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UNC professor Zijie Yan was fatally shot Aug. 28, 2023, in Chapel Hill, NC,, prompting an hourslong lockdown and questions about campus security. Yan’s graduate student has been charged with his murder. Here is ongoing News & Observer coverage about the killing, the campus response and the aftermath.
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Charges were dismissed Friday against a former doctoral student whose psychotic delusions led him to kill his UNC-Chapel Hill professor in 2023, but he will remain in a mental hospital.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour found Tailei Qi, 37, not guilty by reason of insanity after a day of testimony from two psychiatric experts who treated Qi after he shot physics professor Zijie Yan on Aug. 28, 2023, at UNC’s Caudill Laboratories.
The shooting just days into the fall semester sent the university and the town into a three-hour lockdown while law enforcement searched for the gunman.
Orange County Assistant District Attorney Anna Orr and Qi’s public defender, Dana Graves, agreed that the murder, which Orr said initially appeared to be premeditated, was actually the result of 13 years of untreated schizophrenia and psychotic delusions.
Baddour agreed that Qi did not understand his actions and dismissed his first-degree murder charge.
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Qi, who was also charged with having a gun on campus, will remain at Central Regional Hospital in Butner indefinitely, Baddour said.
The judge also expressed his condolences to Yan’s wife, their two children, and his family, who decided not to attend the pre-trial hearing Friday.
“This kind of resolution is probably in people’s minds across the country right now,” Baddour said. “It’s not a comment on any other case … [but] there are cases in which a criminal trial is not always the best path, and I think this is one of them.”
Qi, who listened quietly to the hearing with the assistance of a Mandarin interpreter, did not speak on his own behalf
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This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
This story was originally published September 18, 2026 at 4:25 PM.