A Maricopa County Superior Court judge accepted a plea agreement in a road rage case involving a woman who police say shot and killed a Chinese student at Arizona State University after rear-ending the student’s car.
Holly Davis fatally shot 19-year-old Yue Jiang of China on Jan. 18, 2016, while Jiang’s boyfriend, Endong Chen, sat next to her, according to Tempe police.
Davis was originally charged with first-degree murder, but the prosecutor and her attorney came to a plea deal of second-degree murder that would result in a mandatory 25-year prison sentence.
Judge Warren Granville on Tuesday chose to accept the plea agreement after hearing statements from Jiang’s family who traveled to Arizona from China, KTVK-TV/KPHO-TV reported.
Jiang’s father, Yiyong, glared and pointed at Davis.
“How inhumane you were to brutally murder my only daughter,” he shouted in Chongqing, a dialect of the Chinese language.
Once he finished his statement to the judge through a translator, he turned to Davis again and shouted in his language, “You monster! Tell me why you murdered my daughter!”
Davis got out of her Volkswagen Passat, walked to the driver’s side door of the Mercedes Jiang and Chen were in and opened fire, police said.
Badly wounded, Jiang tried to flee by making a U-turn, but crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with another car, Tempe police spokeswoman Naomi Galbraith said.
Jiang was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment. She later died of multiple gunshot wounds to the torso.
Endong told police that he and Jiang did not know Davis, and they had no interaction with her until she collided with them. He also told police that there was no traffic dispute leading up to the incident.
Endong and Jiang had just come from a grocery shopping trip at an Asian grocery store, Endong said. Neither of them was armed, nor did they speak English.
Davis’ sentencing hearing is scheduled for Friday.
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