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Not guilty plea... Robert Xie being led into Supreme Court. Picture: Adam Taylor
THE two children murdered by the Lin family killer were most likely “collateral victimsâ€, slain after hearing their parents and aunt being attacked by an assailant “driven by intense bitterness and hatredâ€, a jury has been told today.
The state’s senior Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC began his closing address to the jury who have heard the seven months of evidence against murder accused Robert Xie by remarking “you probably thought this day would never come.â€
Xie, 51, has pleaded not guilty to five charges of murder and denies being responsible for killing the members of his extended family in the bedrooms of their North Epping home in the early hours of July 18, 2009.
Newsagent Min Lin, his wife Lily, their two sons Henry and Terry and Lily’s sister Irene were bashed to death with a hammer that had a piece of muslin attached to it. Four of the five victims were also asphyxiated.
The first topic being explored in the prosecution closing address is the crime scene and “what it tells us about the killer.â€
Accused Robert Xie being led out of a prison vanSource:News Corp Australia
“Whoever killed these five people was able to manoeuvre himself around the house in the dark without any electricity,†Mr Tedeschi said.
He said there was evidence Henry and Terry Lin, as well as Irene, were “collateral victims...not the intended victims†of the killer, as their faces were not left “disfigured†or bodies placed “in a
humiliating position†as the newsagent and his wife had been.
The jury heard Irene had suffered “much more extensive defensive
injuries than the others.â€
“Min and Lily were the primary victims of this killer,†Mr Tedeschi said, adding it is likely Irene heard Min and Lily being attacked first.
The jury heard Henry and Terry then most likely woke up to the sounds of their parents and aunt being attacked, and that Terry, aged just
nine years old, had been chased around the room by the killer before he died.
The Crown allege the family members were killed in order of the risk they posed to their murderer.
There was “not a single fingerprint in blood†left by anyone other than the victims, Mr Tedeschi said, saying the killer had worn gloves.
“The killer gained entry for the purpose of attacking the victims,†he said.
“This was not a robbery gone wrong...there was no sexual interference
with the two female victims...the entry was with the specific intention of killing.â€
The closing addresses are continuing before Justice Elizabeth Fullerton.