The state of North Carolina has agreed to a $750,000 settlement to a wrongful death claim filed by the wife and children of a UNC-Chapel Hill physics professor who was murdered in his office in 2023.
The complaint said UNC bore some responsibility for Zijie Yan’s death, alleging he “was killed by a UNC Student who suffered from a variety of severe mental illnesses, including Schizophrenia and who had threatened Professor Yan on several occasions.”
Yan was shot at around 1 p.m. on Aug. 28, 2023, the start of the second week of fall semester classes. The shooting prompted a three-hour lockdown on campus while authorities searched and arrested graduate student Tailei Qi, who worked in Yan’s lab…