Student stabbed girlfriend 75 times in drug-induced rage: court

An international student who stabbed his girlfriend 75 times before leaping four floors from a Sydney apartment unit will spend the next decade behind bars for her murder.

Wejie “Jack” He was on Friday sentenced to 20 years behind bars with a non-parole period of 13 years after pleading guilty to murder.

Sydney’s Supreme Court was told the Chinese national stabbed 19-year-old Liqun Pan 75 times in the “face, neck, and upper limbs” at a Wolli Creek apartment on June 27, 2020.

The 24-year-old left the unit and after attempting to “slice his wrist” in the stairwell leapt from the balcony, leaving him with lifelong injuries.

In her sentencing, Justice Julia Lily Ann Lonergan said the “abject terror and agony she (Ms Liqun) must have experienced during the attack is unimaginable”.

She said there were indicators the attack was “directed at Ms Liqun in part because of (Wejie’s) own unjustified dissatisfaction … failures and inadequacies”.

Much of the proceedings focused on Wejie’s culpability given evidence of “drug induced psychosis”, with claims he consumed 250 canisters of “nangs” in two-days.

Ultimately, Ms Lonergan said influence of the nitrous oxide canisters was only a partially mitigating factor given “his repeated use and abuse” of the drug.

“(Wejie) was in self-inflicted, transient drug-induced psychosis … and in that state he directed his rage to Ms Liqun, killing her in a frenzied and merciless attack,” she said.

Also taken into account were Wejie’s lifelong injuries as a result of the fall, which included ongoing short-term memory problems and use of a wheelchair.

Justice Lonergan told the court Wejie first met Ms Liqun in Shanghai, China and that she had emigrated to Australia in October 2018 to be with the university student.

In sentencing, she detailed “evidence of coercive control” in the relationship, including a contract written by Wejie dictating Ms Liqun’s actions on a trip to China in 2019.

“It included, amongst other things, that Ms Liqun should ‘get rid of acne, not drink, not go to bars or clubs, or do anything with people of the opposite sex’,” she said.

“’Violation of any of the above rules will be regarded as crossing the line and will indicate the disappearance of love and the fact that he no longer matters. End of relationship’.”

The court was told Wejie described Ms Liqun as “obedient and pretty” and that she “dared not oppose” him, but that issues had arisen in the couple’s relationship.

Wejie told his mother he would “beat her up” if Ms Liqun didn’t do her chores and that he’d become angry because of a relationship she’d had with an older man.

In a victim impact statement recounted by Justice Lonergan, Ms Liqun’s father Pan described the “devastation” wrought by her death and the “torture of unspeakable grief”.

“Liqun is remembered by her father as a person who embraced this world with kindness and affection … she should have experienced the best time in her life,” she said.

The court was told Wejie’s parents – retired journalists in China – were recorded by police coaching him in what to tell officers, including “how to let people believe your story”.

“His parents and uncle encouraged the offender (Wejie) to assert he had no memory of the events and to say someone else was responsible, which in effect he did,” she said.

Justice Lonergan went on to described how Wejie’s parents instructed him to talk about Ms Liqun and the events, but said by way of his plea the assertions were clearly untrue.

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