1-Dec-2015

Australia Xie trial ends in hung jury

Sydney, Australia

After the longest criminal trial in New South Wales history involving a single accused, the jury was unable to reach a verdict on whether Robert Xie killed the Lin family. Mr Xie, 51, is accused of murdering Min "Norman" Lin, his wife Lily, their two sons Henry, 11, and Terry, 9, and Lily's sister Irene, in their home in July 2009.

Justice Elizabeth Fullerton formally discharged the jury, which sat for nine months and deliberated for eleven days. Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC, indicated that the Director of Public Prosecutions was seeking a retrial. Justice Fullerton said that she would seek to have the new trial listed for early 2016.

Prosecutor Tedeschi said, "I made the decision to use Cybergenetics in the New South Wales trial of Robert Xie because TrueAllele was the only technology that could reliably solve the problem of analysing a mixture containing up to five related family members, and I was convinced that Dr Mark Perlin could provide an explanation of its solution that would be understandable to the court."

• Robert Xie jury discharged: Unable to reach verdict - Newspaper
  
• Robert Xie trial jury discharged after failing to reach verdict over Lin family murders - Newspaper
  
• Jury in murder trial of Robert Xie - accused of killing five members of his family - is DISCHARGED after failing to reach a verdict in 11 days - Newspaper
  
• Lin family murders (Wikipedia) - Website