Lili Wang was killed while playing tennis.

Watch this space for future developments. Details below.

Man Got Gun Permit on Day of Killing

By Oren Dorell
Raleigh News and Observer
October 17, 2002

Richard Anderson acted alone, police say.

A week before Richard Borrelli Anderson walked onto a tennis court at N.C. State University and pumped four shots into his former tennis partner, he applied for five handgun permits at the Wake County Sheriff's Office.

He got the permit Saturday, the same day he used a 10 mm Glock to shoot Lili Wang, 31, a fellow computer science graduate student at NCSU's College of Engineering, in the head and knee, police said. Anderson then turned the gun on himself. Both died.

Police would not say whether Anderson, 49, used any of the permits to purchase the weapon he used in the murder-suicide, the third in Raleigh this year. While many on campus question how and why the shooting occurred, at least one person who knew Anderson said the incident did not come as a complete surprise.

"I was not over-surprised by what happened," said Nick Chunyü Fu, a graduate of NCSU's computer science program who met Anderson on the tennis court near Carmichael Gym early last summer. "Rick is [a] very nice guy, but he probably could be easily hurt by a small issue."

Before Anderson was issued handgun permits, his criminal record was checked on a national database and he was asked whether he had ever been involuntarily committed or declared incompetent. He answered that he had not, and his criminal record was free of felony convictions, said Capt. Bill McClain of the sheriff's office.

Lili Wang's Obituary LILI WANG, 31, passed away on Saturday, October 12, 2002. Lili was born March 6, 1971 in Beijing, China. She graduated from Shanghai Tiedao University in 1995 and came to the United States in December 1997. She was a computer consultant with Ciber, Inc. At the present time, she was working with IBM in Research Triangle Park as technical leader in the IBM "LEADs" project and she was also a graduate student in Computer Science Department of North Carolina State University, pursuing her Master's degree. She is survived by her husband, Yufei Qian of Raleigh; Xingcheng Wang; father, Zhiyun Chen; mother and Wei Wang; brother, all of Beijing, China.  Lili was a virtuous and devoted wife. She loved her husband. Theirs was a strong, loving relationship. She was also an excellent employee and student, she loved her job and her study. She will forever live in our hearts. A memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, 2002 at Forest Hills Baptist Church, 201 Dixie Trail, Raleigh. Flowers, other than red, are accepted at the church, 12:50 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. -- Raleigh News & Observer October 20, 2002

The investigation has been led by the State Bureau of Investigation and the university's Department of Public Safety. With help from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, investigators have traced the gun to its original vendor, but authorities would not say where or when the gun was purchased.

NCSU Police Chief Thomas C. Younce said investigators are certain that Anderson acted alone. "It's strictly him," Younce said.

Authorities said Tuesday that Anderson and Wang, who was married, took a course together and were acquaintances, but investigators have discovered nothing to suggest a relationship between them. A suicide note found near the shooting scene indicated that Anderson had an "infatuation" with Wang, police have said.

For many, Anderson's motivation remains a mystery.

Joyce Hatch, Anderson's academic adviser in the 20-credit computer science certification program, described him as "a model student" who earned straight A's. Whenever they met, he was "very focused on the subject" and talked little about his personal life.

"He was mostly a loner, very quiet and reserved and polite," Hatch said. "I saw him around a lot, and ... [I] never saw him with other people."

According to records released by NCSU, Anderson earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Rice University in Houston in 1981. In 1997, he began taking courses at NCSU to prepare for graduate school. As a grad student, he had a 3.94 grade point average.

Anderson had only two classes this semester, after dropping a third class in September, so Hatch dismissed the notion that academic stress might have driven him to extremes.

"He was a straight-A student, and taking six hours, he wouldn't have been stressed at all," she said.

Chunyü Fu, 34, said Anderson played a strange game of tennis that forced strong players to slow down. Anderson told Chunyü Fu that he trained himself for about a year to perfect a "forehand backspin," which is usually used for defense, to slow down an opponent. Chunyü Fu called it "torture."

"When the ball arrives, it goes backward, then sometimes you miss the ball," Chunyü Fu said. "When you deal with this guy, you have to slow down, or you hit the ball out of bounds."

Anderson also had said he liked Asian women because they "study hard, and they're very nice, soft speaking," Chunyü Fu said. The two men played together with a female friend, and then, about a month ago, Anderson started playing with the friend and Wang.

Note is Clue

An N.C. State University computer science graduate student who killed a fellow student and then himself Saturday left a note -- written on a greeting card addressed to his mother -- indicating that he was infatuated with his younger classmate and had decided to end both their lives, campus police said Sunday.

NCSU officials said Lili Wang, 31, of 4704 Delta Vision Court, Raleigh, was practicing tennis on an outdoor court near Carmichael Gym about 5:15 p.m. Saturday when she was shot in the head and knee by Richard Borrelli Anderson, 49, of 209 Ramblewood Drive, Raleigh.

Anderson then shot himself once in the head. His body was found about five feet from Wang's. Police found the note and a 10mm Glock handgun near the tennis court.

"The note indicated there was some type of infatuation," NCSU Police Chief Thomas Younce said Sunday. "There was an indication in there that he intended to end both his life and the young lady's life."

The note stated there was a personal disagreement between Wang and Anderson, Younce said. But investigators said they had no evidence of a dispute or of a romantic relationship between the two.

"It could be something that's made up in [Anderson's] mind," Younce said. "I don't know if we'll ever find out, because the two people that have detailed knowledge of it are no longer with us."

But classmates were aware of recent tensions between Wang and Anderson.

"Lili told me before that they played tennis and badminton together, and they had some quarrel," said Ying Xiong, a doctoral student in computer science.

Wang, a master's degree candidate in her second year in NCSU's College of Engineering, lived in northwest Raleigh and worked as a software engineer on the Lotus Notes program at IBM in Research Triangle Park. Neighbors and friends said she pursued her education while her husband, Yufei Qian, was working in California. She hoped to graduate in May so she could find a job near him.

Qian said Sunday that he had been on a plane headed for Raleigh Saturday evening when his wife was killed. He spent Sunday at the couple's home in northwest Raleigh, accepting visitors who came to offer condolences.

"At this time, I'm not ready to talk about anything," said Qian, 30. He said he did not know Anderson. "I'm going to contact a lawyer, and then we will feel comfortable to release something to the public."

Next-door neighbor Tim Brady saw Wang at lunchtime Friday. He described the couple as "nice and polite people."

Neighbors said they were not aware of any relationship between Wang and Anderson.

"I'm just kind of shocked," Brady said. "If someone was infatuated and was going to do something like this to someone in our neighborhood, we would have noticed the car around. I can't say I ever saw anything suspicious or anyone hanging out. I've never seen any visitors."

Faculty members in the College of Engineering said they had never seen any sign that the two were acquainted.

"She never, ever mentioned him," said Laurie Williams, an assistant professor who was Wang's thesis adviser and friend.

Wang and Anderson were students in Annie Antón's software engineering class, and Wang participated in a weekly reading group of about a dozen students with Antón.

"I had no indication that they knew each other beyond a casual acquaintance," said Antón, an assistant professor in computer science. "The events of Saturday are a complete shock to me."

But in an online message board for members of Antón's Computer Science 510 class, Wang and Anderson aired a disagreement last week over the format of their midterm exam. The students had been preparing for the exam for weeks, said fellow student Xiong, and many expected it to be tough.

Wang proposed on Oct. 4 that the students be allowed to bring a one-page summary of terminology and acronyms with them when they took the exam. Anderson responded the next day that the midterm should remain a closed-book test.

"Please remain aware that some of us have enough on our 510 plate to go without the unneeded churn of having to weigh-in on something like this," Anderson wrote.

Friends said that Wang found his reply insensitive. And last week, Wang moved from her usual seat near Anderson to be farther away from him, Xiong said.

Anderson lived in a small, upstairs apartment in Lantern Square, a modest, older complex off of Six Forks Road in North Raleigh. He "studied a lot," said Mary Martin, who lives downstairs.

"He had extremely nice manners," Martin said. "I remember one time I baked some brownies and shared them with the neighbors, and he wrote me a thank-you note."

When she last saw him on Saturday, he was packing his red Toyota hatchback.

"I saw him when he was leaving," Martin said. "And I heard him going up and down the stairs several times, which was unusual. He had the back of his car up, and he was putting things in the back."

The State Bureau of Investigation is continuing the investigation.

Because the university is on fall break until Wednesday, many students and faculty were not yet aware of the shooting deaths.

"It has really hurt a lot of people right to the core because she was such a nice person," Williams said.

"I hope somebody finds out what happened, because I'm sure her husband would like to know."

Until this year, NCSU had enjoyed a steady decline in crime over the past decade.

But three armed robberies this fall have left students shaken, and crimes -- primarily thefts -- are growing more frequent.

Campus police have added six security guards and have alerted students about recent violent crimes, Younce said.