A woman has been found guilty for a second time of murdering a beauty-parlour owner, whose body was found in a suitcase in a Stanley drainage ditch, and again sentenced to life in prison after a retrial.
Yuen Miu-fun, 54, was yesterday found guilty of murder and preventing the lawful burial of a body. The Court of First Instance jury delivered its unanimous verdicts at 9pm after almost six hours of deliberation.
Angie Ip Sau-fun was killed on June 19, 2007. Her decomposing body was found six days later.
Yuen was first convicted on the charges in October 2008, and sentenced to life imprisonment on the murder charge and a concurrent four-year term on the burial charge. She appealed against her convictions and the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial in January this year, saying the trial judge had misdirected the jury.
The prosecution said Yuen met Ip at the beauty salon and gave her a drink laced with a sedative. After Ip lost consciousness, she was strangled and her body was stuffed into the suitcase.
The prosecution had alleged in the first trial that Yuen and two men had acted together on instructions from a former boyfriend of Ip with whom Ip had a financial dispute.