Va. Tech suspect was fond of victim

BLACKSBURG -- About 10 days before the beheading of a female graduate student from China that led to a murder charge against Haiyang Zhu, he told a fellow student at Virginia Tech that he was attracted to the woman.

"He said he liked the girl very much and he wants to be her boyfriend, I think," said the friend, who requested anonymity for privacy reasons.

Zhu, 25, is charged with first-degree murder in the Wednesday slaying of Xin Yang, 22, of Beijing, who had arrived at Tech only two weeks earlier.

Zhu, who was studying agriculture and applied economics, is accused of using a kitchen knife to decapitate Yang, who had enrolled in a graduate program at Tech to study accounting.

The friend said Zhu did not mention whether Yang felt similarly about him or whether he had known her before she arrived at Tech.

This was the only time the friend had heard Zhu talk about Yang. The friend said Zhu arrived in the United States last summer to begin graduate studies in the fall semester.

Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum does not plan to offer more details about the relationship between Zhu and Yang, school spokesman Larry Hincker said.

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The slaying, in the Au Bon Pain café on the first floor of the Graduate Life Center at Donaldson Brown, had acquaintances of Zhu wondering what had gone wrong.

Ryan Rouelle heard Thursday that the alleged assailant was Zhu, who was a teaching assistant in an undergraduate agricultural economics class that Rouelle took in the fall semester.

"I saw his picture, and I was like, 'Good Lord,'" Rouelle said.

Huan Li felt just as shocked when she learned what had happened in the café, where Zhu and Yang were seen talking quietly shortly before the slaying.

Like Zhu, Li came to Tech in August. She wasn't close to Zhu, but she said he always seemed nice and said hello when their paths crossed.

Zhu revealed little about himself on his page at Facebook.com, a social-networking Web site. He posted pictures of himself in front of the U.S. Capitol, at Lane Stadium during a Tech football game, and standing next to one of the dozens of Hokie Bird statues around Blacksburg.

Zhu is being held without bond at the Montgomery County Jail. He is scheduled to appear March 5 for a preliminary hearing in Montgomery General District Court in Blacksburg.

When the first officer arrived Wednesday night at the café in response to a 911 call, she saw Zhu holding Yang's severed head in his hand, according to an affidavit filed in Montgomery Circuit Court.

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The Montgomery Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant on Zhu's and Yang's residences.

The following items were retrieved from Zhu's apartment in the Sturbridge Square Apartments complex: SoftWorks utility knife papers, chef's knife papers, a bag from a local supermarket, a purple digital camera, medical information pamphlets, Verizon statements, thumb drives for a computer and a book titled "The Company of Strangers."

From Yang's residence at Donaldson Brown, an investigator took a check made out to Zhu for $40; a camera phone and charger; a pink diary; thumb drives and memory sticks for a computer; and a letter that hadn't been mailed. The search-warrant results noted that the letter had a "red kiss on seal."

The search-warrant results offered no further details.

Stephanie Cox, Zhu's court-appointed attorney, is not commenting on the case but eventually will release a statement, a secretary at her office said.

Tech has set up a counseling center in the Graduate Life Center.

Counselors are dealing individually with the seven people who were in the vicinity of the crime, though not all necessarily saw it, Hincker said.

The school also is offering counseling to students who were injured in the April 16, 2007, massacre on campus and to Chinese students. There were 666 Chinese students on campus as of the fall semester, according to Tech's Cranwell International Center.

China was the highest-represented country, by 146, among the school's 2,228 international students.

Hincker, the school spokesman, said Tech is not concerned about possible backlash toward Asian students. Seung-Hui Cho, a mentally unstable student who was born in South Korea, carried out the April 16 shootings that left 33 dead, including Cho.

WSLS-TV of Roanoke, owned by Richmond-based Media General Inc., reported yesterday that Yang will be remembered tomorrow at 7 p.m. during a Chinese New Year celebration in the Graduate Life Center.

Kim Beisecker, director of the international center, said she was waiting for word from the victim's family about whether a memorial would be held.

Yang's funeral will be held in China.

Beisecker said a delegation from the Chinese Embassy in Washington met with Tech officials in Blacksburg for about four hours yesterday, WSLS reported.

The delegation wanted to make sure that Zhu is receiving appropriate legal counsel and that his rights are respected, and that the needs of Yang's family are being met, Beisecker said.

Contact Darryl Slater at