A jury has found a Richmond man guilty of the second-degree murder of his wife, following a second trial of the accused in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.
The jury reached its verdict in the case of James Jian Hua Wu on Tuesday after four days of deliberations.
Wu, who used a cleaver to fatally stab his wife, Jin Jenna Cheng, had little reaction to the verdict as he sat in the courtroom.
The main issue during the trial was the state of mind of the accused and whether the Crown had proven that Wu had the necessary intent to commit murder.
The Crown’s theory, outlined at the beginning of the trial, was that it was a case of extreme domestic violence and that Wu had intentionally killed his wife in anger following a difficult and frustrating period in their marriage.
The May 2014 slaying happened on the second anniversary of their wedding.
When police were called to the scene of the slaying at a residential apartment building at 7040 Granville Ave., they found blood on the walls on the seventh-floor hallway and two bodies, of Wu and his wife, lying at the far end of the hallway. A knife was seen lying between the two bodies with the victim’s head covered in blood and an injury to her neck believed to be caused by a sharp-edged weapon.
According to the Crown opening, police gave Wu verbal commands to move down the hallway and he responded by crawling on his hands and knees down the passageway.
When asked by police who had committed the crime, Wu answered, “I did it.”
During the trial, the accused called several expert witnesses who testified that at the time of the offence Wu’s mental functioning was impaired and he was in the middle of a “dissociative” episode.
Second-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison with a period of parole ineligibility of between 10 and 25 years. A sentencing hearing for Wu is expected at a later date.
Last November, Wu’s first trial ended in a hung jury after 13 days of deliberations, one of the longest jury deliberations ever in B.C.
