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Michelle Leng accused murderer Derek Barrett refused bail
April 30, 2016
Michelle Leng, 24, a Chinese international student who studied at UTS, has been identified as the Snapper Point murder victim.
Michelle Leng was stabbed at least 20 times before she was bundled in a car, driven more than 100 kilometres and dumped in the ocean, police will allege.
On Friday afternoon, her uncle, Derek Barrett, 27, was arrested by NSW homicide detectives and charged with her murder. He was formally refused bail in Parramatta bail court on Saturday. He will appear in Burwood Local Court on Wednesday.
Mr Barrett's arrest came amid rampant and tenuous speculation that Ms Leng had been communicating with an online love interest which ended in a fatal encounter after she went missing on Thursday April 21.
Instead, police believe Ms Leng - a 25-year-old Chinese international student - returned to her Campsie home on Thursday afternoon, where she lived with her uncle, aunt and cousin, after spending the day shopping in Sydney's CBD.
valiantly attempted to fight off her attacker, and suffered a number of defensive wounds, but was overpowered and killed with at least 20 stabbing blows, the autopsy revealed.
It is believed CCTV footage captured a car entering the Lake Munmorah national park, almost two hours drive from Campsie, about 7am on Sunday.
Inside the car, police will allege was Ms Leng's body.
Ms Leng's naked body was spotted by a tourist floating face down in the Snapper Point blowhole about 10.30am last Sunday.
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It is inside the family home that she was allegedly murdered.
She valiantly attempted to fight off her attacker, and suffered a number of defensive wounds, but was overpowered and killed with at least 20 stabbing blows, the autopsy revealed.
It is believed CCTV footage captured a car entering the Lake Munmorah national park, almost two hours drive from Campsie, about 7am on Sunday.
Inside the car, police will allege was Ms Leng's body.
Ms Leng's naked body was spotted by a tourist floating face down in the Snapper Point blowhole about 10.30am last Sunday.
She remained unidentified for three days until police matched a computer generated image of her with a missing person's report lodged by her family on Anzac Day.
Earlier in the week Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubelin revealed his team had thoroughly canvassed the area.
"We're very creative in the way we can capture what has gone on in the area," he said. "We are getting a pretty good understanding of what occurred in that area during that time."
Police are now reviewing further CCTV footage to determine Mr Barrett's movements between Friday and Sunday, Fairfax Media has been told.
As police released CCTV footage on Friday showing Ms Leng's final public sighting at Campsie train station about 4.30pm on April 21, detectives quietly narrowed their focus to the family's Campsie residence.
By Friday afternoon, the Campsie home was established as a crime scene.
Earlier in the week, Ms Leng's aunt told an Australia-based Chinese-language news site her niece's Facebook chat records revealed that, unbeknown to them, she had recently met an Australian boyfriend.
"We looked at those photos, blond hair, white skin, his eyes were very fierce, he didn't look friendly, lives in Wollongong," she said on Thursday in an interview that has been translated.
"If this boyfriend did something bad to her, Michelle would fight back, plus she never had a boyfriend before, this is her first."
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/michelle-...fused-bail-20160430-goiwa4.html#ixzz48mfJl0VL
The accused with the victim.
The blowhole at Snapper point. (Pic by victim)
PUBLISHED: 12:32 EST, 4 May 2016 | UPDATED: 02:54 EST, 5 May 2016
The uncle of a 25-year-old Sydney based Chinese international student who was found dead in a blowhole with stab wounds will plead not guilty to her murder.
Derek Barrett, 27, is accused of stabbing his niece Mengmei Leng, also known as Michelle, to death and dumping her body in a blowhole at Snapper Point on the Central Coast in NSW last month.
His lawyer Bill Whitby told Burwood Local Court on Wednesday that Barrett would be pleading not guilty and he was shocked and upset over her death, according to the ABC.
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Barrett did not apply for bail after he was arrested. He wore a blue forensic jumpsuit and did not speak nor show any emotion throughout the hearing via video link last month, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Ms Leng appears to have visited the site of her alleged murder in the past, as she posted a photo to her Instagram account of the exact same blowhole almost three years ago on June 13, 2013.
The 25-year-old, who is originally from China, is a University of Technology Sydney graduate who studied economics and hospitality business management.
Ms Leng was living with her aunt and uncle at Campsie and had been living in Australia for five years. Her mother and brother live in China.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-blowhole-plead-not-guilty.html#ixzz48mkipQHY
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