Murdered Chinese students crime scene ‘gruesome’

TWO Chinese students found murdered in a flat suffered severe head injuries, police said yesterday.

The man and woman were found in separate bedrooms of a ground-floor flat in Croydon Road in Newcastle’s West End, around 4.30pm on Saturday.

A source said the crime scene was “gruesome”.

It was understood the nature of the injuries meant police were unable to say what weapon was used.

Neither victim has been formally identified.

Northumbria Police said it was thought that both were students.

Officers were trying to contact their next of kin.

A police spokesman said: “The pair had suffered significant head injuries.”

The cause of death has not been determined, and postmortem examinations will be carried out at the Royal Victoria Infirmary.

Forensic officers were back in the two-bedroom property, searching for evidence yesterday.

By coincidence, the flat is a couple of doors away from the former home of murdered schoolboy, Wesley Neailey.

Neailey was 11 when he was murdered in 1998 by convicted paedophile Dominic McKilligan.

McKilligan, a student from the Bournemouth area, had recently been released from a young offender institution before the murder, and was jailed for life in 1999.

Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: “This is a nice place to live and we have been here for 15 years but seeing all the police activity has brought back memories of Wesley.”