Man accused of mysterious murder of a fifty-year-old in the parking lot of a condo tower on Nuns’ Island has just been declared guilty of unpremeditated murder following a jury trial.
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Frank Cao, 65, was initially charged with premeditated murder. He underwent his jury trial at the Gouin Judicial Services Center for the past two months.
Cao is therefore sentenced to life in prison. The jury suggested to Judge Catherine Perreault that he would not be eligible for parole before 18 years.
Tammy Shao Jing Lu was found dead in the parking lot of her building on September 7, 2020.
Tammy Shao Jing Lu, 57, was found murdered in the parking lot of the condo tower where she lived in L’Île-des-Sœurs, on September 7, 2020.
Courtesy www.complexeaeterna.com
According to the prosecution’s theory, the accused is the only one who could have killed the 57-year-old woman, while she was going to take her car to go to an appointment in Montreal’s Chinatown.
On surveillance cameras, we see the woman enter the parking lot, but never leave.
Worried family
The victim’s husband, who was in Ottawa, began to worry. Her daughter therefore went to check and found M’s body.me Lu. She died of strangulation, according to the forensic pathologist.
Cao was not related to the victim. But the police were able to observe him on surveillance cameras on a few occasions going to get his mail in the building, where he had already lived.
Lurking in the building
On the day of the murder, Frank Cao arrived in the parking lot early in the morning and stayed there for approximately five hours. He was then seen leaving through an emergency exit, only to return with his head hidden in a hood. He then left about an hour after the murder, never to return.
Frank Cao, accused
Courtesy photo, spvm
Thanks to scientific advances and the amplification of DNA profiles, authorities were finally able to find Cao’s on the victim’s hand as well as her purse.
No specific motive was put forward by the Crown during the trial. But according to a police theory that was not presented to the jury, it was a failed kidnapping linked to Frank Cao’s financial problems, reported The Press.
Defense lawyers Mare Pierre L’Ecuyer and Valérie Acosta indicated as soon as the verdict was announced that they were going to file a request for an abortion of the trial. Judge Catherine Perreault therefore did not ratify the verdict and will wait for the file to return at the end of the month to do so.
– With Michaël Nguyen