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Murder of Shao Tong
41°38′07″N 91°29′58″W / 41.63539°N 91.49937°W
On September 26, 2014, police found a body later identified as 19-year-old Shao Tong (Chinese: 邵童, November 1994 – September 2014), a Chinese undergraduate at Iowa State University (ISU), in the trunk of a car registered in her name parked in an apartment complex on the outskirts of Iowa City, Iowa. She had been reported missing nine days earlier. The cause of death was found to be homicide by suffocation.
Shao had last been seen on September 7 at a hotel outside Nevada, Iowa, a small town east of Ames, where ISU is located. She had been spending the weekend there with her boyfriend, Li Xiangnan (Chinese: 李向南), a student at the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City. Her car and body were in the apartment complex he lived in.
Li was not present. Police believe that after abruptly checking out of the hotel the following morning, he had used her phone to text her friends that she was going to be away for a while and that Li had to return to China for a family emergency. While there was no evidence of Shao's purported travel, Li had flown back to Beijing, but beyond that point his whereabouts were unknown.
Early in 2015, authorities in Johnson County charged Li with first-degree murder and obtained an arrest warrant. Chinese Internet users began circulating pictures of Li, who remained at large. After Chinese detectives traveled to Iowa to visit the crime scene and review evidence, they too charged Li with intentional murder under Chinese law, which allows the prosecution of any Chinese citizen for a crime even if it occurred abroad. He surrendered to police in his native Wenzhou in May. The case was prosecuted there, since not only is there no extradition treaty between China and the United States, China does not extradite its own citizens. In March 2016, he pleaded guilty; three months later, he was given a life sentence, which could be reduced to a prison term of no less than 13 years.
Shao was born in the coastal Chinese city of Dalian in 1994, the only child of a family typical of China's emerging middle class. Her father was a civil servant who worked in food safety inspection; her mother a homemaker. She attended Dalian Yuming High School, and aspired to become a biologist.
Yuming students routinely perform well on China's National Higher Education Entrance Examination or gaokao, and in the Olympic Competition, which offers winners admission to college without having to take the gaokao. In the late 2000s, Shao and her then boyfriend entered the competition. He won and attended a prestigious university in southern China; she did not.
She decided to study in the U.S. instead, which she was able to do because her parents had saved over US$100,000 toward her education. In 2011 she went to Beijing to take a preparatory course for the Test of English as a Foreign Language. There she met Li Xiangnan, three years her senior, from Wenzhou. Shao's mother says he developed a crush on her daughter, which was not unusual—many other young men had shown such an interest in her daughter. She met him once when he came to Dalian, and recalls him as shy. Although he seemed to be from a rich background, she and her husband did not think he was right for their daughter.
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Murder of Shao Tong
41°38′07″N 91°29′58″W / 41.63539°N 91.49937°W
On September 26, 2014, police found a body later identified as 19-year-old Shao Tong (Chinese: 邵童, November 1994 – September 2014), a Chinese undergraduate at Iowa State University (ISU), in the trunk of a car registered in her name parked in an apartment complex on the outskirts of Iowa City, Iowa. She had been reported missing nine days earlier. The cause of death was found to be homicide by suffocation.
Shao had last been seen on September 7 at a hotel outside Nevada, Iowa, a small town east of Ames, where ISU is located. She had been spending the weekend there with her boyfriend, Li Xiangnan (Chinese: 李向南), a student at the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City. Her car and body were in the apartment complex he lived in.
Li was not present. Police believe that after abruptly checking out of the hotel the following morning, he had used her phone to text her friends that she was going to be away for a while and that Li had to return to China for a family emergency. While there was no evidence of Shao's purported travel, Li had flown back to Beijing, but beyond that point his whereabouts were unknown.
Early in 2015, authorities in Johnson County charged Li with first-degree murder and obtained an arrest warrant. Chinese Internet users began circulating pictures of Li, who remained at large. After Chinese detectives traveled to Iowa to visit the crime scene and review evidence, they too charged Li with intentional murder under Chinese law, which allows the prosecution of any Chinese citizen for a crime even if it occurred abroad. He surrendered to police in his native Wenzhou in May. The case was prosecuted there, since not only is there no extradition treaty between China and the United States, China does not extradite its own citizens. In March 2016, he pleaded guilty; three months later, he was given a life sentence, which could be reduced to a prison term of no less than 13 years.
Shao was born in the coastal Chinese city of Dalian in 1994, the only child of a family typical of China's emerging middle class. Her father was a civil servant who worked in food safety inspection; her mother a homemaker. She attended Dalian Yuming High School, and aspired to become a biologist.
Yuming students routinely perform well on China's National Higher Education Entrance Examination or gaokao, and in the Olympic Competition, which offers winners admission to college without having to take the gaokao. In the late 2000s, Shao and her then boyfriend entered the competition. He won and attended a prestigious university in southern China; she did not.
She decided to study in the U.S. instead, which she was able to do because her parents had saved over US$100,000 toward her education. In 2011 she went to Beijing to take a preparatory course for the Test of English as a Foreign Language. There she met Li Xiangnan, three years her senior, from Wenzhou. Shao's mother says he developed a crush on her daughter, which was not unusual—many other young men had shown such an interest in her daughter. She met him once when he came to Dalian, and recalls him as shy. Although he seemed to be from a rich background, she and her husband did not think he was right for their daughter.