作者：Carolyne Meng-Yee, Portia Mao
Kiwi lawyers are desperately trying to get in touch with the young Chinese girl nicknamed Pumpkin, who was abandoned by her father at a Melbourne train station after he’d murdered her mother in Auckland.
There is $40,000 sitting in a trust account for Qian Xun Xue, set up after the case hit the
headlines in 2007.
The Herald on Sunday has tracked the girl down to Changsha, the capital of central China’s Hunan province. She is now 15 years old and lives with her maternal grandmother, Liu Xiao – Ping in Changsha, the capital of central China’s Hunan province.
Auckland publisher and self-professed martial arts expert Nai Yin Xue abandoned his three- year-old daughter at Southern Cross Station and fled to Los Angeles on September 15, 2007.
Grainy images of her were shared by police in an attempt to identify her. She was nicknamed Pumpkin by police due to the Pumpkin Patch brand clothing she was wearing.
They learned her identity two days later and that her mother Anan Liu, 27, was missing. Her body was found in the boot of Xue’s car parked outside the couple’s home on Keystone Avenue in Mt Roskill, but not before police, media and members of the public walked past, and even leaned on it over two days. It led the media to dub the police “Keystone cops”.
Xue’s adult daughter from a previous relationship, Grace Xue, saw her father’s photo in the news and later connected with Qian.
In February 2008, a group of Chinese immigrants recognised Xue from America’s Most
Wanted. They hog-tied Xue and notified the police and he was deported to New Zealand.
He was found guilty of his wife’s murder and in June that year was sentenced to serve a
minimum non-parole period of 12 years. He remains at Springhill Prison and will make his first parole appearance next April.
A friend of Pumpkin’s grandmother told the Herald on Sunday Pumpkin was “tall and
beautiful like her mother”. The teenager leads a very “comfortable life” and attends a private school but has no contact with Grace Xue.
“Qian’s grandma is a wealthy director of a luxurious hotel in Changsha. She doesn’t want the girl to know what’s happened because she is ashamed. But Qian does know everything that happened to her mum and dad. She has read all the stories on the internet.”
Grace helped to set up The Little Pumpkin Trust to secure the financial future of her sister, who she had also wanted to adopt.
It raised $40,000 and 12 years later the money is still in the trust account.
In 2008, Qian’s grandmother rejected the money but it was thought it would be kept for Qian’s future. But 11 years later, it risks being given to the Inland Revenue Department if it is not claimed, said trustee Auckland solicitor John Gray.
“We have been trying to find Grace. We still have the funds held and nobody’s claiming them for the support and wellbeing of the child. We’ve had no contact with Pumpkin’s grandmother either. My message to her is ‘take the money off us’ otherwise it will be surrendered to the IRD.”
Grace Xue couldn’t be reached for comment.
Liu was told by the Herald on Sunday, through an intermediary, that the money was still in the account. She said she wanted to thank New New Zealanders for” still caring” about her granddaughter.
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