Newsweek - WordupNews, Newsbeat, Analysis, Business, Politics, Technology, Entertainment, Fashion, Sports

An American student killed his Chinese partner in a “savage attack” after she urged him to take an STI test following sex, a court heard.

Zhe Wang, 31, was found dead in a “pool of blood” by police last March after she was allegedly attacked by 25-year-old Joshua Michals, a fellow student at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Michals is now on trial at Woolwich Crown Court for Ms Wang’s murder, accused by prosecutors of leaving her “face-up on her bedroom floor with two penetrating stab wounds to the face, lying in a pool of blood soaked into the carpet”. He denies the charge.

In the run-up to Michals’s visit to Ms Wang’s flat, she had been pushing him to take an STI test “against his resistance” after she noticed a rash on her body after they had intercourse. WhatsApp chats show Ms Wang had accused him of “ruining her life and threatening to ask the university for help”.

Henrietta Paget KC, prosecuting, told the court that Michals called for an ambulance at 11.08pm on 20 March 2024, explaining there had been a “very serious incident” in Ms Wang’s flat in Manor Park, Lewisham.

Michals told the call operator that he did not think Ms Wang was breathing and was not at the address. He was phoned back by police, and said there had been a “knife incident” and “it was really bad”, Ms Paget said.

The trial is being heard at Woolwich Crown Court (Google Stret View)

“This case concerns the killing of a young woman by a man whom she had only been seeing for a few short months,” she added.

“This was a brutal and savage attack, as the evidence of her injuries and from the scene plainly shows: she was killed in her own bedroom.”

Michals told a paramedic over the phone that he had been attacked by Ms Wang and “made comments to the effect that it would be too late to help her”. He told medics that his only injuries were “scratches”.

The American student, of Deals Gateway, London, had left Ms Wang “for dead some three hours earlier”, Ms Paget told the court, adding a post-mortem examination revealed that “she had also been strangled”.

Michals, who had arrived at Ms Wang’s address in an Uber at 7.17pm before ordering another Uber home at 7.59pm, knew it was too late to save Ms Wang by the time he called the authorities, the prosecutor said.

Ms Paget says he “flew into a rage and attacked her”, and that his first instinct afterwards was not to help but to “cover his tracks in an effort to save himself”.

Michals was arrested at his address, where he told officers that he understood why he had been detained but that it was “not what it seems”.

A bin bag with a blood-stained jacket, hoodie and top was discovered in his living room and a blood-stained rucksack was found in his kitchen, jurors heard, but the knife used in the attack was never found.

Ms Wang, who was “by all accounts a quiet and gentle person”, was studying for an MA in creative writing and education and aspired to be a teacher, the court heard. She aimed to complete a PhD before returning to China, the court was told.

The WhatsApp chat between Ms Wang and Michals revealed what appeared to be a romantic relationship between the pair.

“As those messages show, the two had known one another since early on in the academic year; they had become close and begun a sexual relationship shortly thereafter,” Ms Paget told the court.

“Though as we shall see from the messages, ultimately they did not sleep together until February, just a few short weeks before he killed her.”

The trial continues.

Source link