Niece remembers murder victim's generosity

Xiukun Feng

A week ago today, Mt Wellington woman Xiukun Feng got into her husband's car with her niece Truly and drove into the city.

She dropped Truly off at a part-time job then went to New Lynn to open the doors of her massage parlour, Night Pearl.

There was nothing extraordinary about the morning - except that it was to be her last.

Sometime in the early hours of the following morning Ms Feng was murdered.

Her body was found in her car, which was parked in The Warehouse carpark at New Lynn.

A week later, Ms Feng's niece has no idea who would want to kill the woman who was like a mother to her in recent years.

Truly is still struggling to come to grips with the murder.

"It's unbelievable," she told the Herald in her only interview with English media.

Truly said she came to stay with Ms Feng, a close friend of her mother, about 3 1/2 years ago.

In that time Ms Feng had been a wonderful caregiver - cooking, cleaning and washing up after her without complaint. She had also done the same for a nephew staying with the family.

"She was so generous," said Truly, who recalls many shopping trips financed by her aunt.

She also remembers many family holidays, the most recent at Christmas when Ms Feng and her husband, Kerry Peterson, took the teenagers to the Bay of Islands.

In between chores and caring for her family, Ms Feng worked hard.

She put in long hours at her massage parlour, often arriving at 10am and not leaving until 2am the next day.

Police have yet to find some of the staff who worked at the parlour and need to talk to them to clarify the order of events on Friday night.

Based on Ms Feng's normal routine, they believe she would have closed up about 2am on Saturday.

Investigators are trying to establish what happened from there and how her body ended up in the back seat of her car in a nearby carpark.

Echoing police calls for help from the public, Truly is urging anyone with information about the case to contact police.

A special hotline has been set up with an Asian liaison police officer answering the calls.

He can interpret for any members of the Chinese community with information to share.

What happened

* Friday: Xiukun Feng is at the New Lynn massage parlour.
* Saturday: Ms Feng is believed to have closed the business about 2am. A security guard spots a person in a car at the New Lynn Warehouse carpark about 4am.
* Sunday 1am: The guard sees the car parked in same spot. He checks and calls police. The body of Ms Feng is found.
* Information hotline (with multilingual speaker) 839-0623.