Cult leader Kaixiao Liu thought he could wing it at Auckland homicide trial; here’s how it backfired

Long before he helped cause the death of a kidnapped “defector” inside his Auckland home, then convinced followers that it was justified defence against a force of evil, bigamist cult leader and aspiring music star Kaixiao Liu knew how to spin an audacious lie in the name of self-promotion.

An early documented example was his 2011 appearance on popular overseas TV show China’s Got Talent, in which he put on a blindfold before singing an original love song – the darkness necessary, he said, to help remember the face of his lost love still missing in New Zealand.

She was a student in Christchurch when the earthquakes hit and never got to hear his original song, dubbed Moonlight Wedding, he said with an air of brave solemnity.

“My fiancée has been missing for more than two months,” he told the judges.

“I hope to sing a song that belongs to both of us on this stage. I hope she can hear it, and I hope she knows that I will be here waiting for her.”

None of it, however, was true. Every victim of the tragic disaster had long been accounted for at that point.

That ability to spin a compelling story would serve Liu well in the following years, as he claimed to be a direct descendant of David, a Biblical figure considered by Christians and Jews to be part of the Messiah’s bloodline.

He managed to gather enough followers in China, that families were assigned numbers, and some volunteered to send their wives and mothers to New Zealand after Liu established roots here in 2017.

The victim who died in his home was 70-year-old Shulai Wang, of “Family 12″, who left behind a husband and three grown sons in China.

Perhaps Liu believed people would continue to take his words at face value after Wang’s bruised and decomposing body – found floating in Gulf Harbour, folded in half and stuffed inside rubbish bags – was traced back to him.

It was a burial at sea after a death by natural causes, he was caught on tape coaching the victim’s son to say.

It was a suicide, he would tell others.

Another explanation was that the victim had been tied up to protect herself from worsening her internal injuries after a nasty fall.

Sometimes he claimed she had mental health issues that caused her to act irrationally.

Other times, he told followers she had allowed evil spirits into her heart, attempting to corrupt their holy house with thoughts so negative they caused the rooftop vegetable gardens to die.

But this time, the evolving explanations would fail to convince the two audiences that most mattered – first police, then the jury.

Liu, 38, was found guilty of kidnapping, manslaughter and desecration of a body this week along with his wife, Lanyue Xiao.

His mother, former obstetrician Dr Xiuyun Li, was found guilty of kidnapping while his father, Jingui Liu, was found guilty of the same mishandling of a corpse charge.

The younger Liu and his wife were also convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice by meticulously coaching the victim’s China-based son to direct fake outrage at police and lie about how she always wanted to be buried at sea.

The sect leader and his wife now face up to life imprisonment, while his mother could receive a sentence of up to 14 years and his father faces up to two years.

‘House of the Lord’

During the trial, prosecutors, standby defence lawyers and the judge all emphasised repeatedly that the defendants were not on trial for their religious beliefs.

Consenting adults can worship however they wish, regardless of how unusual it might sound, jurors were told.

Prosecutors were also careful not to use the word “cult”, instead preferring “religious sect”, although Liu used the term while insisting during cross-examination of a witness that documents were being unfairly translated to make his group sound more cult-like.

The group referred to itself as “the Ark”, and they were part of the “Kingdom of God”, according to translated documents and recordings.

Their home was referred to as the “House of the Lord” and their backyard, surrounded by a privacy fence, was called the “Holy Yard”.

Liu’s followers called him a Mandarin word that could be interpreted into English as “Lord”, “master” or “teacher” but did not mean “God”.

In a recorded session that Liu described as a “special training camp for Kingdom of God generals”, he explained the house they were in was not yet the Ark. However, he said he was looking at larger homes, away from prying ears, where they could accommodate up to 20 followers and properly build the Ark.

Another document, penned by one of Liu’s devotees and titled “Letter of Conversion”, shed more light on the group’s beliefs.

“I am grateful to have the opportunity to be converted to the secret LIU family of the tribe of Judah, descendants of David,” wrote the woman, whose name has been suppressed.

The woman said she had been taught that her old surname came from darkness and from a race of people that had a bad history with the chosen people.

“These things were told to God’s people by the Lamb of God after I came to God’s family,” she said.

“The scriptures promise that God was born in Bethlehem, but only temporarily partially moved to the East.

“In the last days, the Messiah will be incarnated and will still need to find this line.

“I have been saved by God to this place, and have the opportunity to grow my life and I have the opportunity to build an ark and live well.”

Another woman wrote: “No matter where I am, no matter what I do, I must be loyal to the Lord and be single-minded. I will be sincere to the Lord, be completely honest with the Lord, without any barriers, and will bare everything and be open to the Lord.

“Having true love for the Lord and being faithful is the direction of life. The direction is clear, the goal is clear, I will do what I should do in a down-to-earth manner and follow the Lord steadfastly.

“In the family of God, we will love each other, be humble, work hard, be alert at all times, rely on the Lord’s word, and follow the true path forever.”

‘I only belong to Mr. KL’

Police also recovered documents from two different women titled “Covenant of the Body”.

In one of them, the author wrote that she was “willing to enter a mutual love relationship with Mr. KL, build a family and have children with him”.

“I will also keep my body healthy and be in good physical condition. I am writing this covenant with a clear mind. I only belong to Mr. KL.”

The other devotee’s statement was similar, stating that she would “voluntarily love, marry and have children with Mr. KL, build a big family, love and live harmoniously with several other women in the big family”.

Documents believed to be penned by Liu’s co-defendants indicated that they, too, were convinced of his importance to their religious beliefs.

His wife, who sometimes referred to herself as “Queen”, noted in one document that she was willing to share him with other devotees.

“Now, there are a few women that will arrive in this family, they love you, so they will be someone I love too, then I will go and we will love each other,” she wrote.

“I will love them, and love the children they give birth to, who shall be my children.”

Liu’s mother, meanwhile, started each daily journal entry with what appeared to be a prayer to her son.

“May the Master be healthy and strong! May the Master be completely healthy and prosperous in body, mind, and soul!!” she wrote.

“May the Master enjoy his meals and can sleep well! May the Master always have the presence of God the Father! May the Spirit of God move in the body of the Master!

“May everything in the hands of the Master be safe and smooth today! Holy angels, mighty angels, and bright angels are all with the Master!

“Thank and praise God the Father! ... I will work hard in the same direction as the Master! Always be alert! Work, and walk with the Master in one mind.”

Demerits and ‘depravity’

But it seemed that Wang, the victim, had trouble acclimating to the new way of life in the six months between her arrival in New Zealand and early March 2024, when her body was unceremoniously dumped off the side of a bridge.

She could not keep up with the younger members with her chores, she noted in her own diary.

In his own notes, Liu said that the other follower whom Wang had flown to New Zealand with had worked diligently over the months to improve herself.

“Shulai is the opposite,” he wrote.

“As time goes by, the evil of mankind’s nature becomes more apparent, such as laziness, blasphemy, depravity, lying, greed, deceit, etc.

“She even took advantage of her seniority and came with a completely indifferent attitude. She believed that no family members can manage her.”

Other documents showed Wang constantly receiving demerit points – the family had a meticulous monitoring system – for seemingly minor infractions.

She was ordered to repent, sometimes denied meals and eventually ordered to live in a tent on the home’s back deck.

But the punishments became especially sadistic, it was alleged, after she tried to run away from the property on March 6.

Her arms were bound and her mouth was sealed with tape, prosecutor Henry Steele said, citing documents and recordings.

When she continued to scream, a towel was stuffed in her mouth and she was put into a suitcase or box – dangerously restricting her breathing – the prosecutor told jurors.

Wang was found dead the following afternoon.

Liu held a recorded meeting in which he ordered each person in the household, including children, to take turns suggesting methods of disposing of the body without alerting police,

Burial at sea, he concluded, would be the most Christian way to hide her corpse.

Winging it

Prosecutors argued during their closing address that every adult in the house was responsible for Wang’s death.

However, Liu’s five other followers – all overstayers – were deported back to China before police realised the extent of their involvement.

Liu had instructed the followers to nod and give “silly” smiles but say nothing if police ever tried to interview them, and they did exactly that.

Eventually, police decided they were of no use to the investigation, allowing Immigration New Zealand to step in.

The cult leader’s strategy would come to haunt him.

He suggested throughout the trial that he wanted the women brought back to New Zealand so they could give evidence critical to his defence.

Other mistakes followed.

Early on in the criminal justice process, Liu hired David Jones, KC, then later Ron Mansfield, KC, both of whom are generally regarded as among the top criminal defence lawyers in Auckland.

He eventually fired them both, opting to represent himself.

His wife and parents followed Liu’s lead, also insisting they wanted to represent themselves, even though his parents depended heavily upon translators and rarely spoke up in court.

“I don’t know of a human on the earth that would recommend that you defend yourself, but that’s what you want to do?,” Justice Downs asked at a hearing in November when Liu announced the decision.

As the trial got underway and it became clear that Liu was winging it, the judge’s trepidation became increasingly pronounced.

“This isn’t really working,” the judge told Liu at one point as he cross-examined the Crown’s main translation expert, explaining that it appeared the jury was struggling to follow him.

The judge later sent the jury home before the lunch break and ordered Liu to use the rest of the day to take advice from his standby lawyer.

His questioning seemed unfocused, unprepared and strayed into topics that were not relevant, the judge told him.

“I know you want to do it yourself, and I don’t want to be unkind, but you’re not doing a very good job and I don’t think you’re going to get any better,” the judge said, urging him to “do your homework” if he wouldn’t use the lawyer provided.

On at least two other occasions, the judge threatened to send Liu – who was on bail – to the cells for trying to tell family members what to do, rather than allowing them to take advice from their own standby lawyers.

“I am not speaking to you!” the judge yelled at one point as Liu tried to tell his wife how to respond to a question outside the presence of the jury. “Sit!”

Later that day, when Justice Downs asked Liu about secret recordings that resulted from police bugging his house, the defendant admitted he hadn’t yet listened to them.

“Were you going to wait to hear them for the first time in court?” the judge asked incredulously.

“I have no choice,” Liu responded, explaining that police had disclosed to him 2.4 terabytes worth of evidence – “an ocean of data” – and that his trial preparation had suffered because he was “exhausted” focusing on a Family Court matter.

“More than 85% of the materials, the first time I’ve heard in court.”

But by contrast, the judge noted, Liu’s wife asked well-prepared and insightful questions when it was her turn to cross-examine witnesses.

By the end of the trial, all four standby lawyers staged a mutiny of sorts against Liu, petitioning the judge to ban the defendant from delivering his own closing address.

Liu had already not only risked his own case with his ill-preparedness but jeopardised his family members as well, it was argued.

The judge agreed, acknowledging such a ban was unprecedented but necessary to protect the fair trial rights of his family.

Framed by foreign forces?

Up until a month before his trial, Liu and his co-defendants enjoyed a sort of quasi-name suppression, which Liu appeared to repeatedly violate by posting about the case to his more than 400,000 followers on Chinese social media.

“Since 2012, I have been committed to maintaining world peace and safeguarding the community of human destiny with original music,” he wrote in Mandarin on one post.

“Now, hegemony has framed me, attacked and robbed me, and I will stand firm. I hope that the motherland and compatriots will not be blinded by the one-sided reports of foreign forces.

“Today they will target me, and tomorrow they will target you. In the face of injustice, silence promotes evil.”

But at the same time, he was petitioning the New Zealand courts for silence.

The defendants had been named shortly after their initial arrest for misconduct with human remains in June 2024.

Media reports remained online, but they sought name suppression after manslaughter and kidnapping charges were added several months later.

The request was denied by judges at the District Court, High Court and Court of Appeal, but it took until April this year for the appeal process to be exhausted.

At the Court of Appeal name suppression hearing in March, justices again had to implore Liu to focus on the issue at hand, as he tried to turn attention to a Family Court case and touted a conspiracy theory regarding the alleged state-sponsored trafficking of 4000 children to Tonga.

The media had been “weaponised” to attack his family, Liu said, to silence his “infiltration of an international human trafficking network”.

“None of this is remotely supported by evidence,” the appellate panel would later determine. “It is irrelevant.”

He has also shared the child trafficking allegations repeatedly on social media.

“Let’s work together to tear down the new Berlin Wall, to dismantle the cruel abuse of children by the Western system, and to overthrow the oppression of the people by hegemony,“ he wrote in November.

“Our entire family has been framed and persecuted by foreign law enforcement.

“We have discovered and investigated significant corruption within the Western system ... We are currently under death threats.”

The post, accompanied by a photo of Liu sitting in front of a partially shattered window at his home, was titled: “Risking My Life to Investigate the Truth”.

‘Wolf warrior’

Liu also posted new music during that time, including highly produced music videos shot in Ōrewa and Northcote Point.

He operated his own music studio in Auckland Central for a group he financed called Universal Choir, in which he sang original songs with the backing of an orchestra and choir. The group claims to have released six albums.

An analysis of Liu’s social media posts by a Chinese-language media site noted that in a December video Liu promised his followers: “You will soon see the real-life Wolf Warrior”.

But somewhat like his China’s Got Talent appearance 15 years earlier, the reality of Liu’s trial did not seem to live up to the hype he sought to generate.

Although the TV episode was seen by an audience of hundreds of millions, Liu, who went by the stage name “Xiao Xiao”, ranked in the bottom two performers.

The judges did not ask him to return.

He has been told to return, however, to the High Court.

The judge will sentence him, his wife and his parents in August.

Justice Downs denied Liu’s request for bail until then.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.

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