Vancouver model killed in China - friends doubt suspect’s story
Diana O’Brien, 22, of Saltspring Island, B.C., was found dead in her apartment building in Shanghai on Monday. (CBC)
Friends of a B.C. model killed in Shanghai said they have doubts about the story told by an 18-year-old Chinese man who confessed to stalking and slaying her.
Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, reported Friday that Chen Jun was arrested in Xuancheng City, several hundred kilometres west of Shanghai, around 8:15 a.m. local time.
Diana O’Brien, 22, of Saltspring Island, B.C., was found dead in her apartment building in Shanghai on Monday, two weeks after leaving for Shanghai for a three-month modelling contract with a talent agency.
Chinese police said Chen confessed to following O’Brien into her apartment Sunday night with the intention of robbing her and killed her when she resisted. The suspect then fled to another city in a nearby province before leaving for Xuancheng City, according to police.
However, some of O’Brien’s friends told CBC News on Friday that she would have run if threatened and would not have tried to protect her possessions.
While the investigation in China continues, Joel Berry, O’Brien’s boyfriend of five years, said he just wanted to bring her body home.
“Hopefully it’s just one more step closer to her coming home,” Berry said of the arrest of the suspect.
“It’s kind of tough to plan a memorial for her when you don’t really know where she is and how close she is to coming home,” he said Friday.
“It just seems like we’re so out of touch with it and helpless really. So, I think, just to have her back would kind of empower us a little bit and [we’ll be] able to find some closure
Earlier reports from those who discovered the body said O’Brien was stabbed and found lying in a pool of blood in the apartment building’s stairwell, but police did not disclose the cause of death.
Chinese police said Friday their initial investigation shows the suspect’s motive was money, according to Xinhua. It happened that O’Brien was home so they ran into one another and a botched robbery turned deadly, the news agency said.
Police said they found a laptop and other articles belonging to O’Brien, according to Xinhua.
O’Brien had been in China since mid-June after landing a contract with Jh Model Agency in Shanghai. The agency appears to have vanished since news of her death. No such name could be found at the listed address and the company’s website has been inaccessible.
One of the woman’s friends alleged O’Brien had been stalked by a Chinese man she met during a modelling job about a week before she was found dead. It’s unclear whether the suspect is the same man her friend mentioned.
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Police describe B.C. model’s slaying
Police formally charged the suspect in B.C. model Diana O’Brien’s murder this weekend, saying that her camera and jewelry were in his possession when they arrested him 10 days ago.
They said Chen Jun, 18, “stabbed her heart and liver” during a botched robbery.
According to police, the accused confessed that on July 7 around 11 p.m. local time he followed O’Brien into the Changning District apartment building in central Shanghai, where she had lived since arriving in the city two weeks earlier.
Chen told police the apartment door was unlocked so he rushed in, apparently hoping to grab her valuables and run, but O’Brien, 22, resisted. A struggle followed and he killed her.
Witnesses said earlier the model was stabbed multiple times and that there was a trail of blood leading from her apartment to the stairwell where her body was found several hours later.
Police did not reveal anything about that in the official statement. They made no mention of whether she tried to flee the scene or whether Chen moved the body in an attempt to cover his tracks.
When police caught up with Chen in his hometown of Xuancheng in Anhui province, hundreds of kilometres from Shanghai, they said, he had a rolling suitcase containing O’Brien’s digital camera, two mobile phones, one necklace, two bracelets and three rings.
It is rare for a foreigner to be murdered in China and Chen will likely face the death penalty if he is convicted.