Murder of Shao Tong

On September 26, 2014, police found a body later identified as 19-year-old Shao Tong (, November 1994 – September 2014), a Chinese undergraduate at Iowa State University (ISU), in the trunk of a car registered in her name parked in an apartment complex on the outskirts of Iowa City, Iowa. She had been reported missing nine days earlier. The cause of death was found to be homicide by suffocation.

Shao had last been seen on September 7 at a hotel outside Nevada, Iowa, a small town east of Ames, where ISU is located. She had been spending the weekend there with her boyfriend, Li Xiangnan (), a student at the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City. Her car and body were in the apartment complex he lived in.

Li was not present. Police believe that after abruptly checking out of the hotel the following morning, he had used her phone to text her friends that she was going to be away for a while and that Li had to return to China for a family emergency. While there was no evidence of Shao's purported travel, Li had flown back to Beijing, but beyond that point his whereabouts were unknown.

Early in 2015, authorities in Johnson County charged Li with first-degree murder and obtained an arrest warrant. Chinese Internet users began circulating pictures of Li, who remained at large. After Chinese detectives traveled to Iowa to visit the crime scene and review evidence, they too charged Li with intentional murder under Chinese law, which allows the prosecution of any Chinese citizen for a crime even if it occurred abroad. He surrendered to police in his native Wenzhou in May. The case was prosecuted there, since not only is there no extradition treaty between China and the United States, China does not extradite its own citizens. In March 2016, he pleaded guilty; three months later, he was given a life sentence, which could be reduced to a prison term of no less than 13 years. Provided by Wikipedia