Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Bobby Turk refused Tuesday to reduce the life sentence on former Virgiania Tech graduate student Haiyang Zhu, who received the life sentence at a hearing in April for the Jan. 21, 2009 killing of former Tech graduate student Xin Yang.
Zhu attacked Yang with a knife and decapitated her in the Au Bon Pain in the Graduate Life Center last January.
Zhu’s attorney Stephanie Cox filed a motion last week asking Turk to reduce the life sentence to a 40-year term, after he pleaded guilty to the murder in December.
Turk cited the brutality and the premeditation of the crime as his main reasons for denying the request.