Massey stabbing: ex-roommate freaked out over knife talk

A divorced man now on trial for murder swore he would pretend to be insane if he ever got in trouble with the law, claims his former roommate.

Manchao Li, 65, denies killing Zhimin Yang in West Auckland last year and violating a protection order.

Li’s former roommate Chloe Joyce told Auckland High Court that the murder defendant asked her to help him negotiate for a knife shortly before the alleged Massey murder.

“It kind of scared me,” Joyce said.

Prosecutors claim Li was obsessed with revenge after a property dispute and killed his 56-year-old ex-wife in a stabbing frenzy on July 29 last year.

On Thursday, Joyce told the court that Li was mainly talking about his past life in China and obsessively complaining about his ex-wife, who was also known as Jennifer.

“He always referred to her as ‘the bitch’ or ‘the woman’. He was telling how she tricked him into signing a marriage certificate.”

Joyce said Li described a chaotic marriage in which the couple slept apart and claimed that his ex-wife stole thousands of dollars from him years earlier.

Li and Yang divorced in 2009.

The former roommate said Li was showing signs of depression.

“But depression doesn’t force you to kill someone,” Joyce added.

“He’s very isolated,” he told defense attorney Sam Wimsett. “He would just be in his own little bubble and his own little world.”

Joyce claimed she overheard a conversation Li had with her partner at the West Harbor home.

“I heard Li say that if he’s ever caught doing something … he’ll just say he’s crazy.”

She said that conversation happened last July.

“It’s really amazing, you know.”

Another witness, former director of Yang’s Massey Library, Joanne Crummer, said that Yang warned library staff about Li in 2014.

Crummer said Li faxed him about 20 pages of highly personal information the following year.

Crummer said the incident was strange and inappropriate, and handed the documents to Yang.

She said that one time when Li appeared at the library, Yang was terrified and refused to leave the library through the front, instead getting a friend to pick her up through the back door.

Crummer said he invaded Li from the library once for allegedly harassing Yang.

“He was sweating and he asked me what I had done wrong.”

The jury trial earlier this week heard members of the public rush to help Yang after Li allegedly stabbed her 12 times with a hunting knife.

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

The trial continues.

Domestic Violence: Do You Need Help?

If you are in danger now:

• Call the police on 111 or ask your friends’ neighbors to call you.
• Run outside and go where there are other people.
• Yell for help so your neighbors can hear you.
• Take the children with you.
• Don’t stop to buy anything else.
• If you are being abused, remember that it is not your fault. Violence is never okay

Where to go for help or more information:

• Shine, toll-free national helpline from 9 am to 11 pm every day – 0508 744 633 www.2shine.org.nz
• Women’s Shelter: The free national crisis line operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – 0800 Shelter or 0800 733 843 www.womensrefuge.org.nz
• Shakti: Provides specialized cultural services for African, Asian and Middle Eastern women and their children. Crisis line 24/7 0800742584
• Not good: information line 0800 456 450 www.areyouok.org.nz