'Would you like to change your mother?' What woman 'asked grandchild before she battered daughter-in-law 33 times in the head with hammer and dumped body so her son could re-marry wealthier bride'

Court heard grandmother hammered daughter-in-law to death



Huajiao Zhuang allegedly put body in wheelie bin before dumping it in nearby creek

Zhuang wanted her son to re-marry Chinese woman for money



Defence allege self-defence and that the deceased produced hammer



A Melbourne grandmother who allegedly bludgeoned her daughter-in-law to death with 33 strikes of a hammer was heard by a witness asking her grandson: 'How would you like to change your mother?'



Huajiao Zhuang, 50, is accused of murdering Dan 'Selina' Lin, 21, because she wanted her to son re-marry a wealthier woman, a court has heard.

Ms Zuhang is accused of beating her daughter-in-law 33 times with a hammer, before wrapping her body in a nylon bag, placing her body in a wheelie bin and then dumping the body in a creek.

Grandmother Huajiao Zhuang allegedly killed her daughter-in-law after 33 blows to her head with a hammer

Prosecutor Peter Kidd told the Victorian Supreme Court that Zhuang wanted her son Rong Ping Zhuang, known as Peter, to divorce Ms Lin and marry a woman from China so he could earn 'hundreds of thousands of dollars' from the woman's family as he had Australian residency.



He also alleged that Zhuang had an ongoing feud with Ms Lin over respect and about the care of her grandson, then aged two with witnesses testifying that Zhuang had previously slapped Ms Lin, attacked her in a car, and cut off some of her hair.

Mr Kidd also said a school friend of Ms Lin once heard Zhuang ask her young grandson: 'How would you like to change your mother?'

Ms Zhang's barrister said the she acted in self-defence, claiming that Ms Lin produced the hammer in a dispute over her child's bathwater.

Deceased: Dan 'Selina' Lin, 21, was reportedly involved in ongoing disagreements with her mother-in-law, who allegedly wanted her son to marry a Chinese woman for financial gain

Mr Kidd said on the afternoon of the murder Zhang was driven to Ms Lin's Bundoora home to do some gardening.

About 3pm on May 3, 2012, she beat Ms Lin repeatedly with a hammer in the bathroom, he said.

A coroner found 33 separate injuries on Ms Lin's head, all inflicted with a hammer.

All were inflicted with moderate force, Mr Kidd said, and a large, v-shaped wound on the back of Ms Lin's head was made with a number of downward blows.

Ms Lin had a fractured nose and jaw, a chipped tooth and damage to a gum. Defensive injuries included bruising to the arm and a broken finger.

The alleged murder took place in the bathroom, before Zhuang is accused of storing the body in a wheelie bin and later dumping it in a nearby creek

Zhuang put the body in a nylon bag, placed it in a wheelie bin and later that night returned to dump the body in a nearby creek, the court heard.

Defence counsel Shane Gardner said his client did not deny inflicting the fatal injuries.

'Our defence is that it was the deceased that produced the hammer, it was the deceased that commenced an attack on my client, that my client was able to dispossess the deceased of the hammer and it's at that point that she caused the fatal injuries,' he said.