Overview
- The Victorian Court of Appeal on Wednesday re-sentenced Xiaozheng Lin to a maximum of 18 years in prison and set a 14-year non-parole period after allowing prosecutors' appeal.
- Lin had pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter in October 2024 and was originally sentenced in November 2024 to a maximum of 14 years with a nine-year non-parole period.
- Court records say Lin killed Yuqi Luo and Hyun Sook Jeon on December 27, 2022, assaulting and then stealing from both women who worked as migrant sex workers in Melbourne apartments.
- The appeal judges said each offence carried high objective gravity, noted the short time between the two killings as an aggravating factor, and found Lin showed limited prospects of rehabilitation.
- The ruling underscores how prosecutors can challenge plea-based sentences as 'manifestly inadequate' and highlights tensions between negotiated pleas, available forensic evidence, and public expectations of accountability for vulnerable victims.