A motive to murder: Brenda Lin’s shocking revelation

It was a crime so shocking, it left the nation in disbelief. One night in 2009, in a middle class suburban house on Sydney’s leafy north shore, five members of Brenda Lin’s family were bludgeoned to death in their bedrooms. Brenda’s mum, Lily, her father Min, her little brothers Henry and Terry, and her aunt Irene. Brenda was just 15, the sole survivor and in a Sunday Night exclusive, she has finally broken her silence about the horrific crime.

Brenda’s ordeal was far from over. The man she would turn to for help, her uncle Robert Xie, had in fact been the one who had murdered her entire family. The trusted guardian would prove to be more evil than anyone could ever have imagined.

So why did Brenda Lin’s uncle massacre her entire family? What was his motive? He killed them so Brenda would be forced to live with him under his roof. Brenda was living with her family’s murderer.

On the surface, Robert Xie was a caring and loving relative. But beneath the surface, he was secretly jealous of the success of Brenda’s family. He also harboured unspeakable desires towards his niece Brenda.

But Brenda found the strength to trust her lawyer with the shocking truth. She revealed her uncle Robert had been sexually abusing her before the murders.

“Yes he did. That’s something that… I’m very private about. And it’s something that at this point in time I don’t feel comfortable talking about as well,” she told host Melissa Doyle in the chilling revelation on Sunday Night.

At Xie’s trial, the prosecution claimed his motive for murder was his sexual obsession with his niece. The judge said Brenda was subjected to “serialised sexual abuse” for the two years that Brenda lived with Xie. Ultimately, he killed her whole family, everyone she loved, so Brenda would be forced to live under his roof.

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