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Haiyang Zhu, Virginia Tech Grad Student, Confesses to Decapitating Woman Who Spurned His Love
Monday, Dec. 21 2009 @ 4:05PM

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​On January 20, Haiyang Zhu, a graduate student at Virginia Tech, professed his love to fellow student Xin Yang. They'd only met recently. Zhu, a doctoral candidate in agriculture and applied economics, had been helping the Chinese woman adjust to American life. But he was instantly smitten...

Yang rejected his overture, telling him that she already had a boyfriend who she planned to marry.

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Xin Yang told him she already had a boyfriend who she was planning to marry
​So the next day Zhu bought a butcher knife and a claw hammer, then called the woman a dozen times. He then went to a campus cafe to find her.

Defensive wounds indicate she tried to fend him off as he stabbed her and she fell to the ground. That's when Zhu cut off her head. He was cradling it when police arrived.

"She makes him happy and fulfilled, that she is beautiful and that he will treasure her forever," Prosecutor Brad Finch said in court, quoting from a letter Zhu had written to Yang. "The defendant asked Xin to be his girlfriend."

A day after he was arrested, Zhu sat down to write another letter in jail, this one saying he was "forced him to kill her" because "he loved her too much."

By pleading guilty, Zhu avoids the death penalty, but will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.

Tags: China, Virginia