Massey stabbing: Victim came to New Zealand in search of a better life, ex-partner was ‘obsessed’ with it

A woman who was stabbed to death had come to New Zealand in search of a better life, but while her ex-partner became “obsessed” with it here, a court listened.

Manchao Li, 65, denies murdering Zhimin Yang, 57, and violating a protection order.

Li’s jury trial began yesterday in Auckland High Court.

The Crown alleges that Li repeatedly stabbed her ex-partner, also known as Jennifer, in a daytime attack in Massey on July 29 last year.

He had allegedly been following her and then attacked her from behind while waiting for a bus on Westgate Drive.

Crown prosecutor Nick Webby said Yang was stabbed 12 times in the head, neck, chest, stomach and arms with a hunting knife.

The blows cut a major artery in his neck and a major vein in his body.

Today the victim’s son told the court that Yang had come to New Zealand after reading about culture and the environment to have a better life.

That was one of his motivations for learning English, the young man said.

Yang and Li were married in China in 1997 before moving to New Zealand in 2001, where they purchased property in Blockhouse Bay.

At the court hearing in the early 2000s, Li partnered with Auckland Law MP Kenneth Wang to petition Parliament calling for tougher penalties for lesser offenses.

At around this time, Yang’s son said that Yang and Li’s relationship deteriorated and that the latter would raise his voice in their discussions.

The victim’s son said he would cry alone in his room because he feared for his mother’s safety.

“I was too young. I felt very, very powerless,” he said.

Later, the boy and his mother would silently exchange words in the bedroom. She would say that when he grew up he had to make her proud, he said.

“As if that was the only hope because his life was in trouble.”

After they separated in 2005, Li arrived at Yang’s Avondale home and there was a heated argument, the court heard.

Yang’s son recalled her saying that they had to leave immediately and ended up in a safe house.

Around the same time, she applied for a protection order, she said.

“The basis of the order was to threaten to kill.”

Defense attorney Sam Wimsett asked the young man if Yang and Li’s relationship had been a “marriage of convenience” for immigration purposes.

He replied that his mother would not have needed that as she qualified as a qualified migrant on her own.

In 2016, a Supreme Court judge ruled that Li had purchased a Christchurch property using proceeds from the Blockhouse Bay sale and was ordered to sell the Christchurch home so his ex-wife could take back half of the property from the relationship.

Li’s former roommate on Kingsdale Rd told the court this afternoon that Li was obsessed with the fact that his ex-partner had found a good job.

He said that Li had told him that life would be better if Yang was no longer on the planet.

Li had even shown his roommate the weapons he was “somewhat proud” of and talked about wanting to disfigure his ex-wife.

The roommate said he repeatedly counseled against violence and warned that Li would end up in prison.