The UNC doctoral student accused of fatally shooting his advisor on campus may not be competent enough to stand trial, WRAL reports.
34-year-old Tailei Qi is accused of killing Professor Zijie Yan on August 28. The incident caused a multi-hour lockdown of UNC’s Chapel Hill campus. Qi is facing charges of first-degree murder and carrying a gun on educational property.
However, a court-ordered psych exam revealed this week that Qi lacks the mental capacity to be tried.
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In the months leading up to his death, Yan reached out to a colleague about his concerns with a student who told him about struggling with severe mental illness. He didn’t specify if Qi was the student in question.
Qi’s former classmate, Carter Scott, mentioned in a previous interview with WRAL that Qi did struggle with adjusting to UNC.
“In hindsight, I would guess he probably didn’t have a very good network here. I get the impression he went to another university out of the country,” Scott said. “So he was very new. Very out of his element. Very quiet. So I can see a situation where he didn’t have that many people close to him.”
The state will commission a second psych exam for Qi at Central Regional Hospital at Butner.
Qi’s public defender did raise concerns about a backlog and how that could affect the case. Qi also said he has issues with his representation, and the claims of him having mental health issues were a way to “bypass” that concern.
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