The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has expressed sorrow for the "senseless" killing of its student Eva Liu, the 21-year-old American tourist who was assaulted and pushed off a cliff near Germany's Neuschwanstein Castle earlier this week.
Authorities revealed the identities of the two American women on Friday, identifying them as 22-year-old Kelsey Chang and 21-year-old Liu, both students at the U.S. university.
On Wednesday, German authorities reported an incident near the popular tourist destination in the south of the country, where a 30-year-old American man had allegedly assaulted two fellow American tourists, both female, and pushed them down a 164-foot slope.
"I can confirm that Kelsey Chang was awarded a BS in Computer Engineering in May 2023, and Eva Y. Liu was awarded a BS in Computer Science in May 2023," the university wrote in a statement following the identification of the two women.
"Our University of Illinois family is mourning the senseless death of Ms. Liu and the attack on Ms. Chang."
The university said that both students "had just graduated in May and should have been able to celebrate such an important accomplishment without the fear of such a tragic outcome."
It added: "Our thoughts are with Ms. Chang as she recovers and with both of their families as they grieve."
According to a report by German police on the incident, Chang and Liu, who were friends, had met the man on a hiking trail east of the Marienbrücke—a panoramic bridge with a view on Neuschwanstein Castle— and decided to proceed together. The man then steered the two women "under a pretext" to a trail from which it was difficult to be observed, police said, and assaulted Liu.
When Chang intervened to help her friend, the man choked her and pushed her down the 164-foot drop. The police assume that there was an attempted sexual assault on Liu, whom he then pushed down the slope, where she "came to rest next to her friend" at the bottom of the slope.
Liu was retrieved by helicopter and brought to a hospital, where she died on Thursday night. She had just landed a role as a software engineer at Microsoft after completing an internship with the company during her last semester, she had written on LinkedIn. Chang survived the fall.
The man, who had attempted to flee the scene of the attack, was arrested by German police shortly after. He is currently in custody and facing charges of murder, attempted murder, and sexual assault.
The 30-year-old man has not yet been identified by authorities, but a video shared on social media shows him handcuffed by officers, wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and a baseball cap.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek Reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. and European politics, global affairs ... Read more
