A mother has broken down in court as she confronted the man who murdered her daughter and dumped her body in a wheelie bin.
Joon Seong Tan was last week found guilty by a jury of killing Ju ‘Kelly’ Zhang in her Epping home in Melbourne’s north on February 2, 2021.
Tan had believed Zhang, his girlfriend of only one month, was cheating on him with another man.
After killing her, Tan moved the mother-of-one’s body to a wheelie bin, driving it to Heidelberg West and placing it with other bins for collection.
Zhang’s body was found by police during a search of a Wollert landfill site in June 2021.
She had suffered at least one stab wound to her heart.
During a pre-sentence hearing on Wednesday, Zhang’s mother Renqun Li told the Supreme Court her daughter was a studious woman who should have had a bright future ahead of her.
When they found out their daughter was missing, Li and her husband Xiaoyou Zhang dropped everything in China, using donations from friends to get to Melbourne.
The day they found out their daughter was dead was a like a stab to the heart, Li said.
“We often wonder why God is so cruel, why he let us lose our only child when we’re entering elderly age,” she told the court through a Mandarin interpreter.
Zhang’s young son Jack still calls out for his mother, having persistent nightmares.
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“The dark cloud of having lost his mum will always be hanging over him,” Li said.
The mother called on Justice Mandy Fox to hand down a severe punishment to Tan, noting their only child was killed for his own selfish means.
“We hope in the end justice will prevail over evil and justice will be given to our family,” she said.
Li pointed at Tan and yelled “you bastard” in Mandarin as she finished reading her victim impact statement.
She then broke down into heavy sobs and had to leave the court room before two workers from the Wollert tip read their statements.
Harry Taylor, the site’s landfill manager, was one of the men who helped lift Zhang’s body out of the tip.
“My team was exulted and depressed,” he told the court
“We were glad we had found her but depressed the young lad was without his mother.”
Tan’s barrister will make his submissions this afternoon.
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