Society
Suspect in Va. Tech decapitation case pleads guilty
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-22 17:03
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WASHINGTON: The suspect accused of killing a fellow graduate student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Va. Tech, in January, pleaded guilty on Monday, authorities said.
Haiyang Zhu, 26, a native of Ningbo, China, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for the death of Xin Yang, a fellow female graduate student at the university, during a trial at a court in Christiansburg, Va, according to court officials.
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 Haiyang Zhu, listens to the judge explain court procedures in Montgomery County Circuit Court in Chrsiatiansburg Va. Monday December 21 2009. [Agencies] |
Yang, 22, from Beijing, China, had begun her studies at Virginia Tech only two weeks before she was killed at a restaurant in the university on January 21.
University officials said Zhu and Yang were believed to have known each other, based on emergency contact records maintained by the university, but witnesses saw no sign of an argument before Yang was beheaded. Zhu was taken into custody at the scene.
Prosecutors said after an unsuccessful courtship, Zhu purchased a knife and murdered Yang.
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Zhu was a graduate student pursuing a doctorate, began studying at Virginia Tech in the fall of 2008.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in April and could face life imprisonment.
The murder was the first high-profile crime on the Virginia Tech campus since April 16, 2007, when a Korean-American student killed 32 other students and professors before turning a gun on himself.
