a window.

But by late last week there was no sign of the troubles that had been dogging Ms Feng for the past few weeks.

On Thursday night, Ms Feng enjoyed a feast of sweet and sour hot boiled chicken, bean curd with prawns and egg and chicken sweetcorn soup with a New Zealand man she had recently met at a New Lynn bar.

At the end of the meal Ms Feng insisted on paying, as she always did when dining with friends. The man was last seen leaving the Night Pearl. Police want to talk to him.

Ms Feng's mother-in-law recalls watching her leave home the following morning. She seemed her normal self, she said, not concerned about anything.

Ms Feng then dropped her niece in town and made her daily trip across town to work.

During the day there were problems with the power and she called an electrician. Later that evening she returned to the restaurant to order some takeaways and that was the last time Mark and his wife ever saw her.

Her body was found about 1am last Sunday in the back of her husband's car in The Warehouse carpark nearby. She had been there nearly 24 hours.

Police are talking to former associates, colleagues and friends of Ms Feng.

The investigation has so far involved extensive searches at the refuse station and in nearby creeks and walkways.

A specialist search team is looking for Ms Feng's red handbag, watch, key ring and Samsung phone, which are believed to have been with her at the time of the murder.

Police refuse to say what head injuries she sustained or if a weapon was involved. They are also unsure of the exact time and location of her death.

They continue to gather information from friends and family through interpreters in the hope the key to Ms Feng's murder may laid hidden in someone's translated statement.