It was the smell of death that made Chi-Ho Ricky Kwok suspect his father was dead.
By Finn Blackwell of RNZ
His next question was where was his mum.
Lok Fung Lorrence Li was on trial for the murders of Fuk Fu Joseph Kwok and his wife Mei Han Chong in their home in Auckland's Ellerslie in 2023.
He's also charged with conspiring to murder someone else, who cannot be named.
A jury in the High Court at Auckland heard harrowing evidence about the night Ricky Kwok went to check on his parents, and found his dad dead and his mum missing.
Kwok, an only child, told the court his parents would come to Hamilton where he lived on a regular basis.
The Kwoks were meant to visit their son for Joseph's birthday, shortly before a trip to Hong Kong, but never arrived.
Just after 1pm, Kwok grew nervous, calling them to no avail.
Kwok, who followed his theatre nurse father and midwife mother into a career as a vascular surgeon, said it was "extraordinary unusual" for his mother not to pick up.
"I was very concerned," he said.
Kwok alerted the police and asked for a welfare check.
He was worried his parents had been involved in a car crash on their way to Hamilton, after WhatsApp messages weren't able to reach his parents' phones.
He made the decision to drive to Auckland to check himself.
Arriving in Auckland, Kwok saw his parents' car was missing from their driveway when he arrived.
Inside the Celtic Cres house, Kwok found a body – his father.
It was then his medical training kicked in.
"As I approached towards that area, which was technically the area just beside the dining table, there was this smell," Kwok told the court.
"Medically, I would describe it as melena, essentially the smell of rotting blood, fermented blood."
Kwok knew not to touch the body, something he'd also learned from his medical training and watching "too much CSI dramas".
He did however check for a pulse, which he could not find.
"On top of that, the reason why I suspected that he was dead was because he had that smell of death that, again, working in the profession, you know when someone's been dead for at least a couple of hours," Kwok said.
"There's a certain rotting smell associated with that."
It was then, Kwok's mind shifted.
"My first fear was, dad's gone, but where's mum?" he said.
"Especially because there was no reply when I was calling out for her."
Kwok searched the house but could not find his mother.
"My medical instinct was that he was dead already but mum was missing and she was hopefully still alive but perhaps unconscious for whatever reason," he said.
"You can't save the dead, but you can save the living."
When he couldn't find his mother, he called the ambulance and police.
The operator asked if he needed an ambulance, and it was then Kwok checked for the signs of death.
He had already checked for a pulse, and could not see signs of breathing, but had not checked his father's pupils.
Kwok lifted a jacket and bloody towel that had been covering his father's face.
He was asked by Crown prosecutor Alysha McClintock if he could recognise his father.
"Battered, bruised, bloated," Kwok said.
Soon after, he went to the front neighbour's property to see if they had heard anything.
They invited him inside, and made him a hot chocolate as he waited for police to arrive.
The trial continues.
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