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Officers have appealed for the Chinese man who was sub-letting a room with the couple in their flat in Newcastle's West End to come forward.
Miss Zhou and Mr Yang - both graduates of Newcastle University - were attacked in their ground floor flat in Croydon Road with a knife and another sharp weapon and suffered severe head injuries.
At a news conference in Newcastle, police revealed that the victims advertised one of their bedrooms for rent by placing an advert on a local Chinese website www.ncl.cssauk.org.uk
The website displayed two photographs of the flat together with a contact mobile telephone number for Mr Yang.
Det Supt Steve Wade, who is leading the murder inquiry, said: "We now believe that an unidentified male rented a room from the couple on or about August 1 this year.
On the August 3 or 4 Mr Yang routinely contacted his mother in China via telephone and informed her that he 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.
"We have no further information to identify the lodger and enquiries to trace him have so far failed. We urgently need to identify this unknown lodger who could have vital information to assist the murder investigation, and to eliminate him from our enquiries." |
