Five members of one family
In the early hours of July 18, 2009, five members of the Lin family were killed inside their home in North Epping. The victims were newsagent Min Lin, his wife Lily Lin, Lily's sister Irene Lin, and the couple's sons Henry, 12, and Terry, 9. A teenage daughter survived because she was away on a school trip.
The killings generated one of New South Wales' most complex homicide investigations. Police examined the house, family relationships, footwear impressions, electronic surveillance and biological material collected during the inquiry.
The investigation turns toward Robert Xie
Lian Bin "Robert" Xie, who was married to Min Lin's sister, was arrested in 2011 and charged with five counts of murder. Prosecutors alleged that he entered the family home with knowledge of its layout and carried out a planned attack. Xie denied the murders and maintained his innocence.
A disputed DNA mixture recovered from Xie's garage became one part of a much broader circumstantial case. Prosecutors said the sample included genetic material from multiple victims; the defence challenged both the interpretation of the mixture and other strands of the Crown case.
Four trials before verdicts
The prosecution history was unusually long. Earlier trials were aborted for different reasons, and another ended with a hung jury. A fourth trial began in June 2016. On January 12, 2017, the jury returned majority guilty verdicts on all five murder counts.
The repeated trials matter to the case file because they show that the final convictions did not follow a simple or uncontested evidentiary path. The defence continued to challenge forensic evidence, trial directions and the performance of trial counsel on appeal.
Sentence
In February 2017, the Supreme Court of New South Wales imposed five life sentences without the possibility of parole. The sentencing court regarded the five murders as belonging to the most serious category of offending.
The 2021 appeal
Xie appealed on numerous grounds, including arguments about the DNA evidence, alleged inadmissible or unfairly prejudicial material, jury directions and trial representation. On February 15, 2021, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed the appeal.
The appeal court said it did not accept that a miscarriage of justice had occurred. In the sources reviewed for this publication, no later judgment was found overturning the five murder convictions.
Timeline
July 18, 2009: five members of the Lin family are killed in their North Epping home.
2011: Robert Xie is arrested and charged with five murders.
2014–2015: multiple trials end without final verdicts, including aborted proceedings and a hung jury.
June 2016–January 2017: a fourth trial proceeds; the jury returns five guilty verdicts on January 12, 2017.
February 2017: Xie receives five life sentences without parole.
February 15, 2021: the Court of Criminal Appeal dismisses his appeal against conviction.
Current status
The case is classified as Solved / Adjudicated. Robert Xie's five murder convictions remain in force in the reliable sources reviewed for this update. The page does not treat any disputed prosecution theory as a separate conviction or proven fact beyond what the courts upheld.