Christchurch estate agent Yangfei Bao murder trial: Devastated partner describes horror of not returning home from work

This afternoon, lab technician Gooch, who brought a small blue stuffed toy with him into the witness box, spoke about how the events unfolded on July 19 last year.

Gooch, who had been in a relationship with Yanfei for five years, kissed her on the forehead while she was still sleeping before he left for work on his motorcycle at about 7:45 am.

They didn’t speak during the day, and Gooch said they were both busy professionals.

After work, around 4:30 p.m., Gooch texted Bao that he was heading to the city’s central gym: “Hi honey, I’m just heading to Les Mills right now. I’ll catch up with you when I get home later.”

Bao had a car and usually picked up her 9-year-old daughter after school around 5:30 p.m.

But after the gym, and looking at his phone for the first time when he stopped for Chinese takeout, he discovered several missed calls from after-school program staff saying Bao had not picked up the child.

When he returned home, he found his neighbor in his driveway.

“I obviously knew something was going on,” Gooch told the court.

The neighbor said people from the after-school program visited the house and found no one home. The girl was taken to Christchurch Central Police Station and a neighbor offered to take Gooch there.

At the police station, Gooch made sure the girl was okay, spoke to a police officer and said he was seriously worried about Bao, saying her disappearance was “totally out of character.”

He told the jury that Bao “never… never disappeared in the entire time I knew her.”

On the way home, he tried to call her phones several times, and although they rang, they were not answered. He said he was constantly getting more and more worried.

He also called friends, but they also did not hear anything about her.

By about 10:30 p.m., he decided not to wait until the morning to officially report her missing because he knew “something was seriously wrong.”

The house on Trevor Street was later subjected to a forensic examination. The Crown says blood found at the back door and in the front bedroom matched Bao’s DNA, while blood found in the trunk and back of Cao’s car also matched Bao’s DNA, the Crown told jurors.

Video surveillance from various cameras, as well as telephone interview data and geolocation data also tracked the murder accused’s movements around the city after the attack, the Crown alleges.

Forensic pathologist Dr Leslie Anderson performed an autopsy on Bao’s body, which was in an “advanced stage of decomposition” by the time she was found.

Anderson concluded that she died as a result of a brutal attack with two distinct stab wounds to the abdomen.

The trial continues before Judge Lisa Preston.

Kurt Baier is the South Island news director for the NZ Herald in Christchurch. He is a senior journalist who joined Herald in 2011.