LONDON (AFP) — Police are looking for a lodger who rented a room with a Chinese couple who were brutally murdered this month, the detective leading the probe said Tuesday.
The bodies of Xi Zhou and Zhen Xing Yang, both 25, were found with serious head injuries in their flat in Newcastle on August 9, in a crime which has triggered alarm among the local Chinese community.
Last week police investigating the murders revealed that the couple were involved in an Internet betting scam which had "angered and upset a number of people."
On Tuesday they said that a Chinese man was sub-letting a room in the apartment where they lived.
"We now believe that an unidentified male rented a room from the couple on or about August 1 this year," said Steve Wade, the detective leading the investigation.
On August 3 or 4, Yang told his mother in China that they had taken on a new lodger. "Mr Yang informed his mother that the new lodger was a student and that he came from the Jinzhou area of the northern seaport city Dalian," he said.
"We have no further information to identify the lodger and enquiries to trace him have so far failed."
Besides the Internet betting scam, the couple were believed to have been involved in the trade of fake documents such as visas and professional qualifications, police say.
Zhen -- whose occupation since he graduated from Newcastle University in 2006 is unknown -- was found to have placed advertisements on Chinese-language websites recruiting people to watch football matches around the world.
Zhen may have been tortured for up to an hour before he died from his wounds, police said, citing evidence from the murder scene.
The couple both suffered severe head injuries caused by a knife and another sharp weapon, police say. Zhen also suffered extensive bruising to his forearms, likely caused as he tried to protect his head.
The couple both graduated from Newcastle University in 2006. Xi, also known as Cici, was originally from Hunan province in south-central China, while Zhen -- known to friends as Kevin -- had family in Dalian, northeast China.
At the weekend questions were raised over Zhen's academic qualifications, after it emerged that he had dropped out of an undergraduate course, but still went on to take a graduate course.
The killing has triggered concern among other young Chinese people in the area.
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