An American student murdered his Chinese partner in a “brutal and savage attack” in her bedroom, a court has heard.
Joshua Michals, 25, is on trial at Woolwich crown court for the murder of Zhe Wang, 31, who was a fellow student at Goldsmiths, University of London, on 20 March 2024.
Police found Wang “face-up on her bedroom floor with two penetrating stab wounds to the face, lying in a pool of blood soaked into the carpet”, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Opening the prosecution, Henrietta Paget KC told the court: “This case concerns the killing of a young woman by a man whom she had only been seeing for a few short months. 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.”
Paget told the court that Michals, of Deals Gateway, Deptford, in south-east London, had called for an ambulance at 11.08pm on 20 March 2024 and said there had been a “very serious incident” in Wang’s flat in Manor Park, Lewisham.
Michals, who denies the murder charge, told the call operator that he was not present at the address and he did not think Wang was breathing.
When Michals was called back, he said there had been “a knife incident” and that “it was really bad”, the prosecutor told the court.
While an ambulance was on its way, Michals told a paramedic over the phone that he had been attacked by Wang and “made comments to the effect that it would be too late to help her”.
When asked on the call if he had any injuries, Michals replied: “Just scratches on me,” the court was told.
Paget said Michals had left Wang “for dead some three hours earlier”, adding that a postmortem examination had revealed “she had also been strangled”.
The prosecutor added: “By the time he called 999, he knew very well that it was too late to save Ms Wang. The emergency services would find her dead, as indeed they did.”
Paget said Michals had arrived at Wang’s south-east London address in an Uber vehicle at 7.17pm and ordered another Uber home at 7.59pm, and stated: “It follows that by then, the attack must have concluded.”
After he was arrested at his address, Michals was asked whether he understood why he had been detained, and replied: “Yeah, but it’s not what it seems,” the court was told.
Paget said the evidence demonstrated Michals “flew into a rage and attacked her”. The prosecutor told the court: “His first instinct in the hours that followed – far from doing anything at all to help her – was to cover his tracks in an effort to save himself.”
Paget said that, in the interval between returning home and calling the ambulance, Michals had been “speaking to his father and obtaining details of solicitors”, adding that a handwritten note bearing such details was found on his kitchen counter.
A bin bag containing a blood-stained jacket, hoodie and top was found in his living room and a blood-stained rucksack was later found in his kitchen, the court was told. Paget said the knife Michals had used was never found.
The prosecutor said that in the run-up to Michals’s visit to her flat on 20 March, Wang – who was a self-confessed “germaphobe” – had been pressing him to take an STI test “against his resistance” after she noticed a rash on her body after they had had intercourse.
WhatsApp chats showed Wang had been “accusing him of ruining her life and threatening to ask the university for help”, the court was told.
Wang was studying for an MA in creative writing and education at Goldsmiths and aspired to be a teacher, the court was told, while Michals was studying cinematography.
Paget said Wang was “by all accounts a quiet and gentle person”, adding that “her tutor and fellow students describe her as funny, very organised and well turned out”. She had wanted to complete a PhD and return to China, the court was told.
The prosecutor said most of the evidence about Wang’s relationship with Michals came from a WhatsApp chat between the two of them, which police had recovered from his phone.
Paget told the court: “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. 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: theguardian.com
