Daughter breaks down in court as her mum’s Perth killer is jailed for life

Eva was 14 years old when her mother took her on a trip through Western Australia in the Christmas school holidays of 2024.

It was just the two of them visiting “many famous spots”, taking “countless photos” and eating “lots of delicious food”. They went to the beach and collected seashells together.

“I told her I would one day buy her a big house by the ocean,” recalls Eva.

But she never got the chance. Weeks later, her mum was dead, murdered in a hotel room by a man they had trusted to help them start a new life in a country where neither of them knew the language or had any family or friends.

Nongyu Peng was 42 years old and had made the ultimate sacrifice for her daughter by immigrating to Perth to give her a fresh start after she was bullied in school back home in China.

Peng left behind a second daughter, just three years old, to stay with her parents while she established a life for herself and Eva. They were going to join them later.

Peng wanted to be a lawyer and was studying English and law, but fell into sex work in a desperate attempt to finance the life she wanted for her family.

That life never eventuated.

Peng was killed by an overdose of GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyrate) by 27-year-old Ruihong Nie in February 2024, having lured her to a hotel room and feeding her the drug without her knowledge.

Nie was not a stranger. He had signed a statutory declaration to support her immigration into the country and Peng lived with his mother at her massage shop.

On Wednesday, as he was sentenced over her death – as well as on charges for the rape, drugging, and stealing from a second woman three weeks later – the WA’s Supreme Court heard how Peng and Nie’s mother had a disagreement over money.

His mother believed she was owed money, and Nie’s plan was drug Peng in the hotel room by luring her there under the pretence that she was meeting a client.

Instead, he wanted to go through her phone and transfer the money to his mother that he believed she was owed.

But the court was told the amount of GHB Peng ingested was “significant” and killed her.

In the hours before her death, Peng texted her daughter, whom she had left at home. Scared she would be scolded for being on her phone so late at night, Eva did not reply.

It is a moment she said would haunt her forever.

She broke down as she read out her victim impact statement on Wednesday in the Supreme Court of WA after travelling back to Perth from China for the hearing.

“After I got out of the car, Stephen told me my mum had died,” she said, recalling the day she was picked up from school to be told her mother was dead.

“I could not believe it. I could not breathe, and I thought I was going to die as well. I was 14 years old, in a foreign country where we only had each other. No words can express how I felt then or how I feel now. Now I had no one but myself.”

She said she was filled with “pain, despair and utter devastation” at having to see her mother’s dead body, before adding that she “lent in close” in case the hospital made a mistake and her mother would start talking to her.

“I now fear for my own safety,” she said.

“I fear that one day another person will come out and kill me too.”

On Wednesday, Nie was sentenced to life in prison for the death of Peng with a non-parole period of 17 years, backdated to March 2024 when he was first remanded in custody.

He was also sentenced separately to five, seven and two years for drugging, raping and stealing from a separate woman which will be served concurrently with the murder sentence.

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