Haiyang Zhu, center, is ushered into Montgomery County Circuit Court in Christiansburg, Va., on Monday.
Montgomery County Circuit Court today accepted the guilty plea of former Virginia Tech graduate student Haiyang Zhu, who was charged with the first-degree murder of fellow graduate student Xin Yang.
Sentencing is scheduled for April 19, 2010. Zhu could face life in prison.
Today's hearing included grisly details of the Jan. 21, 2009 murder. Yang, 22, was decapitated at the Au Bon Pain cafe in the Graduate Life Center on Tech's campus. Commonwealth Attorney Brad Finch provided the court a broad outline of the case against Zhu, including autopsy reports that showed the victim with multiple defensive injuries to her arms and hands, as well as the fatal "incised wounds of the neck."
Finch also introduced two letters written by Zhu in which he professed his love for Yang. The first, written to Yang in January, said he had "fallen deeply in love" with her and said that she left him "happy and fulfilled." Zhu wrote in the letter that he "will treasure her forever" and then asked Yang to be his girlfriend, according to Finch.
The second letter, written from jail following Zhu's arrest, was titled "A Will" and outlined his reasons for the murder. Finch, summarizing the letter, told the court, "He didn't have any other choice but to kill her because he loved her so much." Finch said Zhu wrote that Yang "broke his heart" when she said she had a boyfriend whom she had planned to marry.
Zhu's attorney Stephanie Cox twice interrupted Finch's description of the letters, but Montgomery County Circuit Judge Bobby Turk allowed the presentation of the evidence to continue.
In an attempt to prove premeditation, Finch said Zhu brought several knives and a hammer to the cafe on the night of the murder, and he said prosecutors had a receipt and video evidence that the weapons were bought that same day. Finch also said that phone records indicated Zhu tried to call Yang 12 times on the morning before he killed her.
Zhu, 26, was clean-shaven and alert throughout the hearing, often nodding to his interpreter as she translated Finch's evidence regarding the murder. He spoke little during the hearing. When asked by Turk for his plea, Zhu responded, "Your honor, I plead guilty."
Turk then asked Zhu a litany of questions to ensure the validity of the plea. When asked whether he had entered into an agreement with the state regarding his sentencing, Zhu said he had not.
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What a tragic waste of two lives. This guy was intelligent in his own field (making it to T.A. in Agricultural Economics, I believe). Yet there was something clearly "wrong" with him outside the classroom. Earlier media reports indicated he refused to turn on the heat in his apartment, forcing the landlord to install a thermostat which locked in place, and preferred to set fires in the middle of his living room floor to keep warm. There was no furniture in the dwelling. Also, he accused his landlord of stealing his shoes. This guy was on his own frequency and its a shame no one could identify it before he sawed the poor girl's head off.
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If not having furniture in a shared apartment makes a foreign grad student living on a modest stipend "wrong," then perhaps, all phd students from third world countries should be identified as dangerous and get therapy asap.
The relationship between the killer and his victim is more complicated than what they let you know. After the accident, his college roommate shared on Chinese forums that killer told him he "reached third base" with this girl earlier than he expected but the girl now claimed she was forced and threatened to go to the police, and that he was scared to lose everything and let his parents down.
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Haiyang U:
I didn't say not having furniture was wrong - you are misinterpreting my statement. Rather, I was criticizing Haiyang's refusal to turn on the heat and then setting fires IN HIS APARTMENT ON THE FLOOR as being slightly out of whack.
Silly logic from Haiyang about the girl. Didn't he think that by committing an act of murder, in front of numerous witnesses, that might let his parents down a bit more than a "he said", "she said" situation involving third base?
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So are you sticking up for this sick piece of crap? This was obviously a wacked out individual, or perhaps a set-up hit by the chinese mob. We do need to look at each foreign grad student carefully. If there is any red-flags send them back to their country. Sadly, people think that would be too politically incorrect for VT and other Universities. So we'll just have to continue giving terrorists and crazies engineering degrees, and teaching them how to destroy our way of life.
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Haiyang U,
It wasn't an "accident" as you euphemistically phrase it. This twisted loser took out a knife and cut some poor girl's head off.
Sorry, but building fires in the middle of your $350 a month apartment does make you a weirdo. I've been an undergrad and a grad and lived in plenty of crappy apartments and if I had a neighbor like this guy I'd have called the cops in a hot minute.
If more people were more willing to call a spade a spade and confront people about their clearly abnormal behavior, we'd have fewer incidents like this one, Fort Hood, 04/16/2007, etc...
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Life in prison is too lenient give this animal the death penalty. People like him don't deserve to live.
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