Decapitation at Virginia Tech

Haiyang Zhu, 25, was arrested Wednesday after allegedly decapitating fellow Virginia Tech student Xin Yang in the Au Bon Pain eatery on the first floor of the Graduate Life Center. Police received two 911 calls at approximately 7 p.m.

Zhu was standing in the café holding Yang’s severed head when authorities arrived on the scene. A kitchen knife and Zhu’s backpack, which was filled with other sharp weapons, were lying on the floor nearby. There were seven witnesses.

Zhu has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bond in Montgomery County Jail.
To many, this act of violence harkens back to the massacre of April 2007, when Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 33 Virginia Tech students.

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said, “An act of violence like this brings back memories of April 16. I have no doubt that many of us feel especially distraught.”

Authorities are still piecing together evidence to find motive. Xin was a newly arrived international student from China. Zhu was assigned to help Xin assimilate to her new environment.

Tech’s emergency response system went into effect shortly after the murder, sending 60,000 text, voice and e-mail messages within half an hour. No classes were cancelled.

“I walked right by the building around 7:30 p.m. and I got the text message at 7:44 (p.m.), so I’m guessing I was walking to my car when it happened,” said Mark Roberts, a biology major at Virginia Tech.

“This is not what we need right now, another murder,” Roberts said.

Roberts claims he saw at least one police car near the building when he walked by, but thought nothing of it.

Evan Higgins, a VCU political science major, heard about the stabbing that night.

“I hoped it wasn’t anyone I knew there. I thought of everyone I knew and hoped everyone was OK,” Higgins said. “It seems like such a random incident, I don’t think it could have been prevented.”

VCU public relations director Pamela Lepley expressed her concern and sympathy for Tech.

“We’re always in a heightened state of security,” Lepley said. “An incident would not prompt us to change our security that already existed. We have a multi-tiered emergency communication system that is dynamic. As the way we communicate changes, it changes.”

“I don’t know if it’s a coincidence that bad things keep happening at that school, but there seems to be a lack of something,” said Katy Hummel, a French major at VCU. No one can be everywhere, but it’s a little scary.