Police seek diary of suspect in Virginia Tech decapitation

By SUE LINDSEY

BLACKSBURG, Va.

Investigators are seeking computer and cell phone records and diaries as they try to figure out why a Virginia Tech student allegedly used a kitchen knife to decapitate a female student in a campus coffee shop.

A Tech police officer arrived Wednesday night to find Haiyang Zhu, 25, holding 22-year-old Xin Yang's head in his hands, according to an affidavit filed Thursday.

Zhu is being held without bond on a first-degree murder charge. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 5. His attorney, Stephanie Cox, has not returned calls seeking comment.

Yang arrived on campus two weeks ago from Beijing and had only recently met Zhu, a doctoral student in agricultural and applied economics from Ningbo, China.

The two were drinking coffee on the Blacksburg campus before the attack. Witnesses told police they hadn't been arguing.

Yang's slaying was the first on campus since April 2007, when a student gunman shot 32 people and then took his own life.

Alone in a new country, Yang reached out to other Chinese students, trying to establish her life on campus.

She went to social events with international students, got in touch with the campus center that helps them adjust and appeared to be making friends as she settled into her accounting program, those who had met her said.

Zhu had been assisting Yang in adjusting to life at Tech, something the 500 Chinese students often do for new members in their community, said Kim Beisecker, the director of Cranwell International Center, which works with international students. They both attended functions for international students, she said.

"She was a very sweet young woman," she said. "He was known as a polite young man."

Though they apparently didn't know each other well, school records listed Zhu as one of her emergency contacts. Beisecker said that may have been because Yang knew few people on campus.

The details of the killing were outlined at a news conference Thursday.

Witnesses told police there was no sign of an argument before the attack, Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said. The two were sitting at a table having coffee at the Au Bon Pain cafe in the Graduate Life Center, he said.

Seven people - customers and Au Bon Pain staff - saw the attack and fled the restaurant. Two people called 911, he said.

Flinchum said that as far as he knows, no one tried to intervene in the attack and witnesses did not report Zhu yelling anything before or during the attack.

When police arrived less than two minutes later, they discovered Yang's body, Zhu and an 8-inch kitchen knife that police said he brought to the cafe and used in the attack. Zhu did not resist arrest.

Zhu was not called to the attention of Tech or Blacksburg police before Wednesday, Flinchum said. Nor had he been called to the attention of the university's threat assessment or Care teams - university groups designed to deal with troubled students.

Joe Epperly, a Tech senior majoring in animal and poultry sciences, had Zhu as a graduate teaching assistant in his marketing agriculture products class.

"He was always friendly and helpful throughout that class," Epperly said via e-mail. "Others who knew him through that same experience had nothing but good things to say about him."

There were few obvious signs of the tragedy on campus Thursday as students went about their third day of classes this semester.

At Thursday's news conference, Tech President Charles Steger offered condolences to the victim and her family and referred back to the shootings.

"An act of violence like this brings back memories of April 16, and I have no doubt that many of us feel especially distraught," he said. "Once again we are challenged as a community to offer support for one another."

This story was compiled from reports by The Roanoke Times and The Associated Press.