SHANGHAI - AN 18-YEAR-OLD told a Shanghai court he stabbed a Canadian model during a robbery then returned hours later to steal her belongings as she lay dying in a stairwell, state media reported on Tuesday.

Chen Jun, from eastern Anhui Province, admitted to the court that he stabbed Ms Diana O'Brien repeatedly in the chest on Jul 7 after she caught him trying to rob her apartment, the Shanghai Daily reported.

Chen testified he entered the apartment Ms O'Brien shared with another Canadian model because the door was open and the lights were on, after targeting their building because of lax security, the report said.

Ms O'Brien caught him as he was stealing a laptop in the living room. He said he threatened her with a knife and forced her into her bedroom because she was 'screaming in English.'

Pleading with him, she offered him money from her purse and then after a struggle she fled, he recounted to the court. He chased her into the stairwell and stabbed her, Chen said, according to the report.

Prosecutors said Chen called police as he left the building around midnight and reported hearing a foreign woman screaming in the apartment complex.

Two officers went to the area but left because they did not hear anything, prosecutors said.

Chen said he returned four hours later after going to a nearby Internet cafe and found Ms O'Brien covered in blood but still alive, the report said.

'I decided not to help her this time,' he was quoted as telling the court.

'I called the police and (thought) they must have been here. I thought there's no need to call again.'

Chen then ransacked the apartment, taking a laptop, jewellery, a suitcase, a cell phone, digital cameras and Canadian dollars, the report said.

A cleaner found Ms O'Brien's body at 6 am and Chen was arrested in an Internet cafe five days later.

Ms O'Brien, 22, had been in China for less than two weeks when she was murdered. Previous reports said she had wanted to leave China after discovering her promised modelling career instead involved bar dancing.

The one-day trial was held on Monday and the court has yet to deliver a verdict. -- AFP