Unseen - The Sydney Orphan Fetish Murders | The Case of Brenda Lin | UNSEEN

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

https://rocketmoney.com/UNSEENPOD - “I think I spent all day with a murderer” - July 18th 2009, on a school trip to New Caledonia, 15 year-old Brenda Lin could never imagine that it would be the last time she would see her parents and siblings. The brutal Lin family’s massacre shocks Australia, as Brenda is orphaned overnight. With nowhere to go, Brenda turns to the nearest support she can find, but what she doesn't know, is that she is stepping into a trap set up by her family's killer, and only SHE holds the key to take him down. - Credits Directed & edited by Alexandre Gendron Researched by Tanvi Rajvanshi & Tianyi Zhang Written by Alexandre Gendron & Joshua Kamin Narrated by Will Akana Produced by Alexandra Salois & Salim Sader - Sources 7News Spotlight – Brenda Lin: Sole Survivor 7News Australia – Robert Xie: Notorious MurdererAustralia Today – Life After MurderOz News Room – Brenda Lin’s Address To Her Family Cheltenham Girls High School – School Tour 2022 Truly Criminal – Murder In The Suburbs XKB – Lin’s Family: Funeral Coverage 7News Sydney – Brenda Lin’s Aftermath 9News Sydney – Robert Xie Sentence ABC News – Sydney Murders Investigation NSW Supreme Court – CCTV: Robert Xie Getty Images Motion Array Audio Network Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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What's wrong? What's wrong? Yeah, I can see someone die. I'm not sure. Why do you think someone's dying? Can you seek their body? Yeah, I saw someone kill my brother's family. This is the voice of Kathy Shia. She was talking to the Sydney police after discovering her brother's entire family dead in their home, all but one.

Brenda Lynn was overseas when five members of her family were bludgeoned to death in their home. After the murders, Brenda was immediately sent to live with Kathy and her husband, but the Shi'as were hiding something. Susan Bridge, her school principal, was the first to notice something was wrong with Robert, Brenda's uncle. He was so physically very close and speaking loudly, rapidly in Chinese. Brenda with her head bowed down, tears falling down. I had seen a sign of Robert that was a potentially dangerous side. Silenced, abused, and without anybody to turn to, Brenda Lynn was forced to stand by as

her surrogate parents became the prime suspects in the murder of her entire family. Robert Zee still maintains his innocence, his wife supporting him in court today. The crime he did not commit, he is a scapegoat. Convinced her uncle couldn't do such a thing, it is only when her high school principal stepped in that Brenda revealed a long-kept secret crucial to the case, finally putting an end to the manhunt and bringing the one responsible for the murder of her family to justice. I also commend her for her strength and her dignity and her courage. Min and Lily led a seemingly idyllic life in the peaceful borough of Sydney.

Their daughter, Brenda, describes men as a hardworking yet compassionate father and Lily as a loving and caring stay-at-home mother. She was always with us at home. We'd cook together or she'll take us to the park and she spent a lot of time with us. Together, they ran a successful news agency and raised three children, 15-year-old Brenda, 12-year-old Terry and 9-year-old Henry. All three of us had very similar interests, sitting in front of the TV, and we'll play games, and we each have a control and be like versing each other and wanting to win and all that, so

it was good. It was very, very fun. Also living in Epping were Min's sister, Kathy, and her husband, Robert. Despite a former career as a doctor in China, he wasn't successful at establishing a medical practice in Australia, eventually falling on his backup plan of opening a restaurant. When this endeavor also failed, Robert and Kathy moved to Epping to be closer to their family. My aunt and uncle, they were the next best thing to my family. I felt like I knew my uncle and he's this amazing guy.

But on July 18, 2009, everything changed. When the family news agency failed to open that morning, Robert and Kathy went to check on the Lynn residence. What they discovered there was so terrifying, Kathy could barely describe it, to the Triple Zero operator. What's wrong? What's wrong? I'm not sure.

Why do you think someone's dying? Because I'm someone to be killed. Why? Why? I'm not sure if there's maybe someone killed, kill my brother's family. Oh. Why do you think that?

I need someone to come, we are coming. We need to stop screaming and tell me what the problem is. Once the police arrived at the Lin's home, one member of the family seemed to be missing from the scene. After attempting to breached Brenda's grandparents who only spoke Chinese, the police started calling Brenda's neighbors and teachers until her school principal told them that Brenda wasn't even in the

country at the time. Immediately my phone started ringing from parents in the community and teachers who live in the community to ensure that I was aware that it was one of our families and I will never forget that day. But before we continue, we'd like to take a brief moment to thank our sponsor, Rocket Money, for helping us bring more incredible survival stories to light. Have you ever subscribed to a streaming service just to watch one show and forgotten about it?

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and reveal spending patterns so you can lower your bills and take charge of your finances. Let RocketMoney help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at RocketMoney.com slash Unseen Pod. That's rocketmoney.com slash unseen pod. RocketMoney.com slash unseen pod. Now, back to the story of Brenda. In July 2009, Min and Lily's 15-year-old daughter Brenda was leaving Australia on a school trip to New Caledonia.

Like a typical teenager, Brenda acted distantly toward her dad in order to impress her classmates when Min dropped her off at the airport. As a teenager, and I was trying to be cool, so I saw my dad stood next to me, sort of stood there awkwardly. So I looked at him, and I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything to him. And then we all left. And that's the last time I saw him.

Unbeknownst to her, this was something she would tragically come to regret. I didn't get to say thank you for being an amazing father. I didn't even get to tell him I loved him. Thank you for doing everything for us. I'll never be able to either. While in New Caledonia, Brenda learned a lot of. about the cruel fate her entire family suffered in the most unbearable way. One of my friends sent over a link to a news article and it had a photo of my house and I

go to chaos. That's my house. It was such a surreal sort of feeling. I don't know, I was just, I was just in so much shock. I didn't believe it. That's not possible. It's someone else. With nobody else to make arrangements for her, Kathy and Susan Bridge stepped in and immediately repatriated Brenda to Australia. My first thought was Brenda. I knew she was overseas and I wanted to make sure that she was safe. We got to Sydney Airport and the police met us there and there was my aunt and uncle. As soon as I saw my aunt, she gave this to me this massive hug. She was crying as well. that's when I knew it was all real. The scene that Kathy and Robert Shea reported to the police was gruesome,

displaying an amount of violence rarely seen before in Sydney. Brenda's father, Min, her mother Lily, auntie Irene, and brothers Henry and Terry were bludgeoned to death in their beds last month. As the police kicked off their investigation, several strange details started to emerge. It doesn't bear the hallmarks at a typical home invasion, in that we haven't established that anything was stolen from the home. Adding to the complexity of the scene, a single set of bloody imprints were found tracking throughout the house.

Out of all the rooms, Brenda's bedroom was the only one left, entirely untouched. The killers are still on the loose, but Brenda says she's not scared. She believes her parents were the intended target. My theory is that if they were after the whole family, they would have waited until I came back from New Caledonia. After a risk assessment unit cleared Robert and Kathy from their list of suspects due to the lack of evidence, they became the legal guardians of Brenda and took over Min's business in Ebbing. Min Lin's news agency is still in the family, now being run by his sister and brother-in-law.

They paid their own tribute, putting up this memorial yesterday. They're also looking after their 16-year-old niece. Brenda Lynn is now in year 11. She recently spoke with a local newspaper journalist. I still think they're alive. Sometimes soon everything will just come crashing down on me and they'll finally realize. I don't think I still do. All over Sydney and across the nation at large, people were in grievance.

While the investigators were hard at work, every media outlet in Australia turned their eyes toward the funeral proceedings. Brenda Lynn buried her entire family. She recalls the horror of their brutal murder with maturity well beyond her 15 years, but reality is yet to set in. Only two weeks after the tragedy, Brenda was put in front of the cameras and asked to deliver a message to her deceased family members. I miss my mom and dad. I miss Henry and Terry as well as my auntie, Irene. What am I going to do now? I really don't think I can smile at the way I did before. Susan Bridge and the students of the Cheltenham Girls High School were shocked to see the visibly shaken Brenda speak so thoroughly in front of the thousands of people in attendance. It was distressing to watch.

I've been to funerals before. I've never seen such raw grief in my life. But there was no room in that grief for a 15-year-old girl. It was mere moments after the address that Principal Bridge noticed something completely out of place. She witnessed Uncle Robert, Brenda's surrogate father, acting abusively towards the young girl. He was so physically very close and speaking loudly, rapidly in Chinese. Brenda with her head bowed down, tears falling down. It was clear he was trying to get her to agree to something.

What did you say to your husband that night when you went home? I think I've spent all day with a murderer. With the media frenzy surrounding the crime finally settling down, principal Susan Bridge took matters into her own hands. I just got a gut feeling that he was a dangerous person and I was very worried for Brenda's safety. I did share those with the police. In case Brenda would need legal advice,

Susan Bridges' second move was to introduce Brenda to Patrick Parkinson, a successful criminal attorney who agreed that something suspicious was going on with Uncle Robert. I think she didn't believe he was, could have been guilty for a very, very long time. I'm sure that that was an important mechanism for her to cope with it or how could one believe that your uncle has murdered the rest of your family? Acting on Bridge and Parkinson's suspicions, the police visited the She is.

They acted as if they were only there to talk, but while Robert and Kathy were distracted by the investigators, one police officer sneaked into their kitchen. Under the Surveillance Devices Act of 2007, the police were legally allowed to install multiple recording devices in their They put some secret cameras into the house and there was evidence of him taking that shoebox and cutting that up and flushing it down the toilet. From day one, evidence had pointed to the murderer being someone close to the lens. Based on his movement, the killer must have had knowledge of the house's layout and knew that Brenda was not home at the time. The single set of bloody imprints they had found around the house proved to be a pair of size 11 men's A6 sneakers. The same

exact model Robert was inadvertently caught disposing of in front of his wife on the footage captured by the police. Armed with this new piece of evidence, the police took Robert into custody and tore his entire house apart in a desperate attempt to find further clues. Under a drawer in his garage, they found a single smear of dried blood. According to the best expertise that the prosecution could bring forward seemed to indicate the mixed DNA of four of the victims. On May 5th, 2011, Robert was charged and sent to prison, but securing an effective trial for him would prove to be a much more difficult matter. Between the 91 bloodstains waiting for DNA analysis and the thousands of hours of footage

captured inside Robert's home, Parkinson and the New South Wales Police took over three years to prepare their case against him. But police say they are making progress with their investigation into the deaths of five members of the Linne family. On May 9th, 2014, the trial began. But after weeks of deliberation, the jury struggled to reach a verdict. Their main point of contention was that, even though there were multiple pieces of evidence pointing at Robert, the man had no real motive to carry on such an act, present at the trial

under an alias to protect her anonymity. Brenda couldn't believe the amount of incriminating material the police had accumulated against her uncle. Realizing that he might be involved was something that was life-changing, something that was an absolute shock, completely eye-opening. In the midst of the trial, Brenda requested. requested a moment alone with the prosecution. Finally, she listened to her gut instinct and, for the first time, revealed her secret, a secret

that was so far reaching that it put the entire procedure on hold. Brenda revealed something that she didn't think was relevant to the murder trial, but which I thought was. I think the trial judge had no choice but to start the trial all over again. Did your uncle, Robert Zee, sexually abuse you? Yes, he did. That's something that I'm very private about and it's something that I don't feel comfortable talking about as well, so I hope people can respect that.

Even though she desired to keep the details hidden from the public, Brenda didn't shy away from exposing her uncle's shameless behavior in a written statement to the court during his second trial later that same year. At the time, it was after the murders, and as a teenager myself, I was very insecure. He knew that he read it very well. But circumstances weren't on her side. On September 23rd, the jury was discharged when the court's judge suffered from a critical health issue.

Then a third trial was attempted in 2015, but the jury failed to reach a conclusion. Finally, after five years of legal proceedings, a fourth trial was instigated, and the jury finally came to a verdict when the motives of the murders had been clearly laid out to them. Robert's actions seemed to have been fueled by his depraved sexual obsession for Brenda. Jealousy over men's successful business and overall hatred of the lens. You are sentenced to imprisonment for life. Robert Zee was standing just seven or so meters from the judge when she told him he'd be spending the rest of his life in jail.

His face remained blank, not a hint of emotion, just as it has been throughout the trial. In the aftermath of the conviction, Kathy staunchly defended her husband, refusing to believe that Robert could have been capable of such a His wife Kathy continues to stand by the man who killed her brother and his family. He is innocent. We are fighting for him. I was very hurt and disappointed by that because I told the truth. I hope one day she can realize that she's better off, not with him.

Brenda spent the rest of her teenage years living with her grandparents, who, after the murders, attempted to get Brenda into their care, only to discover that Robert had already finished filling up the needed paperwork, mere days after the tragedy. The Lynn grandparents, choking back tears, they said at last justice for a loving family. They provided her with a loving home, where she went on to finish high school, attend university, and get a job and a driver's license, all the milestones of a normal, healthy young adult life. Without ignoring her past, she looks forward to the future, hoping that one day she too will

be able to make a difference in the lives of others, as so many people didn't do. in hers since she came forward as a survivor. I'm sure that I would like to do something to help other people in the future. I wanted to be able to show kindness to people, to others, the way they've shown kindness to me. Despite what happened, Brenda continues to look up to her family, often reminiscing about what Min and Lily would have wished for her if they were still around to guide her. But truthfully, even in death, they are still the most significant influence in her life.

I like to be someone they're proud of. I think just doing the things. would have wanted me to do and would have liked to be what I've done. As an adult, Brenda continues to share her story. In 2021, she co-founded the Survivor Hub, a victim advocacy unit that provides resources to support victims of sexual assault. Recently, she finished her PhD in law at the University of Sydney and reunited with Susan Bridge to celebrate the occasion. For the now-retired school principal, this accomplishment truly expresses the victory of love and compassion over hatred.

and violence. I learned as much from Brenda as anything I may have given her. What did you learn from Brenda? I was always worried that she wouldn't remember how to love, that that would be something that was also taken from her. I needn't have worried. She taught me that love is the most important thing.