Two men have pleaded guilty to the horrific murder of Liang Zhao, two years after the university graduate was beaten to death on Northbourne Avenue.
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Taylor Lewis Schmidt, 22, and his co-offender, who was a juvenile at the time, pleaded guilty on Thursday in the ACT Supreme Court to the killing in Braddon in 2011.
The court heard prosecutors have dropped related aggravated robbery charges against the men after they entered the plea before Justice Richard Refshauge.
The men had previously maintained their innocence but switched their pleas just days before they were due to stand trial.
The trial was to run for eight weeks and the prosecution was expected to call more than 200 witnesses.
But next week's trial date has been abandoned and replaced with a disputed facts hearing on Wednesday. This happens when the prosecution and defence cannot agree on the details of the offence.
The court heard about seven witnesses would be called for the hearing.
Mr Zhao had been walking home after arriving in Canberra at 4am on a Greyhound bus from Melbourne.
The Gungahlin man decided to walk home from the Jolimont Bus Centre when he could not find a taxi.
His bloodied body was found by passers-by about 6.40am on August 4, 2011.
A police statement of facts, which will be disputed in part, said Schmidt and his co-offender had drunk alcohol and smoked marijuana at a friend's unit before discussing their hatred of Asians and their desire to ''beat the shit out of a gook''.
They left the apartment armed with a metal baseball bat about 3.50am and returned soon after "covered in blood" with stolen $21 and a smartphone.
The friend told police the offenders had boasted and laughed about killing a person because he was Asian.
Police say the juvenile co-offender told a friend that he and Schmidt decided to rob Mr Zhao and had struck him repeatedly with their weapons after spotting him.
Another witness told police he heard screaming and looked out his window to see the silhouettes of two men striking at someone or something in the courtyard below.
He had been too scared to call police after he heard a man whisper, ''He's dead'' and another respond, ''Quick, run''.
Another resident of the units said he did not call triple-0 because screaming and other noises were not unusual at the public housing complex.
Schmidt and his co-offender remain in custody.
