A West Vancouver man who shot and killed his business partner outside their British Properties mansion, then cut up his body into over 100 pieces, has been found guilty of manslaughter.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Terry Schultes delivered the judgment in the case Tuesday afternoon.
In handing down his decision, Schultes found Li Zhao not guilty of second-degree murder, but guilty of the lesser offence.
Schultes said while the case left many unanswered questions and included some contradictory evidence, he was left with a reasonable doubt that Zhao intended to kill his business partner, 42-year-old Gang Yuan during a violent altercation that broke out between the two men at their shared residence in May 2015.
Schultes said while he didn’t believe some of Zhou’s testimony on the stand during the murder trial, he had no reason to doubt what he said in his videotaped statement to police immediately after the killing.
That pointed to Zhou’s actions as having been based in fear, rather than an intent to kill Yuan, said Schultes.
Schultes found Zhao guilty of interfering with human remains for cutting up Yuan’s body with a saw inside the mansion’s garage.
Schultes said early on in his judgment that the basic facts of what happened in the case were never in dispute – Zhao caused Yuan’s death by shooting him at the West Vancouver mansion on May 2, 2015.
Instead, the case turned primarily on Zhao’s mental state at the time and whether he intended to murder Yuan, a wealthy businessman with connections in both Canada and China, who was also a cousin of Zhou’s wife.
Schultes found after analyzing the evidence of expert witnesses that Yuan was shot twice at close range by Zhao with a small-calibre rifle in the driveway of their home at 963 King George’s Way. An autopsy found Zhao died of gunshot wound to the neck, said Schultes.
Blood spatter patterns found inside the foyer of the house indicated Zhao had also hit Yuan in the head with a hammer during their fight, fracturing part of his skull, said the judge.
During the trial, court heard the two men got into a violent altercation after Yuan made a business proposition to Zhao that included allowing Yuan to marry Zhao’s daughter.
Zhao was arrested at the house May 3, 2015 and has been in custody ever since.
A lengthy trial in the case began before Schultes without a jury in May of 2017.
Following the judgment, defence lawyer Ian Donaldson called the decision a “fortunate outcome” for his client, who he described as "a completely normal, well-adjusted sensible human being" who was "completedly non-violent" until the events of that day.
Donaldson said Schultes did an excellent job in sifting through complex evidence in the case.
Crown prosecutor Adrienne Lee said it wasn’t the decision she’d hoped for, but said Schultes’ decision was “very careful, thoughtful and thorough.”
A date for sentencing in the case has yet to be set.
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