Opposition leader Kim Swan's stepson is facing the death penalty in the US if convicted of the first-degree murder of a North Carolina state trooper.

Edwardo Wong Jr. — the son of Mr. Swan's wife Cindy and her former husband, a Chinese mafia member and international drug dealer — is charged with killing Trooper Shawn Blanton after the highway patrolman pulled him over for a traffic stop in June 2008.

Wong, 40, of Florida, does not dispute that he shot 24-year-old Trooper Blanton but denies it was premeditated; his trial at Catawba County Superior Court is ongoing.

Mrs. Swan told The Royal Gazette yesterday she had been estranged from her son since he was 12, when she left his father, taking their two other children with her.

She divorced Edwardo Wong Sr., whom she met as a teenager in her home country of Belize before moving to New York with him, and he was later stabbed to death in a federal prison in Atlanta.

UBP leader Mr. Swan, she added, has met Wong Jr. only once. "He was raised by his father," she said of her son. "I'm very hurt and disappointed because of the situation.

"My hope for him is that he finds redemption for himself and for his actions and that he gets a fair trial."

The mother-of-four — she has a daughter with Mr. Swan — added: "I gave birth to him. He is my child. I feel what any mother would go through. It is a painful and sad situation.

"I am deeply saddened for the family that suffered this loss, particularly as it was my son that committed the crime."

A deposition recorded by Mrs. Swan was played to the jury in the trial yesterday as defence testimony, according to media reports in North Carolina.

The Mountaineer newspaper said Mrs. Swan recalled a 1975 incident when her four-year-old son — known as Eddie — fell from the fifth storey of a Brooklyn apartment building.

After the accident, his behaviour changed dramatically and he became hyperactive, rambunctious and always in trouble, she said.

She added that her husband refused to have him psychologically evaluated, claiming mental illness would not be accepted within his Chinese family.

The trial earlier heard that Wong Sr. was a head man in the Triad, an organised crime organisation based in Hong Kong.

One defence witness, a retired Police officer, claimed Wong Jr. began helping in his father's illegal drug business at the age of ten, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper.

Criminal justice consultant W. T. Gaut, said Wong Jr. often carried drug money and once travelled with his father as a child to harvest marijuana plants.

He said Wong Sr. was a top man in the Triad who was initiated in a Hong Kong ceremony that included bloodletting and drinking blood, and his assassination in 1994, when he was stabbed five times, was a "five swords" execution ordered by Triad bosses.

Mrs. Swan said in her deposition she learnt later of her husband's crimes but saw no evidence of illegality at the time of their marriage.

Wong Jr. is accused of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, armed robbery, firearm and drug possession. His trial has heard he is a convicted felon, used car salesman and drug dealer, with two daughters and a son.

Prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty, say he shot Trooper Blanton three times before trying to kill Haywood County sheriff's detective Bruce Warren.

A dashboard camera in Trooper Blanton's car recorded him pleading with Wong not to shoot again because of his wife and child as he lay on the ground.

Trooper Blanton died at Asheville's Mission Hospital — the same hospital where his two-week-old son, Tye, was being treated after being born premature. Tye died from medical complications aged four months.

Defence attorney Mark Melrose told jurors his client was passing through Haywood County in a truck loaded with illegal guns and firearms on the night of June 17, 2008, when his path "coincidentally coincided" with the path of Trooper Blanton.

He said Wong's behaviour that evening was the product of poor parenting and a troubled upbringing in a dysfunctional family.

Mrs. Swan, a professional organiser and chairman of the Project Action charity, married Mr. Swan in May 1996. Her daughter by Wong Sr. is a doctor in the States and her other son is a teacher in Japan.

A UBP spokesman said last night the party had no comment on the case.