旧闻Zhu sentenced to life for brutal Virginia Tech murder

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Zhu sentenced to life for brutal Virginia Tech murder

The Roanoke Times
Haiyang Zhu listens to his attorney, Stephanie Cox, in Montgomery County Circuit Court. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in December.

The Roanoke Times | File 2009

Haiyang Zhu listens to his attorney, Stephanie Cox, in Montgomery County Circuit Court in this 2009 file photo. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in December.
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Zhu pleads guilty in Va. Tech killing

CHRISTIANSBURG — A former Virginia Tech graduate student convicted of decapitating a woman in a campus cafe in January 2009 was sentenced Monday to life in prison without parole.

Haiyang Zhu, 26, a Chinese citizen, pleaded guilty in December to first-degree murder for the brutal killing of Xin Yang, also of China.

Zhu attacked 22-year-old Yang, a fellow graduate student, in the Au Bon Pain cafe in Tech’s Graduate Life Center, stabbing and beheading her with a kitchen knife as cafe customers and employees looked on.

Citing underlying mental illness and certain deportment upon his release, defense attorney Stephanie Cox asked Circuit Court Judge Bobby Turk Monday to sentence Zhu to about 30 years in prison.

“He will never walk the streets of the Commonwealth of Virginia again,” Cox said.

But Montgomery County Commonwealth’s Attorney Brad Finch emphasized photos showing deep defensive wounds on Yang’s hands and upper body and a jailhouse “will” Zhu wrote in which he blamed Yang for the crime.

“What mercy did he show to Xin?” Finch said. “If any case ever called for the maximum punishment, this is that case.”

Under Virginia law, life in prison is the maximum punishment allowed for Zhu, Finch said later. He is expected to die in prison.

Testifying on his own behalf, Zhu expressed his “sincere apology and deepest remorse” for the attack.

“I have been tortured by guilt and heart-breaking pain,” he said. “It is all my fault, and I am sorry.”

But Turk showed no mercy.

“This was a very brutal act on a very beautiful lady,” Turk told Zhu before pronouncing the sentence.

“What I was really looking for was why,” Turk said. “It defies rational explanation.

“The rage you must have had … scares me,” Turk said. “I’m not willing to let you back out.”

Both families presented written impact statements to the court, in which they emphasized the loss of their children and, with them, their security in old age.

“In Chinese tradition the main focus of a family is to take care of the elderly. When she got murdered, from that moment on, we have no one left to care for us,” Jia Wang wrote of her daughter, Xin Yang.

Wang traveled to Virginia to read her statement aloud in Mandarin to the judge. An English version of her remarks filed with the court read: “I should be attending my only daughter’sgraduation now instead of standing in this courtroom. … The moment she got murdered, our hearts died with her.

“I didn’t have a chance to express how much I loved her before her death. Today, in here, I want to tell Xin: I love you so much! I’m very proud of you.”

A letter from Zhu’s parents emphasized his academic achievements and his childhood sensitivity to the plight of animals and the poor. The letter blames mental illness and lack of treatment for the crime.

“We have suffered a great deal and can better understand the misery of the victim’s parents,” the letter stated. “This is the tragedy of our two families, which [sic] just like the collapse of heaven and earth.”

Psychologist Daniel Murrie at the Institute of Law, Psychiatry & Public Policy at the Universityof Virginia, who evaluated Zhu, testified that records showed severe mental illness ran in his family and affected his upbringing.

Academic pressures from his college professor parents were also cited as contributing to severe depression.

Zhu had won national academic awards in China and came to Tech to start a new life and earn his Ph.D in agricultural economics.

Murrie and Zhu’s classmate Robert Needham instead described a department in disarray, where five of seven students ended their first year on academic probation, including Zhu. According to testimony, at least one student reported that a professor suggested there was no future in their chosen profession.

Zhu, distraught and suicidal, asked his parents to allow him to come home. But they advised him to remain at Tech and get counseling.

Zhu saw a counselor, Murrie said, but was disappointed that instead of suggesting a fix, the counselor simply listened. Zhu did not schedule future appointments, Murrie testified.

After attending a friend’s wedding, Zhu latched onto the idea of marriage as a path to the happiness he craved. He quickly began to see a life with Yang as his fate, and lashed out when she said she planned to marry someone else.

According to testimony, Zhu attempted suicide several times in jail, once nearly hanging himself in hopes of meeting Yang in the afterlife.

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！！！ 发表于 2011-11-26 12:00