What a POS. I wonder what Spa was this?
Eric Lu was the “mastermind” behind a successful plot to kill his mother Ming-Chien (Teresa) Hsin, 59, Crown attorney Paul Renwick said in closing remarks at Lu’s murder trial on Tuesday.
The son of a Mississauga spa operator had his mother killed for her $1 million insurance policy, a Brampton prosecutor says.
Eric Lu — who sought out information about his mother’s life insurance policy in the days after she was found dead behind the wheel of her BMW in a parking lot — was the “mastermind” behind a successful plot to kill his mother Ming-Chien (Teresa) Hsin, 59, Crown attorney Paul Renwick said in his closing remarks at Lu’s murder trial on Tuesday.
Hsin was found stabbed to death on April 10, 2015, two days after Lu called police to first report her missing.
In court, Renwick presented the jury with reams of mobile phone calls and text records — what the prosecutor called a “powerful silent witness” showing constant contact between Lu and two other men, Justine Ordonio and Mark Dookhram, before Hsin was attacked and fatally stabbed some 20 times.
Hsin was killed in a murder-for-hire plot that was days in the making, requiring “co-ordination and pre-planning” demonstrated by the phone records, Renwick said.
Lu has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. On Monday, his defence lawyer Robb MacDonald argued it’s not plausible his client would orchestrate an “elaborate murder scheme” against his mother five months after saving her from a previous near-fatal stabbing.
At trial, prosecutors argued Lu made the initial missing-person call knowing his mother was already dead after helping hide her killer in the back of her car.
Cellular tower data placed Dookhram and Ordonio in several locations Hsin visited, including her Shipp Drive home and at a Toronto address where she was staying, Renwick said, calling this further proof that they had followed her for several days and were in the vicinity of the crime scene on April 8, 2010, when she was killed.
That day, Hsin was moving items from Shipp Drive to the Toronto address, providing Lu an opportunity to hide the killer beneath clothing stocked on the back seat of the BMW, Renwick said.
Hsin was last seen walking back to her car from an ATM at a parking lot on Robert Speck Parkway. The car was found by a passerby two days later.
Blood splatter patterns indicated the hidden killer “sprang out and attacked,” Renwick said.
In defence closings, MacDonald argued there Crown has not proven Dookhram and Ordonio were involved.
“Their DNA isn’t anywhere,” MacDonald noted, arguing that from all the contact between Lu and Ordonio, including text messages, “nothing resembles a plan.”
Hsin had previously survived a stabbing attack that required extensive rehab roughly five months before her death.
At trial, the jury heard that on the night of Nov. 13, 2014, Lu called police for help after his mother ran home with life-threatening stab wounds to the neck and stomach.
No suspect was arrested in that case; prosecutor Renwick argued that Lu had no option but to call for help on that occasion because he would be blamed for making her bleed out.
“It made sense that the killer would ensure the job was finished in April because it wasn’t finished in November,” he said. “That’s a much more likely common sense explanation for the viciousness of the attack in April than the speculation that it involved organized crime or was a crime of passion.”
After Hsin’s murder, Renwick said Lu gave police theories that didn’t involve him, such as casting suspicions on his mother’s ex-boyfriend and people she might have owed money.
But Lu made one key misstep, Renwick said. After lying in his initial call to police on April 8 that he had no clue where Hsin could be, Lu later admitted that he had gone looking for her and had spotted the car in the Robert Speck Parkway parking lot.
The judge is set to deliver instructions to the jury on Thursday.
www.thestar.com
Eric Lu was the “mastermind” behind a successful plot to kill his mother Ming-Chien (Teresa) Hsin, 59, Crown attorney Paul Renwick said in closing remarks at Lu’s murder trial on Tuesday.
The son of a Mississauga spa operator had his mother killed for her $1 million insurance policy, a Brampton prosecutor says.
Eric Lu — who sought out information about his mother’s life insurance policy in the days after she was found dead behind the wheel of her BMW in a parking lot — was the “mastermind” behind a successful plot to kill his mother Ming-Chien (Teresa) Hsin, 59, Crown attorney Paul Renwick said in his closing remarks at Lu’s murder trial on Tuesday.
Hsin was found stabbed to death on April 10, 2015, two days after Lu called police to first report her missing.
In court, Renwick presented the jury with reams of mobile phone calls and text records — what the prosecutor called a “powerful silent witness” showing constant contact between Lu and two other men, Justine Ordonio and Mark Dookhram, before Hsin was attacked and fatally stabbed some 20 times.
Hsin was killed in a murder-for-hire plot that was days in the making, requiring “co-ordination and pre-planning” demonstrated by the phone records, Renwick said.
Lu has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. On Monday, his defence lawyer Robb MacDonald argued it’s not plausible his client would orchestrate an “elaborate murder scheme” against his mother five months after saving her from a previous near-fatal stabbing.
At trial, prosecutors argued Lu made the initial missing-person call knowing his mother was already dead after helping hide her killer in the back of her car.
Cellular tower data placed Dookhram and Ordonio in several locations Hsin visited, including her Shipp Drive home and at a Toronto address where she was staying, Renwick said, calling this further proof that they had followed her for several days and were in the vicinity of the crime scene on April 8, 2010, when she was killed.
That day, Hsin was moving items from Shipp Drive to the Toronto address, providing Lu an opportunity to hide the killer beneath clothing stocked on the back seat of the BMW, Renwick said.
Hsin was last seen walking back to her car from an ATM at a parking lot on Robert Speck Parkway. The car was found by a passerby two days later.
Blood splatter patterns indicated the hidden killer “sprang out and attacked,” Renwick said.
In defence closings, MacDonald argued there Crown has not proven Dookhram and Ordonio were involved.
“Their DNA isn’t anywhere,” MacDonald noted, arguing that from all the contact between Lu and Ordonio, including text messages, “nothing resembles a plan.”
Hsin had previously survived a stabbing attack that required extensive rehab roughly five months before her death.
At trial, the jury heard that on the night of Nov. 13, 2014, Lu called police for help after his mother ran home with life-threatening stab wounds to the neck and stomach.
No suspect was arrested in that case; prosecutor Renwick argued that Lu had no option but to call for help on that occasion because he would be blamed for making her bleed out.
“It made sense that the killer would ensure the job was finished in April because it wasn’t finished in November,” he said. “That’s a much more likely common sense explanation for the viciousness of the attack in April than the speculation that it involved organized crime or was a crime of passion.”
After Hsin’s murder, Renwick said Lu gave police theories that didn’t involve him, such as casting suspicions on his mother’s ex-boyfriend and people she might have owed money.
But Lu made one key misstep, Renwick said. After lying in his initial call to police on April 8 that he had no clue where Hsin could be, Lu later admitted that he had gone looking for her and had spotted the car in the Robert Speck Parkway parking lot.
The judge is set to deliver instructions to the jury on Thursday.
Brutal murder of Mississauga spa owner was son’s attempt to finish the job, Crown says
Eric Lu was the “mastermind” behind a successful plot to kill his mother Ming-Chien (Teresa) Hsin, 59, Crown attorney Paul Renwick said in closing remarks at Lu’s murder trial on Tuesday.
