A 62-year-old Michigan man convicted of the appalling rape and homicide of poker participant Susie “Susie Q” Zhao was despatched to jail for all times on Thursday.
Susie Zhao, left, was raped, tortured, and burned alive by Jeffrey Morris, proper, who will now spend the remainder of his life in jail. (Picture: Day by day Beast)
Sentencing Choose Martha Anderson of Oakland County Circuit Court docket advised Morris he had “taken benefit of a person who was fragile, and mainly destroyed every little thing she had completed in her life.”
She described it as one of many “most agonizing” trials she had ever presided over.
When requested if he had something say, Morris, a transient convicted intercourse offender answered, “There’s quite a bit I’d prefer to say. This time I’m not gonna say something — I’ll wait until I come again for an attraction and start once more,” as reported by The Oakland Press.
‘Liar, Assassin, Pervert’
Zhao’s badly charred physique was present in secluded parkland northwest of town of Pontiac, Mich. in July 2020. She had been zip-tied, sexually assaulted, doused in gasoline, and set on hearth. She was 33 when she died.
The health worker stated soot in her airways indicated she had been burned alive. She additionally had intensive injury to her genital space brought on by blunt power, the examiner testified.
Final month, the jury took lower than an hour to convict Morris of first-degree premeditated homicide and felony homicide. The latter pertains to a homicide throughout the fee of one other felony, on this case, felony sexual conduct.
Prosecutors accused Morris of appearing out a sick sexual fantasy on his sufferer. Morris made 1000’s of web searches associated to sadistic intercourse involving kidnap and violence, particularly in opposition to Asian ladies, court docket information present. He additionally regarded up pornography that concerned encounters in secluded wooded areas.
Lead litigator John Skrzynski described Morris in his closing argument as “a killer and a liar, a liar and a assassin, a liar and a pervert.” Morris was somebody for whom intercourse “is violence, is dying, is inflicting ache, it’s merciless,” the Press reported.
Cellphone information linked Morris to the crime, displaying his cellphone and Zhao’s have been collectively within the hours main as much as the homicide.
Darkish Scar
China-born Zhao grew up in Michigan and had returned there throughout the pandemic after a decade on the California poker scene. Primarily a money recreation participant, she however loved a number of deep runs within the World Sequence of Poker and had web profession event earnings of $224,671, in line with the Hendon Mob Database.
It was revealed on the trial that she had developed schizophrenia, a element she had hidden from her buddies in Michigan.
One, Emily Rogowski, advised the Press she didn’t need Morris’ crime to outline Zhao and who she was. It was a “darkish scar on an in any other case spectacular existence,” she stated.
