“He knew how he wanted to kill her,” the top prosecuting attorney in Suffolk County told a Superior Court jury about Gin Hua Xu’s 2001 murder. “There was a motive and there was a plan.”

Delivering his opening statement in the murder trial of Xu’s husband, DA LIN HUANG (D.O.B. 3/16/63), First Assistant District Attorney Josh Wall said the 30-year-old Xu had asked for a divorce from Huang and was waiting for his answer.

“You will hear that on Jan. 27, 2001, she got her answer,” Wall told the panel of jurors. “You will hear that the answer he gave her was the clearest of all answers – the most definitive answer. His answer to his wife? He killed her.”

Huang and Zu had moved to the United States from China nine years earlier, settling in Allston and living in an apartment on Cambridge Street that was close to other family members.

“The evidence will show that the defendant and Gin Hua Xu led very different lives in the U.S.,” Wall said.

Wall told the court that Huang was involved in a car accident in 1999, sustained a serious neck injury, and stopped working. Xu worked daily in a factory, took English classes, and became a U.S. citizen. At the time of her death, she was separated from Huang and working two jobs, he said.

“Huang didn’t work,” Wall said. “He gambled and bought Keno tickets.”

On the afternoon of Jan. 27, Huang was taking care of the couple’s children – aged 10 and 3. Xu did not live with him and was unable to watch the children because she was working two jobs. On that day, Huang and Xu had planned to meet at Huang’s residence to discuss a divorce.

In anticipation of his wife’s arrival, Wall said, Huang made sure to bring their children to a relative’s house next door. He told those relatives to bring the children to a different family member’s home in Brighton. That was part of his plan to have no witnesses to his crime, Wall said.

“The motive was simple – one of the oldest motives known to man,” Wall said. “Revenge fueled by anger, hatred and rejection. His plan was multifaceted; he had five goals for his plan.”

“The first goal he had on that day was no witnesses,” the prosecutor continued. “The second goal, the evidence will show, is … make sure she suffers. Goal three, he wanted to be certain of her death, certain she would not survive. Goal number four … to degrade and humiliate her in her death. Do things to her to leave her in a condition of ultimate degradation and humiliation. Goal number five, he never intended to be caught.”

Wall described how, when Xu arrived at her husband’s apartment that afternoon, the defendant took a pair of electrician’s pliers and attacked her with them.

“He hits her hard enough to dent her skull,” Wall said. “How many times? You won’t be able to count how many times.”

Wall told jurors that the victim sustained so many gashes to the head that only the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy would be able to tell jurors exactly how many times Xu was struck with the pliers on the face and head.

“The evidence will be that wasn’t enough for him,” Wall continued. “He strangled her…squeezing so hard that blood was coursing though the tissues in her head, crushing the bones in her neck.”

After he killed her, Wall described how the defendant mutilated the victim’s body before swallowing a quantity of prescribed OxyContin and Oxycodone pills that he had at his apartment.

“He tried to kill himself,” Wall said. “That was one part of the plan that didn’t succeed.”

Several hours later, the family members who had been watching the children called Boston Police because they were unable to reach Huang. Boston Police officers and emergency medical technicians who responded to the scene discovered Xu’s dead body on the floor, and Huang “cozy in his bed near death from OxyContin,” Wall said.

“EMTs revived him, took him to the hospital, and that’s why we’re here,” Wall said.

“He had a motive, a motive of revenge. He had a plan that he executed to perfection except for his own death,” Wall said. “At the conclusion of all of the evidence, you will know from the evidence that when Gin Hua Xu asked for a divorce, he had an answer that needed no words. His answer was a clear as could be. His answer was murder.”

Catherine Yuan is the district attorney’s victim-witness advocate assigned to the case. Huang is represented by attorney Larry Tipton. Testimony is ongoing in courtroom 808 before Judge Christine McEvoy.