Brutal murder accused pleads guilty to the 2021 killing of Honiara Chinese business woman and awaits sentencing on Friday
THE man accused of killing a Chinese businesswoman inside her shop at White Angel in Point Cruz last April has confessed to the brutal killing.
Max Gosia Taiga pleaded guilty to killing 44 year-old Li Meng Chen (Lisa) on 13 April 2021 inside the Wai Hai shop located at the White Angel Building, before Justice Howard Lawry, Tuesday.
Following his guilty plea, his matter was adjourned to Friday.
This is for the court to impose a sentence term for Taiga to serve in prison before he is eligible for parole.
Taiga had earlier pleaded not guilty to the murder charge when his matter was before the Honiara Magistrate’s Court last September.
Following a committal hearing, his matter was committed to the High Court for trial.
The trial was set to commence this week.
On Monday, the prosecution, the defence lawyer, the judge, accompanied by police officers visited the crime scene at Point Cruz.
As the trial was set to commence yesterday, Taiga pleaded guilty to Chen’s murder.
Taiga was working as a shop keeper for Chen at her shop and it was his third month working there when the incident happened.
On the evening of the previous day, 12 April 2021, Taiga hid himself inside the shop after informing the deceased and other shop keepers he will be leaving early to go to the wharf that Monday.
At around 6pm, all shop keepers left and the deceased locked up the shop without knowing Taiga was hiding inside the shop.
On the day of the incident, the deceased after dropping off her twin sons at school, went down to open her shop.
She went in through the gate attached to the building at the northern end to access the back door of the shop before she could enter her shop and opened the front door for her shop keepers.
After opening the back door, she walked inside the shop to open the front door when the accused attacked her and stabbed her neck and her body with a short kitchen knife.
The deceased fell down inside the shop and Taiga left the shop through the back door and locked the door from inside the shop.
Taiga then went and stood with other shop keepers in front of the shop pretending to wait for the shop’s door to be opened.
At some stage during the attack, Taiga left the deceased and that was when the deceased called her husband through her mobile phone and told him someone attacked her.
Taiga upon seeing the deceased talking on the phone attacked her again and killed her.
The deceased’s husband rushed down to the shop but the shop’s back door was locked.
He accessed the shop through the neighbor shop but found his wife already dead.
Police were then alerted of the incident and attended the crime scene.
On the evening of that same day, Taiga escaped to Malaita but was arrested shortly after he surrendered himself to police with the help of his relatives.
He was then remanded in custody and still remains in custody.
The autopsy report confirmed the deceased died from exsanguination as a result of severed left internal jugular vein due to a stab wound to the left side of the neck.
The exsanguination resulted from the large cut on the internal jugular vein.
The report further revealed the deceased had abrasions on her neck, indicating manual strangulation on the neck and there was laceration on the left side of the head and an incision wound at the back of the head.
By ASSUMPTA BUCHANAN
Newsroom, Honiara
