Boyfriend sees student killed on webcam

A student was found murdered in her bedroom in Canada after her boyfriend saw her being attacked on a webcam 11,000 miles away in China.

Toronto police discovered the semi-naked body of 23-year-old Qian "Necole" Liu in her apartment at York University Village.

The boyfriend said he was talking to the English Language Institute student, originally from Beijing, at about 1am on Friday when there was a knock at the door. Detective Sergeant Frank Skubic said: "She opened the door to a male. She could have known the male but he was unknown to the online witness."

The witness, speaking from Beijing, told police he watched as the muscular man with medium-length brown hair asked the victim to use her mobile phone. He then saw his girlfriend become involved in a violent struggle. Some of the fight took place out of the range of the camera.

The witness said the suspect, described as white, in his twenties and 6ft tall, then turned off the laptop, which is now missing.

The unnamed boyfriend used social networking websites to try to raise the alarm in Toronto and China, but police did not arrive at Ms Liu's apartment until about 10 hours later. Her flatmates said they believed the attacker had been pursuing her romantically.

Police have appealed for computer experts to help them try to recover webcam images of the attack.

Mr Skubic said the attack "wasn't being recorded by any third-party software" but officers believe the missing computer could still reveal the student's final moments. There were no obvious signs of a sexual assault and the cause of death has not yet been released.