Home detention for hiding body
One of the men who helped hide a body found buried near the Desert Rd in the central North Island has been sentenced to home detention.
Bao Chang Wang’s remains were found two years after he died. Police believe the father of two was murdered.
Yuzhen Zhang, 30, appeared at the High Court at Auckland yesterday for sentencing after earlier pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder.
Justice Christian Whata said Zhang was a hard-working, family man but was also naive and his offending was out of character.
The judge noted Zhang was born in China under the country’s one child policy and therefore counted his close friends as family. It was through this misguided loyalty that he had agreed to take part in helping his friend hide Wang’s body.
Justice Whata took time off Zhang’s sentence for his early guilty plea and previous good character. He sentenced the towel importer to six months home detention.
Court documents released to show associates of Zhang told him about the murder in August 2017. He had also seen Wang’s body. On August 21, 2017, Zhang and four others drove to an isolated spot on Rangipo Rd in the Taupo¯ District. They took three vehicles and Zhang shared the driving.
The police summary of facts said Wang’s body was inside a freezer that had been put into the back of a van. The body was buried in a shallow grave in wasteland beside Rangipo Intake Rd, 450 metres off the Desert Rd.
Concrete was then poured over the top. The men returned to Auckland. However, the following day Zhang and three others repeated the trip. They dug a second grave nearby before digging up Wang’s body and re-burying it in the deeper grave.
The police summary said Wang, a father of two, was not reported missing for a further two years. Investigators found Wang’s remains in March 2020, after a search at Rangipo Intake Rd.
Two months later they interviewed Zhang. Earlier this year, Yanlong Piao, 37, was jailed after he admitted being an accessory after the fact of Wang’s murder some time in August 2017.
Two men charged with the murder have pleaded not guilty and are set to go to trial in July 2021.
A 23-year-old man charged with being an accessory after the fact is due to stand trial in March 2021.
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