Man found guilty in murder of Richmond loan shark

VANCOUVER – Chu Ming Feng, 32, was found guilty Wednesday of the first –degree murder of loan shark Rong “Lilly” Li by a B.C. Supreme Court jury.

Li worked out of River Rock Casino and was killed May 26, 2006.

The first-degree conviction means he is automatically sentenced to life in prison. Nor will he be eligible for parole in 25 years.

In court Monday, a videtape re-enactment was entered into evidence of Feng demonstrating to police how he grabbed Li from behind, after she got into a van rented by Guo Wei Liang, who punched her in the head without ever stopping the van.

Liang disappeared after the murder. It’s not known if he is alive.

"Why are you doing this, Ah Wei? I didn’t do anything to you," Li said, according to Feng’s confession — a reference to Liang, whom Li called Ah Wei.

"I’m divorced," Li said, as the two men struggled to smother and strangle her. "I only have a daughter."

The reference was to Li’s teenage daughter, who has not attended the trial.

Feng told police that, during the struggle, Liang told him to pinch Li’s nose and to put his hand over her mouth in an attempt to smother her. And when that failed, Liang allegedly took out his leather belt and the two men wrapped it around her neck, each pulling one end.

"He (Feng) pulled and pulled until she stopped moving," Crown prosecutor Karima Andani said in her closing statement Monday.

Andani said Feng was motivated by simple greed. According to his statements to police, Liang believed Li would have up to $300,000 on her. Earlier in the trial, Li’s boss testified she would have had only $20,000 to $30,000 on her during her "shift."

The night she was killed, Li’s disappearance was reported by a fellow loan shark, and Richmond RCMP were quickly able to obtain cell phone records that showed a series of phone calls that tied Li, Liang and Feng together.

Cell phones bounce signals off repeater towers, allowing police to trace the general vicinity of the calls. Feng’s cell phone calls put him in the vicinity of the River Rock Casino the night Li died, and then later at Jericho Beach, where police found her body in a shallow grave.

Feng had taken police there and showed them where she was buried.

When he was first interviewed, Feng claimed he had no involvement in Li’s disappearance.

Police at first believed his story, and began looking for Liang, who was never found.

But when they realized what he told them did not add up, police re-interviewed Feng, who gave a number of stories, which changed each time they revealed to him that what he was saying did not match the facts, according to Andani.

"Mr. Feng’s statements to the police contain a myriad of inconsistencies," she told the eight-woman, four-man jury.

"Suffice it to say that Mr. Feng is an admitted liar."

Andani said Feng tried to portray himself to police as an "ignorant little country bumpkin." She said Feng appeared to cooperate with police in an attempt to deflect all the blame for Li’s death on Liang, who was not around to contradict anything he said.

When confronted with cell phone records that put Feng at both the murder scene and the burial site, Feng confessed he had participated in Li’s death, but portrayed himself as someone who had been manipulated into doing something that was not in his nature to do.

Liang told him he wanted to rob and kill Li, and offered to split the money with him if he helped.

Feng told police that he at first told Liang he would not help, but then later did just that. "Mr. Feng was unable to resist the temptation of all that money," Andani said.

When he got into the van Liang had rented, Feng told police that Liang handed him a bottle of water, which he drank.

Feng went on to suggest that there was something in the water that made him do something that was not in his nature.

Referring to the "magic murder water," Andani said the story was absurd.

"Mr. Feng’s story defies common sense," she told the jury.

She wondered why Liang would have drugged his accomplice, whom he would have wanted alert enough to commit murder.

nbennett@richmond-news.com