Unveiling the Evidence of the Epping Murder

Blood in Xie's garage matches Lin's, court hears

The man accused of the 2009 Lin family killings, Robert Xie, left a single blood spot in his garage that had virtually identical characteristics to blood from one of the five victims, a court has heard.

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In his opening address to magistrate John Andrews in Central Local Court this morning, Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC, outlined key pieces of evidence in the Crown case, including the discovery of the small patch of blood in Mr Xie's garage.

"That blood profile has been compared to Y [chromosome] profiles in databases around the world," Mr Tedeschi said.

"That profile has been found to match only one person in the 40,000 profiles. That person is Min Lin himself."

Mr Tedeschi also said that very similar mixes of the victim's blood were found at the crime scene.

"There is only one way that a mix of blood so similar could have got into his garage. That is because [Mr Xie] is responsible for the murder of the five people in his brother-in-law's house."

He also said that, early on the morning after the killings, Mr Xie had woken early and cleaned his garage, something which he "would never normally have done".(20.8.2012 SMH)

'Somebody's killed my brother's family'

The wife of Robert Xie, the man accused of murdering the Lin family, made a hysterical triple-0 call after finding the bodies of his alleged victims in their North Epping home, telling the operator: "I think someone's killed my brother's family."

Kathy Lin, 41, broke down in Central Local Court today as a recording of the emergency call was played during Mr Xie's committal hearing over the 2009 deaths.

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The next day Ms Lin and her husband went to the house in Boundary Road to check on the family and Ms Lin found her relatives lying dead in their beds.

In a frantic, tearful phone call to triple-0, Ms Lin is heard saying: "I need an ambulance! I need an ambulance!"

The operator responds, "Why do you need an ambulance, what's wrong?"

Ms Lin then says: "I think somebody's killed. I think somebody's killed my brother's family."

The 41-year-old is then heard pleading with someone in Cantonese in the background. The prosecution is expected to allege that that person was Mr Xie, who had allegedly told his wife that he was going to leave.

Mr Xie also sobbed as the recording was played, covering his face with a handkerchief.

When asked by the Crown prosecutor, Mark Tedeschi, QC, with whom she was pleading, Ms Lin said: "I can't remember" and then "I was scared."

When Mr Tedeschi pressed the question, Mr Xie's barrister, Graham Turnbull, SC, objected, accusing the prosecutor of "cross-examining the witness". (21.8.2012 SMH)

Wife of accused Lin family killer denies he left her at scene

THE man accused of the 2009 Lin family murders, Robert Xie, left his wife at the crime scene as she made a frantic triple-0 call seeking help for her dead relatives, ignoring her desperate pleas for him to stay, a court has heard.

But the woman at the centre of the claims - Kathy Lin - denied this yesterday, telling the court that, far from being abandoned, she had asked her husband to leave. 

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During fraught and at times heated testimony by Ms Lin yesterday, her hysterical triple-0 call following the discovery of her relative's bodies was played to the court.

After a stilted exchange with the operator - in which Ms Lin says frantically: ''I think somebody's killed my brother's family'' - she can be heard shouting at someone in Cantonese.

A car engine is heard and the call ends abruptly.

Reading from a translated transcript of the call, the Crown Prosecutor, Mark Tedeschi, QC, put it to Ms Lin she had begged her husband to stay until the police arrived.

''You said to your husband, 'Stay here, stay here - wait', in a desperate tone,'' Mr Tedeschi said. ''I want to suggest to you that the reason you said that was that you were scared … I suggest that … you had just found some bodies inside the house and you were scared that you might be in danger yourself.

''I suggest that while you were asking your husband to stay with you that he drove away.''

But Ms Lin denied this, claiming under oath that she was scared, not for her own safety, but because she was worried she would be unable to communicate properly with the triple-0 operator and police.

She said that, rather than asking her husband to stay, she had ''asked him to pick up my parents and then come back''.

Mr Tedeschi also put it to Ms Lin that, following a series of interviews with the NSW Crime Commission some months after the murders, she had tipped her husband off about an aspect of the police investigation, namely, whether the bloodied footprints at the crime scene matched his running shoes. Ms Lin said she ''wasn't sure'' whether she had told him about this.

The court was then played video footage from the couple's home taken by hidden police cameras soon after Ms Lin's last Crime Commission interview which allegedly showed Mr Xie cutting up shoe boxes, placing the pieces in a bucket of water, and taking them into the toilet.

Ms Lin initially said she couldn't remember this happening, but when showed the footage said: ''It's not shoe boxes … just something … '' (22.8.2012 SMH)

Lin deaths: husband was in bed with me, wife tells court

The wife of the man accused of killing the Lin family in 2009 has told a Sydney court that, to her knowledge, he was in bed with her on the night the killings took place.

But prosecutors say Kathy Lin, 41, gave different evidence to police two years ago. 

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When asked by Crown prosecutor, Mark Tedeschi, QC, today whether her husband had left their bed on the night of the deaths, she said: "To my knowledge he stayed with me in the bed."

But Mr Tedeschi then produced the transcript from an interview Ms Lin have to police in March 2010.

In this interview Ms Lin said she did not know whether her husband had got out of bed that night.

"You said to police, 'I don't know,'" Mr Tedeschi said.

Ms Lin also appeared to change her evidence about what time she and her husband had gone to bed that night.

Today she told the court that the couple had gone to bed "around two o'clock", while in 2010 she told police she did not know.

When questioned why her evidence in 2010 was different to that she was now giving, Ms Lin said she had not wanted to do the police interview that day.

Mr Tedeschi suggested to Ms Lin that she was "embellishing" her evidence, but was forced to withdraw this question following an objection from Mr Xie's barrister. (22.8.2012 SMH)

The committal hearing of the Epping murder was in the limelight in the past few days. The star witness, Kathy Lin, did not come up to proof. But, it did not surprise the prosecution at all. From the media report, we can see that she gave contradicting statements before testifying in court. Under this background, the prosecution cannot turn her hostile. It is not a case that her previous statement is inconsistent with her testimony. She gave inconsistent statements all along. Her veracity was in doubt at the outset. If she does not damage the prosecution case, then she is not helpful to the prosecution at all. The importance of this witness is only a wistful thinking of the prosecution. If she cannot be relied on, then the prosecution cannot establish whether the accused was at the crime scene at the time of the murder or he was in fact cuddling his wife in bed. The prosecution is unable to establish his cleaning of the garage was unusual. What is left in the prosecution case is the blood spot matching one of the victims' blood found in his garage and what was taken by the secret camera as to the cutting up of shoe boxes allegedly the accused tried to soften them to flush  down the toilet. 

The behaviour of the accused was highly suspicious but the ultimate question is whether there is irresistible inference drawn pointing to the guilt of being the atrocious murderer. From time to time a crime is committed but no one is convicted.  We have to live with it.