Emily Ansell: Newstalk ZB reporter on the opening of the Yanfei Bao murder trial

Christchurch real estate agent, Yanfei Bao reportedly knew the man accused of murdering her.

Chinese national Tingjun Cao's trial began today - he's accused of killing the 44-year-old in July last year.

Her body was found in a shallow grave on a farm, just over a year after she disappeared.

Newstalk ZB's Emily Ansell is at the High Court.

She says Cao was new to the country, and it appears Bao was helping him find a job.

"And the Crown viewed that Cao had potentially lured Bao to a house for sale on Trevor Street - and it was there the Crown says she was assaulted." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the murder trial in the case of the real
estate agent who was killed Jan Feibao has started in
the High Court in christ Church today. The Crown says
that Tinjun Choo murdered Bell. He denies it. Newstalk ZB
reporter Emily Ansel has been in court today. Emily, Hello, Hello, Emily.
We don't actually know very much about this guy. We
don't know very much about what his motive might have been.

(00:20):
Has the Crown said anything about it today?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Es? They have today. We all went in a little
bit blind. But the Crown's opening address from Prosecutor Cameron Stewart,
they said that he said that both Bao and Cow
knew each other through exchanges on the Chinese messaging at
Lui Tat. It appeared Thoo was helping Cal find Choo sorry,
find a job. There needs to have been in New
Zealand for a few months. And the Crown then argued

(00:46):
that Choo had potentially lured Boo to a house for
sale on Trevors Street, which he said he was interested
in seeing and she said was available. It's there that
the Crown say she was assaulted. That's what we heard
sort of so far about their relationship. However, one thing
to note is miss Stewart said the Crown doesn't actually
need to prove motives here. However, her remains suggested, or

(01:09):
a photo rather that they found on mister Chelesbone suggested
there may have been a sexual element based on this
photo which is of a body of a female.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Okay, now it took them that this is the police.
It took them more than a year to actually find
her body, and eventually they found her in a shallow grave.
Do we know how they managed to find her?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
We do now know a little bit more so. Yeah,
as you say, the grave is pretty shallow, just fifteen
centimeters along a tree line of private farmland that farmland
had already been searching. So the difference here or the
discovery was to do with the break through on miss
Spell's phone. The phone itself was only sort of partially
looked at or investigated or able to be extracted initially

(01:52):
by police because of a protective pin number, But then
this was figured out a few months before her body
was found, and from there they were able to actual
data such as Apple health data, which ended up recording
the exact number of steps taken by the person with
her phone after she was last seen across the farmland
and around that tree line area where she was found,

(02:13):
so that was a pretty significant development.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Emily, thank you for running us through. Emily Ansel, News
Talk Ziba Reporter.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news Talk zb from four pm weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.