On September 26, 2014, police found a body later identified as 19-year-old Shao Tong (, November 1994 – September 2014), a Chinese undergraduate at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

(ISU), in the trunk of a car registered in her name parked in an apartment complex on the outskirts of town in

Iowa City, Iowa Iowa City, offically the City of Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is the home of the University of Iowa and county seat of Johnson County, at the center of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the time ...

. She had been reported missing nine days earlier. The cause of death was found to be

homicide Homicide occurs when a person kills another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act or omission that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no inten ...

suffocation Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects primarily the tissues and organs. There are many circumstances that can i ...

. Shao had last been seen on September 7, at a hotel outside

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, a small town east of

Ames Ames may refer to: Places United States * Ames, Arkansas, a place in Arkansas * Ames, Colorado * Ames, Illinois * Ames, Indiana * Ames, Iowa, the most populous city bearing this name * Ames, Kansas * Ames, Nebraska * Ames, New York * Ames, Ok ...

, where ISU is located. She had been spending the weekend there with her boyfriend, Li Xiangnan (), a student at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

, 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 } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

, 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 An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by a judge or magistrate on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual, or the search and seizure of an individual's property. Canada Arrest warrants are issued by a j ...

. 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 Chinese law is one of the oldest legal traditions in the world. The core of modern Chinese law is based on Germanic-style civil law, socialist law, and traditional Chinese approaches. For most of the history of China, its legal system h ...

, which allows the prosecution of any Chinese citizen for a crime even if it occurred abroad. He surrendered to police in his native

Wenzhou Wenzhou (pronounced ; Wenzhounese: Yuziou �y33–11 tɕiɤu33–32 ), historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province in the People's Republic of China. Wenzhou is located at the extreme south east o ...

in May. The case was prosecuted there, since not only is there no

extradition treaty Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdict ...

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.

Background

Shao was born in the coastal Chinese city of

Dalian Dalian () is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China. Located on the ...

in 1994, the

only child An only child is a person with no siblings, Birth, by birth or adoption. Children who have half-siblings, step-siblings, or have never met their siblings, either living at the same house or at a different house—especially those who were born con ...

of a family typical of China's emerging middle class. Her father was a

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

who worked in food safety inspection; her mother a

homemaker Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a hous ...

. She attended , and aspired to become a biologist. Yuming students routinely perform well on China's

National Higher Education Entrance Examination The National College Entrance Examination (NCEE), commonly known as the gaokao (), is a standardized college entrance exam held annually in mainland China. It is required for entrance into almost all higher education institutions at the underg ...

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

to take a preparatory course for the

Test of English as a Foreign Language Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL ) is a standardized test to measure the English language ability of non-native speakers wishing to enroll in English-speaking universities. The test is accepted by more than 11,000 universities a ...

. There she met Li Xiangnan, three years her senior, from

. 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. Shao was accepted at

(ISU), in

, where she majored in

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

in 2012, a choice that pleased her father since not many women enter that field. Li "chased erfrom China to the U.S," an acquaintance said, transferring from

Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private university, private research university in the town of Henrietta, New York, Henrietta in the Rochester, New York, metropolitan area. The university offers undergraduate and graduate degree ...

to the

Iowa City Iowa City, offically the City of Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is the home of the University of Iowa and county seat of Johnson County, at the center of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the time ...

, away, where he studied business. At Iowa State, friends, mostly fellow Chinese students, recalled her as being very outgoing, tutoring students in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

and dancing at parties. She also distinguished herself for her ability to solve

Rubik's cube The Rubik's Cube is a Three-dimensional space, 3-D combination puzzle originally invented in 1974 by Hungarians, Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik t ...

quickly. Although engineering was not her favorite subject, she maintained a

grade point average Grading in education is the process of applying standardized measurements for varying levels of achievements in a course. Grades can be assigned as letters (usually A through F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), as a percentage, or as a numbe ...

of 3.75. Li and Shao continued to socialize in Iowa. According to her friends, he seemed to believe he was her boyfriend, although others who knew her said she had ongoing relationships with other men as well, not all of whom were aware of the others. He moved in with her in summer 2013, to the great annoyance of her roommate. "He didn't clean up. It's just not normal that a boy lived in a girl's dorm," she told a Chinese news outlet. "We tried to kick him out, but he wouldn't leave." In early 2014, he gave Shao's address as his on two occasions when he was cited for

traffic violation A moving violation is any violation of the law committed by the driver of a vehicle while it is in motion. The term "motion" distinguishes it from other motor vehicle violations, such as paperwork violations (which include violations involving a ...

s while driving his 2009 BMW in

Coralville Coralville is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is a suburb of Iowa City and part of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 22,318 at the 2020 census. History Coralville is the location of the Edgewater ...

, outside Iowa City. Shao's other friends shared the same low opinion of Li, to the point that Shao avoided talking about him in their presence. A cousin in China noted that on visits home, Shao seemed more withdrawn than she had been in the past.

Disappearance

On September 3, 2014, Karen Yang, a friend of Li's, got a call from him. He said that he had called Shao. For some reason she did not answer the phone, but he could hear her conversing with another boy about him, making disparaging remarks. After calling Yang, he posted "fuck my life" in Chinese to his page on

Renren The Renren Network (), formerly known as the Xiaonei Network (), is a Chinese social networking service similar to Facebook. Nevertheless, the two took advantage of the ensuing weekend to spend some time together. Since his presence was not desired by her roommates, they got into the beige 1997

Toyota Camry The Toyota Camry (; Japanese: トヨタ・カムリ ''Toyota Kamuri'') is an automobile sold internationally by the Japanese auto manufacturer Toyota since 1982, spanning multiple generations. Originally compact in size (narrow-body), the Camry ...

she had bought during a summer internship in

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

and checked into the Budget Inn off

U.S. Route 30 U.S. Route 30 or U.S. Highway 30 (US 30) is an east–west main route in the system of the United States Numbered Highways, with the highway traveling across the northern tier of the country. With a length of , it is the third longest ...

near

, a small town east of Ames, on September 5. The hotel owner, Ken Patel, recognized them from two earlier stays over holiday weekends. The following night, Patel says he saw Shao come to the lobby alone. It would be the last time anyone other than Li saw her alive. On the morning of September 7, Patel said that he woke and saw that Shao's gold car, in which the two had come from Ames, was already gone. This was unusual, he later stated, because on the couple's previous stays he had had to go to their room after they missed the 11 a.m. checkout time. While the hotel had a

security camera A closed-circuit television camera can produce images or recordings for surveillance or other private purposes. Cameras can be either video cameras, or digital stills cameras. Walter Bruch was the inventor of the CCTV camera. The main purpose o ...

on constantly, its feed was not recorded anywhere. That night, Shao's father sent a text to her phone from China. He wanted to know if she had had any success replacing a pair of glasses she had told him several days earlier that she had lost. The responding text said that she had borrowed a pair from a friend. He asked if they could video chat; she said she was too busy at the time. In retrospect he believes that those messages actually came from Li. Another text, purportedly from Shao, was sent from Li's phone to one of Shao's roommates. It said that Li was going back to China due to an "emergency" and that she was going to take a bus to

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

and visit some friends from China there in the next week. The following day, Yang sent Li a text asking how things were going with Shao. "Fine for now", he responded. A week later, on September 16, Li's birthday, Yang sent him a text. He did not respond. "He was never like that," she recalled later to a Chinese publication. "He replied omessages promptly." She began to suspect that something was wrong. Around that time, Shao's roommates began to wonder when she was planning to return as the week had passed and they had not heard from her. Through social media, they contacted her friends in Minnesota. None of them had seen her. "That's when we started to get really worried," one said. They reported her

missing Missing or The Missing may refer to: Film * ''Missing'' (1918 film), an American silent drama directed by James Young * ''Missing'' (1982 film), an American historical drama directed by Costa-Gavras * ''Missing'' (2007 film) (''Vermist''), a Bel ...

to Ames police on September 18.

Discovery of body

Ames police were unable to find any evidence that Shao had taken a bus to Minnesota. They searched Shao's apartment the following week. They found a receipt for the Toyota Camry Shao had purchased in Kentucky, which still had that state's license plates on it. On September 26 they made the description and plate number of the car available to other police departments. Police in

had also obtained a

search warrant A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to confiscate any evidence they find. In most countries, ...

for Li's BMW the previous week, parked near his apartment off

U.S. Route 6 U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to P ...

on the eastern outskirts of the city. On the evening that their Ames counterparts posted the information about Shao's car, they found it nearby. Residents of the complex said it had been there for some time, and complained of the smell emanating from it. After a warrant was obtained, police found a body in the trunk, its decomposition accelerated by exposure to the late summer heat. It was later confirmed to be Shao.

Investigation

Police immediately called the death suspicious. The

autopsy An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any di ...

found the cause of death to be

asphyxiation Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects primarily the tissues and organs. There are many circumstances that can i ...

and

blunt force trauma Blunt trauma, also known as blunt force trauma or non-penetrating trauma, is physical traumas, and particularly in the elderly who fall. It is contrasted with penetrating trauma which occurs when an object pierces the skin and enters a tissue ...

likely inflicted by another person. It did not fix a time of death beyond that when her body was discovered due to the lack of information about the circumstances in which it had occurred. Her head was found wrapped tightly in a towel consistent with those at the Nevada Budget Inn where she and Li had stayed, and next to the body in the trunk was a

barbell A barbell is a piece of exercise equipment used in weight training, bodybuilding, weightlifting, powerlifting and strongman, consisting of a long bar, usually with weights attached at each end. Barbells range in length from to above , althou ...

. Also in the trunk were travel documents showing that on September 6, Li had booked a flight from Eastern Iowa Airport in nearby

Cedar Rapids Cedar Rapids () is the second-largest city in Iowa, United States and is the county seat of Linn County. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River, north of Iowa City and northeast of Des Moines, the state's capital and largest city. ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and then to

. Cell phone records showed that the texts to Shao's friends had been sent from Chicago while he was laying over there between flights. In Li's apartment, police found further evidence suggesting a hasty departure. Groceries had not been put away, an open container of milk had been left on a counter long enough for it to have spoiled, and luggage had been left behind. Three days after the body was discovered, a search warrant was executed on the hotel room in Nevada that Li and Shao had shared. In it they found "splatters and drips of various dried liquids", which they sought to test to see if they had been human bodily fluids. They came to believe that Shao had been murdered at the hotel before her body was placed in the trunk of her car and driven to the parking lot of Li's apartment complex in Iowa City. Upon further investigation, police learned of Li's September 3 "fuck my life" social-media post and the circumstances that gave rise to it. A Chinese friend of Li's in Iowa also reported that at a party a month before Shao's disappearance, Li had asked how long it would take the police to know if a person was missing. They found this odd because his question had no relation to the conversation they had been having. Iowa City police soon named Li a

person of interest "Person of interest" is a term used by law enforcement in the United States, Canada, and other countries when identifying someone possibly involved in a criminal investigation who has not been arrested or formally accused of a crime. It has no leg ...

in the case. Police were unable to locate Li so they could talk to him, believing that as the evidence suggested, he had returned to China. They later received confirmation that he had cleared customs in Beijing on September 10. Since then there had been no record of him anywhere in China or elsewhere. Chinese media had been following the case closely, since Chinese parents who send their children overseas to attend college are very concerned for their safety. Users on the Chinese social media sites

Sina Weibo Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily acti ...

and

WeChat WeChat () is a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has bee ...

had begun circulating Li's picture and other identifying information along with the

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...

#FindLi. In a two-day period there were 150,000 posts related to the case, receiving 2.2 million views. A reporter in Li's hometown of

said his newspaper had called two local phone numbers looking for Li; at the one which was answered, the person on the other end hung up when asked about him. The same reporter said in a WeChat post that his colleagues could not say whether Chinese police were looking for Li as well.

Arrest and charges

In an April 2015

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

article about the case, Shao's father asked that Chinese and American authorities cooperate and share information to help capture Li and bring him to trial. He said that a few weeks earlier, the Iowa City police had told him that the Johnson County

district attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...

's office had charged Li with

first-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the c ...

and issued an

. Under

Iowa law The Code of Iowa contains the statutory laws of the U.S. state of Iowa. The Iowa Legislative Service Bureau is a non-partisan governmental agency that organizes, updates, and publishes the Iowa Code. It is republished in full every odd year, and is ...

, prosecutors may in certain circumstances keep the existence of a warrant and any related

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concep ...

secret until after the arrest is made, and they did not confirm whether they had done so in Li's case. Cooperation between the Chinese and American police eventually did increase. The Wenzhou police began monitoring Li around the same time. While they were occasionally able to find his whereabouts, he usually disappeared before they could get him under surveillance. They also lacked any evidence to charge him, since they were waiting for information from Iowa. Later in April, however, investigators from China flew to Iowa and, accompanied by their American counterparts, interviewed witnesses and studied the crime scene. They returned to China with this evidence. In mid-May Li turned himself in to authorities in Wenzhou. Using the evidence from Iowa, agents from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation developed a case against him while Li remained in detention. At the end of June the Ministry of Public Security announced Li's formal arrest on a charge of intentional murder. Li faced

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the State (polity), state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to ...

. Under Iowa law, the mandatory sentence would be

life without parole Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

.Iowa Code 707.2.6
"Murder in the first degree is a class 'A' felony.
Iowa Code 902.1
" pon conviction or a guilty plea, the courtshall commit the defendant into the custody of the director of the Iowa department of corrections for the rest of the defendant's life. Nothing in the Iowa corrections code pertaining to deferred judgment, deferred sentence, suspended sentence, or reconsideration of sentence applies to a class 'A' felony, and a person convicted of a class 'A' felony shall not be released on parole unless the governor commutes the sentence to a term of years." Shao's father said he had been told that Li would be tried in China even though the crime occurred in the United States. The two countries do not have an

, and even if they did, China does not extradite its own citizens. It would not be the first such case in recent history. In 2010 a

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

court convicted Xiao Zhen of murdering a taxi driver in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, before fleeing to China. Police in New Zealand shared their evidence with their Chinese counterparts only on the condition that Xiao would not be sentenced to death, since their country had abolished capital punishment. The case also recalls the similar murder of

Amanda Zhao Amanda Zhao Wei () (28 February 1981 – 7 October 2002) was a Chinese student in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, who was murdered in October 2002. Zhao was studying English at Coquitlam College when she was reported missing on October 9, 2 ...

in the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

province of

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. Like Shao is alleged to have been, she had been killed by her boyfriend, Li Jiaming, while attending

Coquitlam College Coquitlam College is a private post-secondary degree-granting institution in Vancouver, British Columbia. Established in 1982 and authorized by the British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education to deliver post-secondary education in B.C. unde ...

. He reported her missing; ten days later hikers found her body stuffed in a suitcase near

Stave Lake Stave Lake is a lake and reservoir for the production of hydroelectricity in the Stave River system, located on the northern edge of the District of Mission, about east of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The main arm of the lake is about ...

, away. Li and another Chinese student came under suspicion and returned to China, where he was arrested but released for lack of evidence. Meanwhile, the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

had built a case against him that led to a murder charge in Canada against Li and an accomplice. They would not share the evidence with their Chinese counterparts out of concerns, similar to those that attended the Xiao investigation in New Zealand, that Li would be sentenced to death if convicted. Eventually those concerns were resolved, and the two were charged in 2009. He was convicted three years later and sentenced to life, but on appeal in 2014 the

Supreme People's Court The Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China (SPC; ) is the highest court of the People's Republic of China. It hears appeals of cases from the high people's courts and is the trial court for cases about matters of national ...

reduced the conviction to

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th cen ...

and the sentence to 7 years, accepting Li's argument that the death was the result of a

pillow fight A pillow fight is a common game mostly played by young children (but also by teens and adults) in which they engage in mock physical conflict, using pillows as weapons. Pillow fights often occur during children's sleepovers. Since pillows a ...

that got too vigorous.

Trial

In March 2016, Li pleaded guilty to the charge in Intermediate People's Court in Wenzhou. He called his act "irrational and impulsive", saying he had loved her but was unable to deal with her having affairs with other men. However, he denied that he had planned the crime in advance, saying he had bought the plane ticket a few days in advance because he intended to go back to China in any event due to the stress he was feeling. Li begged the court for leniency on these grounds. He faces a sentence that could range from ten years in prison to

death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...

. His parents have paid the Shaos , approximately US$300,000, in compensation. Investigators from Iowa traveled to China to witness the proceedings. After they returned to Iowa, they revealed more details about the case in a

news conference A press conference or news conference is a media event in which notable individuals or organizations invite journalists to hear them speak and ask questions. Press conferences are often held by politicians, corporations, non-governmental organ ...

. They were still unsure about when exactly Shao had died, believing it most likely that she had survived Li's initial beating only to suffocate after he stuffed her body into a suitcase and put it into his trunk. Despite Li's claims in court that it was a

crime of passion A crime of passion (French: ''crime passionnel''), in popular usage, refers to a violent crime, especially homicide, in which the perpetrator commits the act against someone because of sudden strong impulse such as anger rather than as a premed ...

, the Iowa investigators believed instead that he had planned the killing in advance, and that his original plan was to put weights in the suitcase and sink it in the

Skunk River The Skunk River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the state of Iowa in the United States. Geography The Skunk River rises in two branches, the South Skunk ( long) and the North Skunk ( long).U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography ...

. However, the shallowness of the river made that impossible. In August, Li received a life sentence.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tong, Shao 2014 in Iowa 2010s missing person cases 2014 murders in the United States China–United States relations Crimes in Iowa Female murder victims Formerly missing people Incidents of violence against women Iowa State University Missing person cases in Iowa September 2014 crimes in the United States University of Iowa Women in Iowa