Toronto's webcam killer charged with first degree murder

A Toronto court charged a man on Thursday with first degree murder following the death of a Chinese national who was enrolled in York University.

The Finch Avenue Court charged Brian Dickson, 29, of first degree murder after his arrest by the Toronto police on Wednesday.

The handcuffed Dickson showed no emotion as charges were read during the five-minute hearing, 680 News reported.

The case captured attention all over the world when Qian Liu, 23, who was living in "The Village" south of the campus was killed on Friday 1:00 by a man that was witnessed by her boyfriend Meng Xianchao on webcam who was chatting with the victim online on the other side of the globe, China.

Xianchao told the cops that he saw helplessly as the man attacked Liu that took several minutes. The man then turned the laptop off during the assault, said NY Daily News.

According to the police, the images were live-streamed and not recorded, in a report by The Canadian Press. However, I searched for possible videos on YouTube but found one that was removed by the popular site due to violation of its Terms of Service. Click here to find out.


It says on Google search, "Qian Liu Video Chat with Boyfriend Before Murdered." It was uploaded by "dscandals." A short description of the alleged video said, "dontxposeme.com A university student was murdered by an intruder as her helpless boyfriend watched on a webcam..."

Liu's boyfriend unsuccessfully tried to call her friends in Toronto.

She was found dead about 10 hours later in her apartment by her landlord and two friends.

Liu was seen naked from her waist down with no signs of trauma or sexual assault. Police autopsy failed to show a cause of her death.

Her laptop is missing, a black Lenovo ThinkPad model T400, and a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone. Images of these missing items are posted in Toronto Police Website. I tried to visit the said Website but failed to see the images of the missing items as well as the news referring to this case on this link.


What I found was a Press Release dated 21 April at 11:45 that said, "At a news conference yesterday at 5:30 p.m., Inspector Edward boyd, of the Homicide Squad, asked the media not to publish any photographs of Brian Dickson. He explained that publication could compromise his investigation."

A report by the Toronto Star said that days before her death, a rejected suitor has been stalking her. Liu and the stalker had also once lived together.

This was confirmed by one of Liu's friends who posted online that Liu and Dickson once lived together. However, there was no confirmation by the police, according to the Star.

The Chinese student arrived in Canada in September. She had lived in the same apartment since January.

On Wednesday, her grieving parents arrived in Toronto from Beijing who spoke briefly of their lone child, "We are very sad but we would like to take this opportunity to thank . . . everyone, the media, community and Chinese consulate staff. Thank you, but we are really tired," the victim's father, Jianhui Liu said.

Questions remain on Liu's family.

Jianhui, a faculty member at The Central Party School, that teaches and trains Communist Party officials, asked calmly, "I don’t understand why it took so long to inform us. This tragic incident occurred very early on April 15 at about 1:30 in the morning, and we were not called until Monday April 18.

"If this had happened in any other country in the world, I don’t think it would have taken so long."

Liu's father also wonders why there was not any sort of alarm that could have informed the cops earlier of the attack to his daughter.

"I can’t help but think that if police could have arrived sooner, she might have been given emergency care that might have saved her life. Yet it was nearly 10 hours before the police arrived."

A publication ban was placed by the judge who attended the case. About 50 reporters were ordered to step out of the courtroom before they started hearing the case.

The proceedings will resume on 26 April where Dickson will appear via video conference.

Watch the attached video.

Details of this report here.