{"id":579771,"date":"2026-08-25T10:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T10:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/579771\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T10:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T10:46:12","slug":"religious-leader-and-wife-jailed-over-gulf-harbour-kidnap-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/579771\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious leader and wife jailed over Gulf Harbour kidnap, killing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The leader of a fringe religious group Kaixiao Liu has been sentenced to 10 years and five months imprisonment for the manslaughter and kidnapping<\/a> of one of his followers \u2013 70 year old Shulai Wang<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By Lucy Xia of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

His wife, Lanyue Xiao, received a sentence of seven years and 11 months for her role.<\/p>\n

Wang, from Hainan, China, was found wrapped in layers of black rubbish bags in Auckland’s Gulf Harbour <\/a>in March 2024, eight months after she arrived in the country to follow the religious instructions of Liu.<\/p>\n

Liu’s mother, Xiuyun Li, and father, Jingui Liu, were also convicted in June \u2013 Li of kidnapping and Jingui Liu of misconduct to human remains.<\/p>\n

They will be sentenced later this year, due to more material they plan to place before the court.<\/p>\n

Wang and five other women from China stayed with Liu and his family in \u014crewa, where the Crown said Wang was punished for not complying with the strict rules of the household, and later put in a suitcase, denied food and water, following a failed escape just days before her death.<\/p>\n

Details of arrests, made months after a mystery woman’s body was found in a rubbish bag in the water north of Auckland, can now be reported. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

This morning, Justice Mathew Downs handed Liu the prison sentence at Auckland’s High Court.<\/p>\n

Liu’s sentence, with a minimum non-parole period of 50% of his sentence, also covered Liu’s convictions for interfering with human remains, perverting the course of justice and failing to give device passwords to police during a search warrant.<\/p>\n

Xiao received a sentence of seven years and 11 months for kidnapping, manslaughter, perverting the course of justice and interfering with human remains.<\/p>\n

Justice Downs didn’t impose a minimum non-parole period for Xiao, acknowledging her lesser culpability compared to Liu, who made all the key decisions relating to Wang’s detention and punishment.<\/p>\n

‘Callous indifference’<\/p>\n

He said Liu and Xiao’s offending had several aggravating factors, including detaining Wang for 38 hours and restraining her for much of the period, taping her mouth to stop her from screaming, denying food and water \u2013 all whilst knowing that she was a 70-year-old overstayer who was entirely dependent on them.<\/p>\n

Justice Downs emphasised Liu’s position as the ring leader and his “callous indifference” to Wang and the other women in the house, referring to the evidence heard in trial that Liu had kept the black pushchair used to dispose of Wang’s body and the black bed she was detained in as warnings to the other women in the house, telling them that the colour black represented death.<\/p>\n

Turning to Xiao, Justice Downs said while she was not as culpable as he is, she was the next most culpable given her status in the household.<\/p>\n

Judge observed wife’s manner in court<\/p>\n

Justice Downs said he had observed Xiao during the trial and seen her disagree with her husband and seen that at times her husband deferred to her.<\/p>\n

“If you had sought to dissuade Mr Liu from the offending, there is a very real prospect he might have been so dissuaded,” he said.<\/p>\n

The sentences for Liu and Xiao included a 5% discount for the consideration that neither of them had previous convictions.<\/p>\n

Justice Downs said he was not persuaded by submissions for either defendants’ good work or character references.<\/p>\n

The judge also decided on no discounts on compassionate grounds for Liu’s separation from his five children \u2013 four of whom were uplifted by Oranga Tamariki in September 2024 \u2013 and the youngest who was uplifted following the conclusion of the trial in June.<\/p>\n

‘He is not a cult leader’<\/p>\n

Liu’s lawyer, Ron Mansfield KC, who did not represent him in the trial but is now representing him on appeal matters, had asked Justice Downs for leniency and compassion on several factors.<\/p>\n

Mansfield said Liu still doesn’t accept the Crown’s version of events but he does have remorse for the loss of life in his home.<\/p>\n

“He is not a cult leader, nor require people to follow his cult,” Mansfield said, adding that Liu had people who followed him as a result of his music, not his preaching.<\/p>\n

Mansfield said life in custody for any foreign national is more difficult, and that there are positives in Liu’s life such as being a parent and wanting to return to his children and family life.<\/p>\n

Mansfield said the removal of the children had played a significant part in the proceeding in leading Liu to mistrust authority and the criminal process, and that the mistrust had led to Liu’s inability to trust counsel appointed during the trial, which drove the way in which the trial was conducted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The leader of a fringe religious group Kaixiao Liu has been sentenced to 10 years and five months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-579771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}