Yang (Christopher) Liang was sentenced to 10½ years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the March 2024 death of his wife, Men Cheung, near the University of B.C. endowment lands.
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Yang (Christopher) Liang has been sentenced to 10½ years in prison after admitting to manslaughter in the death of his wife, Men Cheung, in March 2024 near the University of B.C. endowment lands west of Vancouver.
In a decision published Friday, Justice Carla Forth said Liang had a high degree of moral responsibility, describing a case in which Cheung was “violently beaten” and left alone in her bedroom for multiple hours.
Forth also said Cheung was in a particularly vulnerable situation because she had only recently arrived in B.C. and had no connections with family or friends, adding that she “had only Mr. Liang by her side.”
The sentencing followed Liang’s guilty plea to manslaughter in March 2024, only days after Liang and Cheung married on March 8; first responders found Cheung on March 13.
Cheung, who was 26 at the time, and Liang were staying at a home owned by Liang’s mother when the killing occurred, according to the decision.
Forth noted that the joint submission from prosecutors and Liang’s defence recommended the sentence and included a lifelong weapons prohibition and an indication the case involved intimate partner violence.
With credit for time served in pre-trial custody, Liang will serve nine years and six months in prison.
Liang was initially charged with second-degree murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter.
In describing sentencing considerations, Forth said the guilty plea spared Cheung’s mother and family from a lengthy trial and recounted a victim impact statement from Cheung’s mother, Fong Lee.
Forth also said Liang, 38, was struggling with mental health issues at the time of the killing and that he has complied with strict release conditions since then.
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