Desert Rd case: Widow of Ricky Wang testifies at murder trial of Michael Gu

Although their relationship was estranged, methamphetamine syndicate henchman Ricky Wang and his wife would often keep in contact concerning their two children and other matters of their Auckland-based lives together that remained entwined. Then in August 2017, as she and their children visited China, all communication from Wang abruptly and mysteriously stopped.

“My mum told me there was a boy who came to my home [in Auckland] and gave my mum $10,000 in cash,” the widow told jurors in the High Court at Auckland today as she testified in the murder trial of her husband’s former syndicate colleague Zhicheng “Michael” Gu.

The cash belonged to her husband, the courier said without giving any other explanation.

“I tried after that to contact Ricky but I couldn’t get ahold of him,” she said through an interpreter who sat next to her beside the witness box. “I tried to find him. I couldn’t.”

The woman never reported Wang missing, but his body was found encased in concrete in a shallow grave near Tongariro National Park three years later after another syndicate member, Tony Piao, came forward and admitted to having helped dump the body.

Since then, two other people have pleaded guilty to murder and Piao and another man have pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder.

Authorities say syndicate boss Jian Qi Zhao, otherwise known as “Uncle Six”, has admitted to having ordered the killing after suspecting Wang of plotting to take control of the large-scale drug operation.

Gu’s job, prosecutors said at the outset of the trial last week, was initially to help tie Wang to a chair inside a West Auckland home serving as a clandestine meth lab and help interrogate him at gunpoint. Unsatisfied with Wang’s answers during the interrogation, Uncle Six then ordered the defendant to stab Wang to death with a newly purchased hunting knife while the victim remained tied up, prosecutors have alleged.

Zhicheng "Michael" Gu appears in court for an earlier hearing. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Gu’s lawyers have acknowledged he was one of Uncle Six’s henchmen but denied he was present during the fatal stabbing. He’s being used as a scapegoat as his former co-defendants scramble to get lighter prison sentences, they suggested.

Around the same time she received the $10,000, Wang’s estranged wife said she was contacted on social media app WeChat by Piao, who told her that her husband had run away, possibly to Australia.

“When did he run away? Why did she run away?” the widow recalled asking. “He said to me he ran away with a prostitute.”

“He’s quite shameless,” she recalled Piao telling her.

She beleived Piao, who also advised her not to go to police because he said her estranged husband was involved in something drug-related, she said.

“It was making me and my mum very, very scared,” she said, explaining that other people had been knocking on her door late at night, to the point where they decided to move.

But roughly two years later, she said she went to Piao again and asked for help trying to find her husband.

“I said, ‘What am I going to do with these two children? ... Could you please help me find him?’” she testified. “He said he really couldn’t.”

Piao offered to give her money to help with the children.

“Well, that’s not a long-term solution [to the children not having a father around], is it?” she replied.

The woman recalled going to one other person looking for answers: Lian “Archer” Duan, who has been described as a low-level runaround for the syndicate.

Duan initially refused to meet with her, but she called him again - this time in tears - after her husband’s body was located.

“It’s very difficult for me,” she recalled telling him. “When I ask [police what happened] they don’t want to tell me the details because it’s still under investigation.”

She pleaded with him to meet with her, perhaps in a public place with a lot of people around.

“I really just want to know what happened,” she recalled saying.

Duan relented, and soon thereafter they met near the entrance to Glenfield Mall on Auckland’s North Shore, but he still tried to avoid answering her questions.

“That incident already happened,” the widow said he told her. “Don’t try to entangle into what happened. It’s not going to be good for you.”

Bao Chang "Ricky" Wang went missing in 2017. Years later, his grisly end came to light. Photo / Supplied

But the mother of Wang’s children said she was already in bad shape, unable to sleep and on medication due to the disappearance.

“Please don’t torture me anymore,” she recalled begging. “Just tell me what happened.”

That’s when Duan described the drug syndicate and the role of “Uncle Six”, she said, explaining that he blamed the syndicate boss for him being too afraid to speak with her earlier.

“If Uncle Six heard he came to talk to me about that Uncle Six would make him die,” she said she was told. “He’s quite a bad person - a ruthless person.

“He told me it was Uncle Six who ordered his henchmen to kill Ricky.”

The widow said she asked Duan why the syndicate would have wanted her husband killed. She was told of rumours that Wang intended to usurp and possibly kill Uncle Six to take over the operation. But they later realised it had all been a misunderstanding, she said she was told.

“They realised later on that they actually killed the wrong person ... because the information was passed on wrongly,” she said. “He said [it was] because they all used drugs. Their brain is ill. They’re not like normal brains. They’re suspicious of other people.”

At the end of the meeting, she said, she asked Duan if he would go to police.

“At least you can bring justice back to society, as well as for Ricky,” she recalled telling the acquaintance. “He said he couldn’t because he said Uncle Six is a very ruthless person. His wife was threatened and about to give birth to his child.”

Duan, Piao and the man known as Uncle Six are all expected to testify for the Crown later this week as the trial continues before Justice Simon Moore and a jury.

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.