The circumstances of her death and length of time before her body was discovered made national headlines, sparking debate over the duty of care Australian universities provide to foreign students.
[2] Following an argument between the couple on 10 June 2004, Steffi was strangled by her ex-boyfriend Zhang Long, using a computer cable wrapped twice around her neck and tied at the front.
[2][4] Identification of the decomposed remains took six weeks, with ACT Police working with counterparts in China to locate family members and match DNA samples.
[2] With the encouragement of his father, Long surrendered to authorities in China in March, confessed to killing Steffi, but insisted that it was accidental.
[4] In April 2005, Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory Jon Stanhope sought Long's extradition to face charges over the murder.
The Federal Government declined to make a formal request to China in the absence of any standing arrangements between the two countries for extradition.
Australian laws around mutual assistance with foreign criminal investigations forbid police cooperation in cases where a death penalty is possible without a formal assurance that it will not be used.
The new system was meant to automatically notify Australian immigration officials when foreign students did not enroll in classes, but a computer error left Steffi's absences unrecorded.