Perpetrator
Posted on 01/22/2009 8:52:10 AM PST by pgkdan
Update: Further information on the murder at the Graduate Life Center at Donaldson Brown
By Larry Hincker
BLACKSBURG, Va., January 22, 2009 -- Virginia Tech Police have confirmed the name of the female graduate student murdered yesterday evening in the university's Graduate Life Center at Donaldson Brown.
She was Xin Yang, a 22-year-old graduate student from Beijing, China. She had just arrived at Virginia Tech Jan. 8 to begin her studies in accounting in the Pamplin College of Business. She was a resident of the Graduate Life Center.
Yang was killed at the Au Bon Pain restaurant on the first floor of the Graduate Life Center at approximately 7 p.m. Wednesday evening. Haiyang Zhu, age 25, from Ningbo, China, was charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bond at Montgomery County jail. He was a Ph.D. graduate student majoring in agricultural and applied economics. He began his studies at Virginia Tech at the start of the 2008 fall semester. Based on emergency contact records maintained by the university, it is known that Zhu and Yang knew each other.
They were in the Au Bon Pain restaurant when he attacked her. Witnesses indicated no signs of argument and that Zhu attacked her with a knife.
Zhu had not been under review or had come before the workings of the Virginia Tech Police Department, or the Town of Blacksburg Police Department, or the university’s Threat Assessment Team or CARE Team.
The victim’s mother, who is in China, was notified last night via telephone.
University leadership remains concerned about the welfare of the university student community, and particularly the community of Chinese Scholars. The university has counselors on the scene at the Graduate Life Center to assist students, staff, faculty, or others who seek assistance.
The crime scene is secured, but Graduate Life Center residents are free to come and go. Police interviewed several witnesses and are providing counseling support and assistance.
Sounds like the witnesses will need some counseling. Local news is reporting that the murderer decapitated the victim.
No one could pull off the attacker? Urrr.
It takes time to decapitate someone with a knife. I wonder why none of the “witnesses” tried to stop him.
It probably happened pretty fast, maybe before anyone noticed there was a problem.
Are there Muzzies from China?
It really depends on how big and sharp the knife was and how small she was. Pretty damned gruesome to imagine that happening in a public restaurant.
I wonder what that means.
This got real bloody, real fast. Probably a partial decapitation. Just too shocking for anyone to move.
And yes, there are Muslims in China. It’s been awhile, but there have been articles posted about the unrest in that “community” China doesn’t want the West to Know about.
Wow! I’m a Tech alumni and know exactly where this took place.
Is it possible that this could have happened there without anyone knowing what was going on?
Someone was killed at the life center? That just seems wrong.
Ironical
Uighurs, I believe that’s right. They’re from western China, and the Chinese have been having “problems” with them much like other countries do with radical Muslim minorities. The difference is, this being Communist China, they react with tanks and gulags instead of diversity officers and multicultural initiatives.
}:-)4
I don’t recall mentioning anything about Muslims in China.
Since each student’s family was probably overseas, they must have known each other in some way and listed each other as emergency contacts.
Any pic of the victim?
My error. I should have included poster “goodnesswins” in my response. goodnesswins asked if there were mussies in China. The question was so short I included the answer in my post to you. I was thinking Muslim attack when I read the article.
There are several tribes in China who are majority-Moslem, of whom the Uighurs are the most often mentioned. However, there’s no indication that this young man, with a Han-Chinese name, coming from an Eastern China metropolitan area, is Moslem.
I found that possibility curious, since the young lady had arrived only a couple of weeks previously, and they're not from the same area of China, according to the article.
Thank you!
Possibly met via the Internet.
Could be ... or at meetings or social events for Chinese graduate students at the university.
She was a brand-new student
No student get-togethers to start off the semester? There were when I went to college.
But anyway, it’s all speculation.
Nope. Offhand, it sounds like a very bad end to some sort of domestic dispute...they knew each other, since he was listed as her emergency contact.
}:-)4
That’s my interpretation, as well. Either they had some connection before she arrived at VT, or they met soon after she arrived, and the relationship didn’t go the way he wanted it to.
Very sad situation all around.
Perpetrator
How unimaginably awful. Thanks for the ping.
Is he a Uighur? I remember reading about them during the Beijing Olympics and John Batchelor did a segment on them on his radio program. A sect of break-away Muslims that are resorting to the same terrorist tactics as their middle-eastern brethren.
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