A Florida man appeared in court Thursday and was denied bond after being accused of slitting his wife’s throat in a fit of rage, and then holding her hand as she bled to death in a bathtub as her favorite song playing in the background.
Xichen Yang, 21, made his initial appearance Thursday before Seminole County Judge Wayne Culver, who found that there was sufficient probable cause to hold the suspect on charges of first-degree murder and tampering with evidence.
Yang, a pool technician from Altamonte Springs, was arrested Tuesday for the brutal killing of his newlywed wife, 21-year-old Nhu Quynh Pham, who was found dead from a knife wound on her neck.
A friend has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help Pham’s family send her body back to her native Vietnam for a burial.
“Quynh was loved by many and created many friendships during her time with us,” Ryan Tran wrote in the fundraiser’s description.
Police said that just before 9 a.m. Tuesday, officers were dispatched to an address in the 900 block of Ballard Street to conduct a welfare check.
When the officers entered the apartment, they found Pham lying in a “pool of blood” in the bathtub.
“Pham had a deep laceration to the left side of her neck which had blood running down from it,” the report stated. “Her stomach was also pooled with blood.”
She was pronounced dead at the scene.
During a police interview after his arrest, Yang allegedly admitted to slitting his wife’s throat.
The 21-year-old told detectives that before the killing, “he could feel himself getting more and more angry … and that he could have stopped short of killing her.”
When cops asked the murder suspect why he did not stop himself, Yang replied “that was ‘not how he was raised’ and that he is the type of person who always ‘goes all the way.’”
The arrest report stated that after Yang slashed Pham’s throat, he took her to the bathroom.
“He placed Pham in the bathroom tub, ‘played her favorite music’ and ‘held her hand’ for what he estimates to be approximately 10 minutes, until she died,” police wrote in the report. At no point did he call 911 for help, authorities said.
Detectives subsequently interviewed Yang’s employer, who told them that when he called Yang early Tuesday and asked why he had failed to show up for work, “Yang said he was upset with his wife, Pham, because she had burned his passport,” and that he had done “unspeakable things” to her.
Altamonte Springs Police told ClickOrlando that officers had been called to Yang’s home three times within the last six months, including less than two weeks before the killing, when Pham called to report that her husband was “doing self-harm” and that she was worried for him.
On that occasion, Yang was taken into protective custody and later released.
In January, Yang was arrested for allegedly hitting his wife in the face, but the charge of battery against him was later dropped.
Yang is due back in court for an arraignment on Aug. 2.
