A Chicago-born master's student has been convicted at the Old Bailey of murdering his Goldsmiths classmate, whose body was discovered in her southeast London flat last year. A jury on Monday found 26-year-old Joshua Michals guilty of killing 31-year-old Zhe Wang. Sentencing will be scheduled at a later hearing.
Prosecutors told the court Wang was found lying in a pool of blood with two penetrating stab wounds to her face and signs of strangulation, a scene described to jurors as “brutal and savage.” As reported by The Guardian, the attack took place on March 20, 2024, and a post-mortem confirmed stab wounds and compression to her neck.
Jurors heard that before calling 999, Michals first rang his father to get details for a solicitor, a delay prosecutors argued may have cost Wang any chance of surviving. Coverage from ITV notes that Michals eventually called for an ambulance at around 11.08pm, described what had happened as a “knife incident,” and claimed he had been attacked.
Row Over Suspected STI And 'Germophobia'
The court was told the pair’s relationship had been increasingly tense. Messages shown to the jury revealed Wang had become convinced she had contracted a sexually transmitted infection after noticing a “red dot” on her skin, and repeatedly pressed Michals to get tested. Michals told jurors he visited Wang’s flat with a charcuterie board in an attempt to defuse an argument, and later claimed she came at him with a knife and that he stabbed her while trying to defend himself. The jury rejected that account, according to The Independent.
Goldsmiths Pays Tribute
Goldsmiths University described Wang as “a wonderful student, a remarkable writer and a thinker” whose work will be published posthumously, as highlighted in reporting by ITV. Staff and fellow students remembered her creativity and said plans were underway to include her writing in an upcoming anthology.
Legal Next Steps
The Old Bailey jury returned its guilty verdict after roughly 16½ hours of deliberation. Judge Richard Marks KC told the court that a sentencing date would be fixed later, at a time that worked for both families. The Evening Standard reports that Michals is expected to receive a life sentence, with a minimum term to be set when he returns to court.
Why This Matters
Wang’s killing is one case in what campaigners say is a much wider pattern of fatal violence against women in the UK, and a reminder that one-off fixes rarely touch the root of the problem. A long-running project from The Guardian has tracked the toll, arguing that only sustained action by police, universities and frontline support services will move the needle.
