All language subtitles for The Truth About My Murder S01E09 1080p WEB DL H264 BTN_track3_[eng]

When a murder's committed,

it's always a race against time
to find the truth,

to separate fact from fiction,

to catch the killer and to make sure
that justice is served.

But what happens when the truth
vanishes with the victim?

I'm Dr Richard Shepherd and I've
spent my career as a pathologist

performing nearly 23,000 autopsies,

including on some of the most high
profile cases of recent times.

I've learnt that the dead don't hide
the truth and they never lie.

Through me you'll be hearing
directly from the victim.

From a state-of-the-art laboratory
with ground-breaking technology

that uses digitally scanned
sample bodies,

I'll be investigating a series
of intriguing murders

where, from the victim's bodies,

I'll be revealing to you the truth
behind those horrific crimes.

On the 10th October 2016,

a dismembered
and badly burnt body was found

dumped at the side of the road
in the Peak District national park.

The police investigation

would reveal a trail
of deception and greed

that led to this murder.

But what could the victim's body
reveal about their death?

I was working as a detective chief
inspector in charge of a team

responsible for the investigation
of homicides.

The call came in that a body
had been found on the A628.

And that is the most northerly part
of Derbyshire.

The A628's a main road that goes
between Manchester and Sheffield,

so it's a very busy road.

But when you're into the Peak
District, it's a very scenic,

very picturesque area,

certainly nowhere that you would
consider to be a crime hotspot.

So it's a most unusual call to get.

Probably took about two hours
to get there,

and there's quite a lot of things
rolling around in your head.

Erm... What I am going to do.
What my plan is.

Is this exactly
as it's reported to be?

'Up in the Peak District,

the crime scene manager
was already securing the site.'

(man) So we turn up at the scene.

It's a... basically a small car park

that's used by people going out
for a walk across the moors.

So hill walkers. So not, sort of,
normal dog walking territory.

We've cordoned off the area
so police officers at the front

to make sure that people aren't
going to be pulling up,

turning up, etc.

To the left of the car park
is basically a burnt mound,

which is the remains
of this burnt torso.

And we then go through a process
of clearing that area,

putting up some tents to protect
some of the bits of evidence

that we might
need to worry about later,

but with the objective
to get up to that body

to see
what's actually going on here.

'Tony had to secure
any vital evidence

that might uncover the truth.'

We've got a small parking area
off a main road.

So we've got other vehicles.

Do these other vehicles
belong to a suspect or not?

Have I got tyre marks?

Has a vehicle turned up
to dump a body here?

Have I got footwear marks that
everyone's busily going to stand on?

So those are all things
that I need to protect.

So finally we got to the position
where we got up our approach

to basically go and look at the body
to see if that told us anything.

When I arrived at the scene, I was
presented with the torso of a man.

The head had been removed,

the arms, or part of the arms
had been removed,

and part of the legs
had been removed.

The body was in
what appeared to be suitcase

and it had been set on fire.

'The burnt out remains of the body

were obviously going to be difficult
to identify.'

'However, the way it had been left
still gave the police information.'

What was very clear to me was that
this was unlikely to be the site

where the murder had taken place.

So this was going to be
a deposition site,

somewhere where the body
had been placed

after the murder had been committed.

At the start of the investigation,

the burnt suitcase was found
to contain the dismembered torso

and upper legs.

The head, arms and lower legs

had been removed
using a sharp implement.

We know it wasn't a saw,

because that would have left
specific marks

in the bones cut through.

So there's been a serious attempt

to prevent identification
of the body

by removing the teeth
and the fingerprints.

Clearly this points to a murder
investigation with dismemberment

and an attempt to destroy the body
by fire.

The police had a body,
they didn't know who it was,

but they could see
that it was a male.

We don't yet have an established
cause of death,

and that is where they begin
on this really difficult dismembered

and burnt body.

'Crime scene manager Tony Coombes

was progressing
with the investigation.'

Just from a very general
point of view,

starting to think
about the scenarios.

How's this guy come to be here?

One of the obvious questions
that was there,

is, OK, so where's the arms,
legs and head?

Er... Are we looking
for another suitcase?

Is there any other fires
that are going on?

My concern was there were other
body parts that had been disposed

in the immediate vicinity.

And what I really didn't want was a
member of the public finding those.

So there were quite substantial
land searches.

We used drones
to try and cover large areas

in the hope that, if there had been
a secondary deposition site,

then we would be able to find it
and recover further body parts.

A pathologist is faced
with a whole series of problems

when there's a body like this
that's been dismembered and burnt.

Initially, you're going to try and
work out who the person might be.

No teeth, no fingerprints,

so DNA here
is clearly going to be crucial

in establishing that identity
at some point in the future.

In the full postmortem, we'll look
for any injuries on the surface.

And of course injuries could be
partly hidden by smoke damage,

damage by deep burning of the
bodies.

Because when the skin is burnt,
it starts with the external surface

and it goes deep, deep
into the tissues.

And we can look at the sample body
on the table here,

how this fire will actually
work its way through the body

if it continues long enough.

So initially the skin is burnt off.
And then the muscles are damaged.

Then the holes appear
in the abdominal wall,

the bowel can herniate through that.

The internal organs
are increasingly damaged

as the process
of incineration continues.

In this case,
I don't think the fire was too bad.

So the body was burnt externally,
possibly obscuring some injuries.

One of the main lines of enquiry
to look at who the victim was,

was with the National Police
DNA Database.

And generally you're,
as a senior investigating officer,

you're quite optimistic
that that person's DNA

might be on that database.

'Unfortunately,
there wasn't a match.'

'But the body had left something
that might help identify him.'

Well, one of the breakthroughs
that we had forensically,

was that there was a small
protected area underneath the body.

So where the torso had pressed
onto the soil underneath,

we found
there was a small fragment of skin

that came back definitively
being Chinese in ethnicity.

So they were looking at somebody
perhaps from that community,

or that at least is associating
with this person.

And we've got some work that we then
can look at around this suitcase.

So have we got a type of suitcase?
We already know it's a Samsonsite.

We've got a black strap,
and we found some wheels.

So it's a wheeled suitcase.

We found some red fibres, which
were noted as a bit of an oddity,

doesn't fit with this environment.

So why have we got, you know,
red fibres on a burnt suitcase?

(man) First we heard about this case

was a brief statement
from Derbyshire Police,

but there was enough detail in it
to peak the media's interest.

It's not often you come across
a case as memorable,

or gruesome as this,

with a torso, headless and limbless,

in a suitcase
dumped in a beauty spot.

When I went to the scene,
there was police forensics

and scenes of crimes officers there,

lots of police vans,
lots of unmarked police cars.

Could tell this was a...
this was a major investigation.

Obviously,
someone had been murdered,

and the police, at the time,

didn't know the identity
of the murder victim

and didn't know who the culprit was.

'The police turned to the public
for help.'

'They set up checkpoints along
the road where the body was dumped

and asked for motorists
to come forward with information.'

We put out lots of requests
for things like dash cams

that people may have
in their vehicles,

or people who were in the vicinity.

What we did find out was that
somebody had seen a fire set,

which was very late into the evening
the day before.

And that really helped us understand
when the body might have been there,

and narrowing down the times
that we'd got.

'They also pursued
missing persons records

in the hope they would provide
some leads.'

'But there would be a lot of ground
to cover.'

Is this somebody
who's missing from Derbyshire?

Or somebody from
the Greater Manchester area?

Somebody who's missing
from South Yorkshire?

Or is it somebody that's missing
from somewhere completely different?

'But over the coming days the lines
of enquiry dwindled considerably.'

The DNA work,
the missing person work,

hadn't resulted in anything positive

that would allow us to make
an identification of the victim.

It got to a point
where I was wondering

where the enquiry was going

and where I was going to be able
to reinvigorate it

and make some progress with it.

'Just as David thought
the investigation was stalling,

he received some game changing
information.'

Out of the blue we got a phone call
from South Yorkshire Police

that absolutely
threw the case wide open.

A burnt dismembered body
had been found in the rural beauty

of the Peak District National Park.

Though the body would give some
clues about what had happened,

it wasn't possible to identify
the victim at autopsy.

At this stage we don't have
an established cause of death.

Was there any natural disease?

Could something normal have happened
to this person?

That doesn't seem to be the case.

Next thing is to exclude
the possibility

that there had been fire
before the death,

and that's done by taking blood
samples looking for carbon monoxide.

Despite the burns caused by fires,

most people actually die as a result
of inhaling the noxious fumes

as the fire is burning.

The most important poison that's
breathed in is carbon monoxide.

This blocks the transport of oxygen

by the haemoglobin
in the red blood cells,

which stops oxygen getting
to the brain and the heart,

and that results
in the individual's death.

The other thing we look for
very carefully

is the evidence of inhalation
of fumes and soot.

The lungs themselves
may be blackened,

but, most importantly, throughout
the trachea and the bronchi,

there's little particles
of black soot deposited

that show someone was alive
at the time the fire was burning.

'On this burnt torso,
the airways were clear,

and that proved the victim
was already dead

before the fire started.'

'But with the autopsy
unable to identify the body,

senior investigating officer
David Cox

was quickly coming to a dead end.'

'Then a week after
the body was found,

he received a phone call
that could change everything.'

South Yorkshire Police told us

that there was an ANPR camera
that was on the A628.

And they gather data
about vehicles that are passing.

But this one camera in particular

didn't belong
to Derbyshire Constabulary,

even though it was on
Derbyshire Constabulary's area.

It belonged
to South Yorkshire Police.

They'd put a camera on the A628
in 2012 because of the Olympics,

and the cycling road race was in
that area at that particular time.

Unfortunately,
the first result I got back from it

was that the camera
hadn't been recording

and there was no data on it.

So I asked
that the camera get removed

and get forensically examined.

'David's persistence paid off.'

'Further analysis retrieved data
from the night the body was dumped

and there were hundreds of hits.'

There was simply too much data on
there to go through it line by line,

so what I decided to do
was to set some parameters

around the information that
that camera was able to give us.

We knew that a fire had been set
the night before,

so that gave us some sort of idea

as to when the body
had been put there.

What I did notice was that this road
between Sheffield and Manchester,

there wasn't a great deal
between those two points.

There were some cottages
and some farms.

So I took the view

that if somebody had to go into
the vicinity of the scene

and then come out
of the vicinity of the scene,

then there must have been a reason
for them to go in there.

So I decided to,

instead of just looking
at the vehicles it had hit once,

to look at the vehicles
that it hit twice on it

around about the time
that the fire had been set.

'And that highlighted one vehicle
in particular,

an uninsured car
from the Manchester Area

belonging to a man
called Ming Jiang.'

So that gave me something to sort of
go and explore a little bit, erm,

and it gave me something by which
I could go and examine that vehicle.

'With the assistance
of Greater Manchester Police,

the vehicle was tracked down,
seized and forensically examined.'

With cars you might
take sweepings from footwells.

You might look for fingerprints
everywhere.

Then you might look on the tyres
and in the wheel arches

for signs of a particular
kind of soil,

if the car's been driven somewhere.

And in relation to tyre tracks,
you might make reference tracks

from reference tyre marks
from the wheels

and see if they matched anything
you found at a scene

that you were interested in.

So there are all sorts of things
that you can do

with vehicles
that are really important.

And so if you were looking to see
whether or not the body or the torso

had been carried in it,

then you'd be very interested
if there was any blood in there.

That would be one of the first
things you'd look for.

(Cox) This is when the case
really started to come together.

There was a single blood spot
in the boot of the vehicle

and straight away
I was really excited about that.

What we've got an opportunity
to do there is fast track the DNA.

I want to compare that

with the body of the man that
we've got at the deposition site.

Even at this point now,
I don't know who my victim is,

but all of a sudden
now we've got something tangible

that might be able to help me
with the enquiry.

When someone has spent so much time
dismembering a body,

the way we can see on the digital
table, and then burning it,

clearly they've worked really hard

to try and hide the identity
of the person.

And that's where even the smallest
amount of blood can be crucial.

In this case, a smear of blood
was found in the boot of the car.

And when that blood was sampled
and analysed by the laboratory,

it was possible to link the DNA

that was present
in that blood smear in the car

to the body that was found

dismembered and burnt
in the suitcase.

That was the longest day
you could ever imagine.

It was sat by a telephone
waiting for it to ring,

walking into the office,
asking if anybody's rung,

as if somebody would have rung
and nobody would have told me.

Of course they would!

Just really impatient,
pacing up and down the corridor,

because I was so excited about this

and I really wanted
to get that information back.

Basically another eureka moment.

We've got a small trace of blood.
Fantastic, you know.

Again, this may not be
our deceased's blood,

so let's not get excited everybody.

But this is a potential breakthrough
moment.

The great news
was that this came back positive.

The blood spot in the boot

matched the body that we'd found
at the deposition site.

So this was really great information
for me,

and it told me Ming Jiang
was now a suspect in this enquiry,

and he wasn't just somebody
that may have been in the vicinity.

The body from the deposition site
had been in the boot of the car

and that was really important news
for us.

'Forensic investigators
also revealed some evidence

that was of particular interest to
crime scene manager Tony Coombes.'

They said there were red fibres
on the carpet inside the boot.

That takes me back to my initial
observation at the scene,

these odd red fibres
on the inside of the suitcase.

This is a grey carpeted Mercedes.

Why has that got red fibres
on the bottom?

Is there, you know, a link there?

'With Ming Jiang now a suspect,

could this help identify
the victim?'

We found some documentation
in Ming Jiang's vehicle

to a guy called Yang Liu...

...who lived in Salford.

And we started to make enquiries
there at his apartment

to see if we could locate him.

Unfortunately,
we weren't able to find him,

and we made the decision

that we were going to force entry
into his apartment.

We found nothing particularly
remarkable in there,

but what it did give us

was the opportunity
to take some things

we might be able to get DNA from.

So toothbrush, hairbrushes,
that sort of thing.

And I added that to the requirement
around the DNA profiling.

'This was the breakthrough needed.'

'The DNA taken from the apartment
was a match with the torso.'

'It was confirmed the victim
was Yang Liu, a Chinese national.'

Yang Liu was described as very kind
and gentle and friendly.

He was born on Beijing
and he was brought up in Beijing,

and his family is very...
whole family is very well educated.

He came to the UK in 2000

and he studied
in the University of Leeds.

And after he finished his studying,
he decided to stay in the UK.

He owned his flat in Media City,
Salford Quays in Manchester.

Yang Liu was a successful trader
in stocks and shares.

That's how he earned his money,
that's what was his job.

And he had a very comfortable life
doing that.

Yang Liu regularly went to casinos
in Manchester.

There's quite a large
Chinese community in Manchester,

and casinos and gambling appear to
be something of a gathering place,

a social setting
where Chinese nationals went.

One person who Yang Liu struck up
a friendship with at the casino

was Ming Jiang.

They even shared some tables
sometimes while gambling.

'But Ming Jiang was heavily in debt
to the casinos.'

Ming Jiang decided that the only way
he can solve his financial problems

is by hatching a plan.

A breakthrough in the investigation

had put a name to the burnt
and dismembered body

found dumped on a rural road.

Chinese national
and Manchester resident, Yang Li.

At autopsy,

the body had shown that Yang was
dead before he had been set on fire.

The prime suspect
was his former friend Ming Jiang.

With a wealth of evidence
against him,

it was time for the police
to move in.

'Ten days after the torso
was found in a suitcase,

police arrested Ming Jiang.'

I made the decision
to get him arrested

at the earliest opportunity.

With the assistance
of Greater Manchester Police,

we managed to track him down
to a casino.

He had some documentation, passport,

some other items of paperwork
in the name of Yang Liu

on him at the time of his arrest.

'With Ming Jiang in custody,

they carried out a thorough
forensic search of his flat.'

(Cox) On first look, it was a clean
and tidy, unremarkable apartment.

But as soon as the forensic guys
got to work,

there was lots and lots
of traces of blood in there.

They would be very interested
in blood,

and it is extremely difficult

to clean up a crime scene
of all blood.

Especially where quite a lot
has been shed.

And so it proved
in this particular case.

A lot of blood was found.

There was evidence of clean-up,
apparently,

but there was a lot of blood
on the floor.

It had seeped
into this laminated flooring

and also into the cushions
on the sofa.

So there was, you know,
a remarkable amount of blood.

Blood pattern analysis
is incredibly important

in understanding crime scenes
where blood has been spilt.

And it can show you, you know,

where the main force
of the attack happened,

obviously, and the types of injury.

For example,
if you breach an artery,

then you can see that
from the kind of arterial spurting

that you will get
all over the nearby surfaces.

If they've wandered about
dripping blood, you can see that.

You can see pools of blood
where they may have lain.

If they've been stabbed,

then there's another kind of pattern
of blood staining,

perhaps cast-off droplets of blood

that fly onto the wall
and surrounding surfaces

and land there.

We have some really powerful blood
enhancement techniques these days

that can show up
the bloodstained footwear marks,

even when they've got too faint
to see it with the naked eye.

So really powerful techniques
are used

in connection with
some of these observations.

'As well as blood, crime scene
manager Tony Coombes wanted to know

whether there was any evidence
of red fibres at the property

that he could link with those found
in Ming Jiang's car

and at the dump site.'

(Tony) There was a red sofa
in the address,

and when they opened the zips
on the sofa cushions,

these red fibre... fibres
came spilling out

from inside the cushion cover.

But on the foam,
on the inside of the cushion cover,

there was blood staining.

So these cushion covers had
obviously been washed to clean them.

When we looked round the edges
of the sofa,

you could still see blood spatter.

It became apparent the walls
had been painted

and there was potentially
blood underneath there.

But there were parts of the wall
which hadn't been painted,

again there were small spots
of blood that we could see.

From a senior investigation
officer's point of view,

I'm really interested then to know
if the blood in the apartment

is the same that's in the car,

and is the same that's
at the deposition site.

So DNA samples are taken from there,

and I get the news that the blood
that is in the suspect's apartment

is the same that's in the car,

and is the same
that's at the deposition site.

And really good news at this point,

in that the investigation's
really gathering momentum now.

And that then starts to give me
some information

that the scene of the murder
might be Ming Jiang's apartment.

Ming Jiang dismembered
Yang Liu's body in his apartment

and that would have resulted
in extensive blood losses.

The limbs and the head were cut off.

But the sharp implement
is difficult to use

if you don't have
the anatomical knowledge,

and we can see this
on the digital table.

The vertebrae had been cut through.

Now these are really difficult
to cut,

because they're folded structures
that fit together in a complex way.

At the other end of the body
down at the knees,

cutting through those bones
is difficult

because they're incredibly thick
and firm bones

that require a lot of force.

And the same is true
of the shoulder.

If you don't know the anatomy
of the shoulder,

it's very hard to remove the arms.

There was nothing to suggest
that this killer

had any anatomical knowledge,

and it would have been impossible

to contain the blood lost
from the body.

He tried to clear up
as best as he could,

and he tried to redecorate places
and cleaned all the surfaces.

But when the head was cut off
and the limbs were removed,

their major blood vessels
would have been cut through,

and blood would have leaked
passively out of the body,

causing extensive blood staining
of the area.

It was the finding of the blood
in the apartment

that was the crucial clue
in this case.

We knew
who the people involved were,

we knew who the perpetrator was,
we knew who the victim was.

We knew perhaps
some of the basic understanding

of how it had taken place.

'With a wealth of evidence
against him,

Ming Jiang was charged
with the murder of Yang Liu.'

'But Derbyshire Constabulary

wouldn't be taking the case
any further.'

This was a murder that
took place in Greater Manchester.

'Two weeks into the investigation,

Greater Manchester Police
took over the case.'

'It was now down to them to gather
all the extra evidence needed

to prove the case in court.'

The investigation
was passed over to me and my team,

and we commenced the important
critical enquiries

that were needed to be done.

The critical issue
from my point of view was time.

The closer you are to an offence
being committed,

the more likely you are
to detect it.

And 14 days had passed since
the deposition had taken place.

We really had to get a fast start
on the evidence

that was likely to be lost
because of the time lapses.

That was particularly the case
around CCTV and telephone evidence.

The big area was around CCTV.

Now what we had to do there
was put a team on that

and we worked
on two basic strategies.

That was look at the movements
of the victim

and look at the movements
of Ming Jiang, the offender.

'They knew Yang Liu's address,
they knew Ming Jiang's address,

and they knew the casino
they'd both went to.'

So we would pick up CCTV
from those locations

and try and work out routes
that had been taken,

particularly on the night
of deposition.

We're able then to track
the offender,

pretty much all the way up
to the scene of the deposition site

and pretty much all the way back.

And on top of that,
the most important thing

was making sure that the family
were informed in China.

'They also needed to understand
who Ming Jiang was

and what his motive was.'

Ming Jiang was 43 years of age.

He was a Chinese national, living
in Beswick in East Manchester.

He had quite a transient lifestyle.
He moved around from place to place.

He mainly worked
in the travel industry.

He'd worked for Lufthansa,
the German airline.

He'd been convicted
of credit card fraud in 2002

while working in Germany.

It appeared he'd also worked
in Scotland

and been involved in identity theft
and credit card fraud there,

but he wasn't convicted
of those crimes.

The other interesting factor
about him was that he didn't work

and he didn't claim benefits.

So the big question was, where
was he getting his income from?

I suppose the outstanding feature
about him

is that he was
a bad habitual gambler,

who gambled almost every day.

(Terry) We knew
that he was a big gambler.

He was kind of a Jekyll and Hyde
in relation to that,

so in some casinos he was banned
because of his behaviour.

When he lost money
he was quite abusive,

and as a result of that
they kicked him out.

However, in others he was treated
as a VIP guest and he...

Due to the fact that he spent
a lot of money there.

'It was Ming Jiang's gambling habit
that would put Yang Liu in danger.'

Ming Jiang had an insatiable thirst
for cash.

He had a severe gambling addiction.

He was gambling thousands of pounds
each day in casinos.

He had accumulated losses
across several casinos in Manchester

amounting to £273,000.

He was being chased by creditors

and he was having to pawn some of
his designer watches to raise money.

He pawned £16,000 worth of watches
just to raise a bit of cash.

'But that was just a drop
in the ocean

compared with what he actually
owed.'

The reality was,
at the time of Yang Liu's death,

Ming Jiang literally
was teeming in debt.

And that was almost certainly
the big motivation,

we believe, for the murder.

He simply didn't have money
to gamble

and that seemed to be
his life blood.

Ming Jiang has obviously looked
at his friend, who's wealthy,

and decided that the only way
he can solve his financial problems

is by hatching a plan.

And it's cold and calculated
and ruthless.

'Ming Jiang had hatched a plan

to kill Yang Liu
and steal his money.'

'Investigations looking
into their phone records

showed Ming Jiang arranging

to meet up with Yang Liu
at his apartment...'

'...five days
before the body was found.'

We strongly suspected that the
murder took place on 5th October.

The reason for that was because
the way we'd built up the evidence.

CCTV footage showed Yang Liu
leaving his apartment

in the afternoon of the 5th.

He then took a tram.

We tracked him
to the Velopark tram stop,

which is close to the address
belonging to Ming Jiang in Beswick.

And then what we saw
on a longer-shot CCTV

were two figures meeting.

One of them was clearly the victim,

because we tracked him from better
CCTV coming off the tram stop,

and then the other figure
clearly matched

the description of Ming Jiang,

both in terms of his build
and his height.

And the two of them headed off

in the general direction
of Ming Jiang's address

on Falconwood Way.

Added to that was information
from the telephones.

So what we had
just before the meeting

was contact from Ming Jiang
to Yang Liu,

again suggesting
there was going to be contact,

and from that point onwards,

the phones remained together
for the whole time.

'This would be the last time
that Yang Liu was seen alive.'

It was quite clear

that Ming Jiang would do anything
to fund his gambling habit.

I suppose in a way, it was
the biggest gamble of his life.

Police were close to solving the
case of the burnt torso

found in a lay-by on a road
in the Peak District.

DNA from the body had matched blood
found in the boot of the car

belonging to the suspect,
Ming Jiang.

It had also identified the victim
as Yang Liu,

despite the killer's attempts to
conceal the identity of the victim

by dismembering the body.

But dismembering a body
is really quite difficult.

Ming Jiang used
some sort of sharp object,

although we don't know exactly
what he used.

And the complexities of cutting up

the body led
to inevitable blood loss

which was easily found
by forensic teams in his apartment.

Police believe this revealed
the truth

and would lead to a conviction,

backed up by CCTV
and digital forensics,

all of which linked Ming Jiang
to the crime scene.

As the investigation progressed,
more evidence came to light

when police discovered that
after Yang Liu had been murdered,

Ming Jiang took over his identity.

Ming Jiang only seemed
to be interested in one thing

and that was accessing and cleaning
out the funds of Yang Liu

in any way that he could.

He'd ascertained
all his bank credit card details

and systematically
started emptying his accounts.

He would be going in,
buying various items,

often with Yang Liu's credit cards.

So, for example, he'd go into
Selfridges or he would go into B&Q.

In fact, he actually used
the victim's card

to buy cleaning items and paint
in order to cover up the scene.

Not only did he seek to remove
every last penny that he had,

he also tried to generate loans
and even sell his house.

One thing that was really
interesting from the CCTV

from the victim's home address,
was we saw, on numerous occasions,

him heading down to that flat
and then coming back out again.

So, you know,
our inference from that

was that he was obtaining items,
personal items,

so that he could commit fraud.

In addition to that, we saw him
coming out with numerous suitcases.

We knew that Yang Lui
had some quite expensive clothing,

and what we discovered
was his flat was almost empty.

So Ming Jiang really went
to great depths and extents

to steal every item of value
that Yang Liu had.

It was quite clear
that Ming Jiang would do anything

to be able to realise funds
to get back to the casino

and basically fund
his gambling habit.

One of the most callous things
that Ming Jiang did

was once he'd taken possession
of Yang Liu's phone,

he'd obviously gone through it

and discovered a message from
Yang Liu's mother over in China.

As a result of that,
to cover his tracks,

he sent a message back
saying just the words "I OK",

effectively to say that there was
nothing wrong with Yang Liu.

But at that point
he was almost certainly dead.

'The evidence just kept piling up
against Ming Jiang.'

'When police analysed
Yang Liu's phone data,

they discovered there was
regular contact between the two men

before the murder.'

'But that all stopped
after 5th October,

the day police believe
Yang Liu was killed.'

When he was arrested,

Ming Jiang even had his victim's
passport and mobile phone on him

in the casino when he was held.

'And there was one piece
of CCTV footage

that was particularly chilling.'

One critical piece of evidence
we got just beforehand

was a trip to a petrol station

where, in fact, Ming Jiang
not only bought a petrol can,

but filled it up,

presumably then to use that
to set fire to Yang Lui's body

during the deposition.

'And when interviewed
by the police in custody,

Ming Jiang kept changing his story.'

Some of the more disturbing aspects
of the interview

involve Ming Jiang explaining
Yang Liu's background,

which were completely false.

So he claimed that they were in
a relationship, which they weren't.

He claimed that Yang Liu
was an escort, which he wasn't,

and he often went off
with older Chinese men.

Again, completely untrue.

But this was the kind of explanation
that he was making

to explain the disappearance,
if you like.

He also used that relationship
status in order to suggest

that that's why he had access
to his funds and his property.

And again, it was just a way
of him covering up his lies.

'One of the lines of questioning
the police put to Ming Jiang

related to the blood found
in the back of his car,

and this is when he came up
with a new story

involving a mysterious character
by the name of John Wong.'

His explanation was
that he'd come back to the flat

and then suddenly he finds
two men in there.

One's a guy called John Wong and the
other is someone he doesn't know.

So you had John Wong
and another Chinese male

and you had two suitcases.

Again, the inference was that
one suitcase contained the torso

and one suitcase almost certainly
contained the other body items.

And this is his explanation

which went some way to mitigating
that this was...

These two people are involved
in this crime instead of him.

'Ming Jiang continued to frame
the mysterious John Wong,

saying he had put the suitcase
in the back of his car.'

He went on to explain that John Wong
ordered him to take his car

and directed him to a location,

which presumably the inference was
that that was the deposition point.

He said at that point
John Wong got out of the car,

took the suitcase out,
and he was directed to leave.

The reality was, once you've
pieced together the evidence,

the CCTV said
it was solely Ming Jiang.

We got him filling up with petrol,
we got him always on his own.

We never detected another male
at all involved in the offence.

We worked very hard to establish
that person's identity,

but, quite frankly,
John Wong never existed,

except in Ming Jiang's mind.

'On 3rd April 2017,
Ming Jiang faced a trial

at Minshull Crown Court
in Manchester

for the murder of Yang Liu.'

Ming Jiang came across in court

as being completely cold
and emotionless throughout.

He didn't betray any sort of, er...
any feelings.

And he certainly didn't show
any remorse.

And he kept up with some
quite ridiculous and bizarre alibis.

He claimed
that he and Yang were lovers,

that they were in a relationship.

That the reason
why he was transferring so much cash

from his victim's bank accounts
to his

was because they were planning
a civil partnership.

Erm... that, er,

that Yang was in trouble with
some Malaysian betting syndicate.

And there wasn't a shred of evidence
for any of this.

'The prosecution presented
to the jury

that Ming Jiang invited his friend,
Yang Liu, over to his flat

with the sole purpose
of killing him for financial gain.'

Even after he had murdered Yang Liu,
he carried on gambling.

In fact, if anything,
his gambling accelerated.

He was betting
bigger and bigger sums,

and using his victim's money.

He spent around £185,000
on casino chips

in the two weeks after the murder.

He maintained his account
that John Wong,

this mysterious John Wong,
was responsible for the crime.

And even when he was giving evidence
during the trial

he maintained that account.

But it just simply was incredulous
and bizarre.

And in fact, the jury,
having sat for four weeks,

only took four hours
to give their judgement.

It's quite unusual.

You would normally expect one day's
deliberation for each week.

And in fact,
instead of taking four days,

the jury took just four hours.

That just shows you
the overwhelming amount of evidence

that he faced at the trial.

'On 2nd May 2017, Ming Jiang

was convicted of the murder
of Yang Liu.'

'He was sentenced to life in
prison.'

'The judge said if parole
was ever to be considered,

they must look at the danger
Ming Jiang presents to society.'

I watched Ming Jiang's reaction
and there was simply nothing.

He was completely cold
and emotionless.

And it was almost like
it was just another day,

nothing had happened.

Ming Jiang never admitted
what he'd done.

He maintained his innocence
throughout.

He's never given a full account
of what took place in his flat.

And he... before he was arrested,
he just continued to gamble.

In fact, this murder was motivated
completely and totally by greed.

To this day, Yang Liu's hands,
head and feet haven't been found.

Would these discoveries
have changed the investigation?

The complete body could have
established a cause of death,

but in the end, how he was killed
could only be speculation.

But the body gave enough truth
even in its dismembered state.

You don't always need to know
exactly how someone died.

Parts of a body can be enough
to seal a conviction for murder.

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