Murder suspect attempts suicide

UK GRAD STUDENT HELD IN FAYETTE JAIL

By Delano R. Massey And Peter Mathews

HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS


A 24-year-old University of Kentucky graduate student, awaiting extradition for a murder charge filed in Illinois, attempted suicide yesterday afternoon at the Fayette County jail.

Dong Zhang tried to hang himself with a telephone cord about 1:30 p.m., said Don Leach, senior administrative officer at the detention center.

Zhang, a Chinese national and graduate research assistant in UK's pharmaceutical sciences college, was taken to the University of Kentucky Hospital. His condition was not available yesterday.

The attempt came hours after Zhang was informed that he had been charged with first-degree murder and would be extradited to Chicago in the slaying of a woman he reported missing in Lexington. The woman, thought to be former Eastern Kentucky University exchange student Yan Gu, was found dead in Indiana Saturday.

Yesterday, Leach said Zhang was assessed by the mental health care staff and had been on a suicide observation. When he tried to take his life, Zhang was out of his cell on "recreation" in a room equipped with a shower, a television and a telephone, Leach said.

"He hadn't been out of his cell very long," Leach said.

Meanwhile, Jackson County, Indiana, Coroner Andy Rumph said he was still awaiting a positive identification of the woman's body. On Sunday, Rumph said the woman's identity would not be released until Chicago police notified her family.

Zhang reported Gu's disappearance to Lexington police earlier this month. Rumph said in a news release that Zhang knew the victim and was with police when the body was found.

Gu, 24, enrolled at EKU for the spring 2002 semester as part of an exchange program with Liaoning Institute of Technology in northeastern China.

Gu was a very capable but not superlative student, though only the best students make it into the exchange program, said Neil Wright, director of international education at EKU.

"She was kind of like Dharma" from the TV series Dharma and Greg, Wright said. "She had a delightful sense of aimlessness about her."

Gu completed her degree in December and moved to Lexington. She was moving to Chicago, apparently in search of an employer who could sponsor her for an additional three-year stay in the United States.

Gu called her parents every week, but when she had not phoned for several weeks, EKU called them.

"We phoned to let them know she was missing and ask if they had heard anything," Wright said. "We were hoping she'd just decided to take off and disappear."

The body probably was buried about two weeks ago, said Jim Davis, acting special agent in charge of the FBI's Indianapolis bureau.

Chicago police issued a warrant for Zhang's arrest Saturday, said officer Josephine Del Rio, a spokesman for the Chicago Police. Del Rio said Zhang is the only suspect.

Although several agencies are involved, the facts of the case were uncovered in Lexington. Last Thursday, Lexington police charged Zhang for filing a false missing-persons report, a misdemeanor, and tampering with physical evidence, a felony.

On June 3, Zhang phoned Lexington police to report the disappearance of his girlfriend, Yan Gu, Lt. James Curless said. Gu was last seen in Richmond.

The next day, Zhang filed a police report and Gu's name was entered into a national missing persons database, Curless said.

It's routine for police to investigate missing persons reports, but Curless said his department also began "aggressively" investigating Zhang's story.

"He articulated things to us that raised our suspicion," Curless said.

Curless would not elaborate, but said it was the manner and circumstances under which Gu "became missing" that raised eyebrows. A vehicle she was "supposedly" last seen driving, was found abandoned, Curless said.

"We had a good understanding of what was going on," he said. "That progressed, and then the body was found."

Saturday, the FBI and Indiana State Police found the body in a shallow grave in a cornfield about a mile south of Interstate 65 and 60 miles southeast of Indianapolis.