Yanfei Bao: The jury was shown a video of a man buying a shovel on the day she disappeared

Jurors have been shown CCTV footage of a man buying a shovel on the day Christchurch real estate agent Yanfei Bao, who the Crown says is her killer, disappeared.

The 44-year-old mother went missing on July 19, 2023, and her remains were found in a shallow grave in farmland near Christchurch just over a year later.

Chinese citizen Tingjun Cao, 53 years old, accused of her murder.

New Brighton hardware store owner Dennis Shrimpton heard from the Supreme Court on Tuesday. He described a customer who bought a shovel on July 19.

“An Asian gentleman walked into my store holding his phone and talking on it. He showed me the phone, but nothing was read there. He was trying to tell me something. He dropped the phone and started pointing with his body.

“I thought he wanted to make something up. Then he showed something like digging, but it didn’t make any sense other than I thought the guy wanted to buy a fork. But then he made it clear that he wanted to dig a hole. That told me he was looking for a peak.”

Shrimpton said the man appeared to be in his 40s and jurors were shown CCTV footage of the purchase. The Crown argued that the man was Cao.

Defense attorney Joshua McLeod asked Shrimpton if he saw any marks on the man’s hands or blood stains on his clothes. Shrimpton said he didn’t see any marks, but remembered a stain on the man’s pants above the knee.

After Shrimpton finished his testimony, Tsao stood up in court, started shouting and waving documents before being led away.

On Monday, the court also heard a witness who saw a vehicle matched the description of one of the police officers who had been looking for Bao, who had been driving erratically the day she disappeared.

Police found Bao’s car – a silver Nissan Dualis – in Iroquois Place, Wigram, at around 10.45pm on July 19, 2023.

Christchurch resident Jason Saunders described seeing a Nissan speeding along the road without its lights or signals on at around 7pm in the Wigram area. He said he noticed the vehicle because it was dark and the lights were not on.

“The car swerved slightly from side to side over the road, so over the center line and back to the left side of the road.”

Saunders said he could not make out the vehicle’s license plate number, what the driver looked like or the number of passengers.

He contacted the police after seeing a media article that police were looking for a Nissan Dualis in connection with Bao’s disappearance.

The Crown’s case is that Cao stabbed Bao several times in the Trevor Street property, dragged her body through the house and put it in the boot of his car. Bao’s body was found in a grave at Greenpark Farm in July.

Crown prosecutor Cameron Stewart said a photo obtained from Cao’s phone showed Bao’s dead body, which showed her naked from the waist down and covered in blood.

Stewart said the Crown did not need to prove a motive, but the photo could suggest a sexual element to the attack.

Tsao’s lawyer, Joshua McLeod, said the Crown’s evidence was insufficient to support a charge of murder and there was plenty of evidence. dirtier than they wanted it to appear.

“How they approached this case, how it developed and when. Who did they look to and why, and how wide a net did they cast? What evidence can you really rely on?’ he said.

The trial began on October 21 and is expected to last six weeks.

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