Woman to Be Retried in 2 O.C. Slayings

The Orange County district attorney’s office will retry a Taiwanese woman whose 1996 murder convictions were thrown out by an appellate court last year because of improper police tactics, officials said Monday.

Li-Yun “Lisa” Peng, 50, was convicted of fatally stabbing her millionaire husband’s mistress and smothering the woman’s 5-month-old baby Aug. 18, 1993, in Mission Viejo. The case made international headlines and spawned a lurid movie in Taiwan with tales of wealth, infidelity and revenge.

But the 4th District Court of Appeal threw out the convictions, saying that Sheriff’s Department detectives failed to advise Peng of her rights and then used her husband, electronics tycoon Tseng “Jim” Peng, to coerce incriminating statements from her after a grueling, nine-hour interrogation. Last week, the state Supreme Court let the appellate court decision stand.

The rulings mean prosecutors will not be able to use admissions Peng allegedly made to her husband that she bit the victim, Ranbing “Jennifer” Ji, 25, during a scuffle before the killings. Her statements and her DNA, found in a bite wound on Ji’s arm, were used in the original trial.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Robert Molko said Monday that “there is more than ample evidence” to convict Peng, even without the statements she made to her husband. Molko declined to elaborate.

Peng has served four years of a life sentence at California Institution for Women in Frontera.