Posted on 01/24/2009 6:51:29 AM PST by marktwain
BLACKSBURG -- Virginia Tech police on Thursday released gruesome details of a killing in a campus cafe, as students wondered why a campus that went two decades without a murder before the April 16, 2007, shootings has become the site of so much tragedy.
When police arrived Wednesday night at Au Bon Pain inside the Virginia Tech Graduate Life Center, they found a decapitated female victim who had arrived on campus just two weeks ago and a young man they have now charged with killing her.
The events have shocked a campus still coping with the 2007 shootings of 32 students and faculty and have once again shone a spotlight on the school's Asian community.
Tech officials said Thursday the victim, 22-year-old Xin Yang, was a graduate student from Beijing who had arrived Jan. 8 to begin her studies in accounting at the Pamplin College of Business. She lived in the center.
Haiyang Zhu, 25, a graduate student from Ningbo, China, was charged late Wednesday with first-degree murder and is being held in the Montgomery County Jail without bond.
Haiyang is a doctoral candidate majoring in agricultural and applied economics. He began his studies at Virginia Tech at the start of the 2008 fall semester.
Tech officials said the victim and suspect knew each other, and Xin listed Haiyang as an emergency contact. Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said he did not know the extent of their relationship or how long the two students knew each other.
They were sitting at a table having coffee at the Au Bon Pain cafe in the Graduate Life Center when the disturbance began shortly after 7 p.m.
Witnesses told police there was no sign of an argument between the two before the attack, Flinchum said.
Seven people -- customers and Au Bon Pain staff -- saw the attack and fled the restaurant. Two people called 911.
Flinchum said, as far as he knows, no one tried to intervene in the attack. He declined to answer questions about whether Haiyang yelled anything before or during the atttack.
When police arrived less than two minutes later, they discovered Xin's body, Haiyang and an 8-inch-long kitchen knife that police believe he brought to the cafe and used in the attack. Haiyang did not resist arrest.
Haiyang was not called to the attention of Tech or Blacksburg police before Wednesday, Flinchum said. Nor had he been called to the attention of the university's threat assessment or CARE team -- university groups designed to deal with troubled students.
Joe Epperly, a Tech senior and animal and poultry sciences major, had Haiyang as a graduate teaching assistant in his marketing agriculture products class.
"He was always friendly and helpful throughout that class," Epperly said via e-mail. "Others who knew him through that same experience had nothing but good things to say about him and we are all in disbelief that he committed such a violent crime.
"It was a side of him we never experienced."
Haiyang's attorney, Stephanie Cox, could not be reached for comment at her office Thursday afternoon.
Tech did not cancel classes Thursday and the graduate center was open.
The windows and glass doors of Au Bon Pain were blocked from the inside, and the cafe will be closed until it is repaired and cleaned. More than 100 graduate students live in the center, which opened in the 2005-06 school year.
Formerly the Donaldson Brown hotel, the center is used for university offices, classrooms and communal areas in addition to serving as a residence hall.
Linsey Barker, graduate student representative to Tech's board of visitors, said the tragedy is hitting students hard.
"Especially since it took place in a space which is intended to foster graduate student community," she said in an e-mail. "A unique space which is really central to graduate education."
The university had counselors available in the Graduate Life Center and Squires Student Center and has organized special counseling to witnesses and first responders.
Counselors were also available to international students at Tech's Cranwell International Center.
Director Kim Beisecker said the center was offering students support and encouraging them to visit if they wanted to gather with friends. The center is also working with the Chinese community to decide how to handle Chinese New Year celebrations at Tech scheduled for this weekend.
"They're appropriately shocked," Beisecker said of the students. "I don't think I would classify it as a lot of fear."
There were few obvious signs of the tragedy on campus Thursday as students went about their third day of classes this semester.
The police tape used to cordon off the crime scene Wednesday night was in a trash can outside the Graduate Life Center.
A message from Karen DePauw, dean of the graduate school, offering support to those affected by the tragedy was on a flat screen monitor in the building.
There are about 4,300 graduate students on Tech's Blacksburg campus, about 1,600 of whom are international. DePauw described the students she had spoken with as shocked and saddened by the killing.
But, drawing from their experiences after the April 16 shootings by South Korea native Seung-Hui Cho, they have shown a willingness to reach out to one another.
"I don't know how many times I've already been asked, 'What can I do?' from students," she said.
About midday Thursday, one counselor sat in a room in the graduate center waiting for students, faculty or staff who wanted to talk. He would not say how many people had come by, but most of the student traffic in the building Thursday afternoon consisted of students filing in and out of classrooms.
Sitting in Squires on Thursday afternoon, Morgan Thorndike said the fact that such a gruesome attack happened at a restaurant where she gets coffee every morning is surreal.
It brought back memories of April 16 for the sophomore.
"My roommates were like, 'Why is it always us?' she said. "I know it hits home for a lot of people. It's scary."
At Thursday's news conference, Tech President Charles Steger offered condolences to the victim and her family and also referred to the shootings.
"An act of violence like this brings back memories of April 16, and I have no doubt that many of us feel especially distraught," he said.
"Once again we are challenged as a community to offer support for one another."
See post 20. There was nothing anyone could have done.
Thanks for the added details, gruesome as they are. Maybe this will put to rest the absurd notion among many on this forum that the killing happened in a crowded restaurant and that everybody just sat around and let this guy hack the girl’s head off unopposed.
This part is myth. They were standing... his arms around her from behind in an apparent embrace... knife hidden.
It is the rumour mill created by the police dept and the news services that have fostered the image of “uncaring tech students”. Locals have no respect for the kids and look for opportunities to diss them at every chance.
“It was a side of him we never experienced.”
You mean that they have never experienced him cutting womens heads off?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.