Convicted killer of North Vancouver student violates parole, now missing​on March 26, 2025 at 10:49 pm

Convicted killer Tian (Eddie) Zhang has allegedly violated parole conditions by disappearing.

Zhang, 32, was featured in a Crime Stoppers bulletin this week for being “unlawfully at large.” A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

In 2017, Zhang pleaded guilty to manslaughter after he kidnapped an international student named Peng Sun in September 2015, then contacted his parents in China to demand a ransom.

Sun died — accidentally, according to Zhang — when he was strangled by a zap strap around his neck while he was being held in a North Vancouver basement.

Zhang was sentenced to 11 years, 10 months and granted full parole on Nov. 1, 2023. He went to live with his wife, Ya Ran Li, in a Richmond condo she bought two years earlier for $3.2 million.

A month after Zhang’s release, the RCMP raided the condo and seized $53,650, and boxes of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl and methamphetamine. There was also lab equipment and a money-counting machine.

Zhang’s parole was revoked, though he was re-released into a halfway house after parole board member Patrick Storey said that while the “board is very concerned about the circumstances of your suspension and the fact that a police investigation is ongoing, no charges have been approved by Crown counsel at this point.”

B.C.’s director of civil forfeiture later filed a lawsuit against Zhang and his wife claiming that the condo and cash found inside should be turned over to the government as proceeds of crime, something the couple denied in their response.

They also claimed that police had violated their Charter rights during the December 2023 search. Neither Zhang nor Li has been charged criminally.

The civil forfeiture suit wasn’t the only claim against Zhang at the time of his disappearance.

The parents of his victim, Cang Sun and Hua Li, filed a new lawsuit against Zhang and his wife last May, seeking to recover more than $300,000 in ransom they paid.

The lawsuit alleges a series of payments were sent to Zhang amounting to $356,592, of which $49,820 was recovered by police after his arrest. Some of the extorted money was demanded after their son was already dead, according to the claim.