NCJ Number
157498
Date Published
1995
Length
214 pages
Annotation
This book recounts the true story of a Chinese exchange student, Lu Gang, who murdered five people and ultimately killed himself.
Abstract
Lu Gang, an exchange student at the University of Iowa, was a Ph.D. candidate in astrophysics. He murdered five individuals at the university, four of them in the building that housed the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Three victims were department faculty members and leading theoreticians in the field. A fourth victim, the killer's primary target, was a former roommate turned archrival. The fifth victim was a popular university associate vice-president whose duties included the handling of student grievances. Both the killer and his primary target were scholars from the People's Republic of China. The author delves into the lives of the victims and the murderer to determine why the tragedy occurred and discusses the extent of competition among foreign exchange students on U.S. campuses. Pressures imposed on young people by the Chinese government and by their families are explored, and effects of ambition and an excessive desire for achievement are discussed. Photographs