A Chinese student will be deported after serving as little as seven more years behind bars after killing two women in their own homes, hours apart. Xiaozheng Lin, 24, killed sex workers Yuqi Luo, 31, and Hyun Sook Jeon, 51, before robbing them of their personal belongings in what a judge described as the senseless killing of two entirely vulnerable and defenceless women. Huntingdale man Xiaozheng Lin killed Yuqi Luo on December 27 and Hyun Sook Jeon hours later, the court heard.
On Thursday, Lin was sentenced to 14 years in jail, with a non-parole period of nine years after striking a deal with prosecutors to downgrade his charges from murder to manslaughter on the eve of his Supreme Court trial. With time already served, he could be released in 2031. Luo was found naked and fatally strangled.
Jeon’s remains lay undiscovered for days and were so badly decomposed, her cause of death could not be determined. “As each of them lay helpless ..
. in their own homes, you showed them no mercy,” Justice Stephen Kaye told Lin. “Instead, you callously set about taking from them, not only personal safety and dignity, but also their valuable personal belongings.
” Former Victoria state MP Fiona Patten, who campaigned for the decriminalisation of sex work in Victoria, labelled the sentence “unjust and unfair” and feared short jail terms sent a message that the lives of sex workers were less important. “It seems an incredibly small punishment and sentence for such a heinous cr.
