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A university student was killed in front of her own webcam while her helpless friend looked on.
Now police have issued an urgent appeal for computer experts to help recover images of the murder.
Officers found the semi-naked body of Qian Liu in her Toronto apartment at York University Village after receiving a tip-off from a male friend who was chatting with her online at the time of the attack.
The witness said she was talking to the 23-year-old business student, originally from Beijing, at about 1am Friday morning when there was a knock at the door at her friend's house.
‘She opened the door to a male. She could have known the male but he was unknown to the online witness,' Toronto Police Det–Sgt Frank Skubic said.
The friend, speaking from Beijing, then told police he watched through the webcam lens as the muscular man with medium-length brown hair asked the victim to use her mobile phone.
He then watched as a violent struggle developed between Qian Liu and the man, although some of the fight also took place out of the camera's range.
The suspect - described as white, in his 20s, 6ft tall and about 200lbs - then turned off the IBM ThinkPad T400 laptop, which is now missing.
The victim’s stunned friend quickly used social media to contact others who knew the woman in Toronto and China but police didn’t arrive at her apartment until around 10 hours later.
‘The online witness became concerned and contacted several people known to the deceased here in Canada, and appealed to them to go and track down her welfare’, Det–Sgt Skubic added.
‘It was as a result of somebody responding to that plea by the online witness that she was discovered.'
A team from the Chinese consulate also arrived after receiving an urgent phone call from the victim’s distraught mother in China.
‘The family said (the mother) got the news maybe the daughter is in danger’, Consulate spokesman Huang Xihua said.
‘They don’t know whether she died, just that she’s in danger’.
Police have now issued a plea to computer experts as they try to recover webcam images of the attack.
Det-Sgt Skubic said the attack ‘wasn’t being recorded by any third-party software’ but police believe the missing computer could still reveal the student’s final moments.
The cause of death is yet to be released and the woman’s body has so far yielded few clues.
‘She was unclothed from the waist down and had been dead for a period of time. There was no trauma to the body which could readily identify the manner of her death and no obvious signs of sexual abuse’, Det-Sgt Skubic said.
An autopsy began on Saturday and the victim’s mobile phone, recovered at the scene, is undergoing forensic examination.
Today officers have begun letting residents back in to the apartments surrounding the scene but the basement remains sealed off.
Qian Liu was one of eight people who lived in the multi-unit house and flatmates said she had only moved in January of this year.
Fellow York University students appeared visibly shaken today and stunned by news of the murder.
The community is still recovering from a separate attack where a young woman was beaten in a university bathroom in what was described as a homophobic assault.
University spokeswoman Susan Webb said she was concerned about the proximity of the attack to the campus: ‘We're doing everything possible to make this a safe environment. It can be a challenge when we don't have any authority off campus’, she said.
The victim’s family are now making arrangements to come to Canada.
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