Relatives Heartbreak Over Ding Murders

18 July 2011, 09:15 | Updated: 18 July 2011, 09:29

A heartbroken brother has paid tribute four members of his family who were slaughtered in their own home by a killer who is still on the run.

Jixiang Ding flew into Britain last week from his home in Kentucky, USA to meet with officers hunting the killer.

His older brother brother, university lecturer Jeff Ding, 46, his wife Helen Chui, 47, and their daughters Alice, 12, and Xing, 18, were stabbed to death at their home in Wootton, Northampton on Friday 29th April  - the day of the Royal Wedding.

Detectives have named Anxiang Du 52 as the prime suspect

He was was the former business partner of Helen and has been involved in a legal dispute with her over their Chinese herbal remedy business.

Speaking today (Monday July 18th) Jixiang revealed he discovered that his brother, sister in law and two nieces had been murdered while searching the internet back in America.

He said "I actually found out from the internet. I was completely shocked. I could not finish the news story once I saw the pictures. I could not believe that four people were gone. I mean it is just complete shock. And I cannot accept, in a way, that it is reality.

"And then I thought about my parents. They lost their children and their grandchildren in one day. So the first thing I did was to call a relative, my mother's cousin, in our home town in China, and asked them to do me a favour. I asked them to go to stay with my parents, that is the only favour I wanted.

"For Helen's parents and my parents the impact could be fatal, or close to fatal, and I hope they get over the shock at some time."

Asked what he thought about the killer he replied "I want to ask him, how could you stab a knife into an innocent girl's heart. Not once, but twice.

"How could you do that? An innocent girl. I mean I also want to know what he's feeling, or whether he has any feeling when he saw the girls expression, I mean I hope he get an answer. Actually I don't expect I will get a satisfied answer, because, because you know...If I am facing him right now, that is the question I am going to ask "

Mr Ding, grew up with Jeff in the city of Hangzhou, in China.

He said "My memory of my brother is absolutely lovely. He is my only brother. We only had two children at home and when we were little we used to sleep on the same bed for many, many years. When we grew up Jeff became a very quiet man and also became a real gentleman."

He went on "He kept an eye on me and on the mistakes I make and tried to correct them at an early stage. So he cared about my career and my family life and he would give me personal advice.

"Without Jeff's guidance and help I would probably be a different person and have a different career. I am so glad to have had a brother like Jeff.

"I knew my sister-in-law, Helen, for a long time. I knew her before she became my sister-in-law, so I knew her very well. I went to the house they used to live in to collect something of memory and I came out with a photo collection.

"One of the photos in the collection was their wedding picture. I looked at that photo and said to myself, I did not realise my sister-in-law was so beautiful.

"For my two nieces, I am told they were two lovely girls, they were achieving greatly in school and in music. I still remember when I talked to my father earlier this year, my father told me that Xing had a good chance of getting into medical school and I was so, so proud of her and I felt very guilty because I wanted to buy her something but I didn't know what she liked.

"So I sent to my brother an amount of cash and asked my brother to buy something. But my brother said to me it was not final yet and Xing would get a final notice in August. He said lets wait for August and I agreed. I thought I can wait for a few months.

"But now I feel so much regret because I did not get that time and after this happened I look back on my life and found actually that one of the mistakes I made in my life so far is that I have spent too much time waiting for the so-called right time or a best time without realising that the so-called right time often means right now.

I regret that and I will remember them forever and I will miss them forever."

A Crimestoppers reward of £10,000 has been offered for anyone with information which leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the murders.

Du is 52 year old, is 5ft 9ins tall and of slim build. He has thinning hair and regularly wears a baseball cap to cover his head.