Joshua Michals has told how he stabbed Zhe Wang after she came at with him with a knife looking ‘demented’ and ‘possessed’ as she believed she had contracted a sexually transmitted infection
A student has told how he fatally stabbed his “possessed” girlfriend after she attacked him with a knife because she wrongly believed he’d given her an STI. American Joshua Michals, 26, stabbed 31-year-old Chinese national Zhe Wang to death at her flat in London.
Michals called police on March 20 last year to say there had been a ‘knife incident’ at her flat in Manor Park, Hither Green in the capital. When cops arrived, they discovered Ms Wang in a pool of her blood.
They had met at Goldsmiths, University of London, where they both started studying in September 2023. Michals described how things “had been a bit tense” between them, so he went round to her flat with a charcuterie selection as he “thought it would be a nice thing to do”.
Giving evidence at the Old Bailey, where he is on trial for murder, Michals said that after using the bathroom in Ms Wang’s flat, he came out to finds her holding a knife, as reported by the Daily Mail.
“She had this wicked look in her eye,” he told the court. “Demented. I would be tempted to say possessed as well. It scared the hell out of me.”
Michals then said Ms Wang then came towards him with the knife raised. He grabbed her wrist and told her to stop. Michals said the blade was ‘flashing back and forth’ as they struggled, and described how he saw her face ‘go red’ with blood from a cut.
During the struggle, the knife fell to the floor, and they both pounced for it, the defendant added. He said he grabbed the handle and Ms Wang held the blade, before he yanked it from her grasp.
He said: “She continued to grab at me, reaching for the knife. I panicked. I was turning away and I just saw this blood red face coming at me. I got this jolt seeing this blood red face and I swung my arm around, like a backhand, turning with it, with the knife. She stumbled back. It went into her cheek.”
Michals said he did not mean to strike Ms Wang with the knife, insisting he had never even been in a fight and just wanted to get her away.
“There was a brief moment when she turned back to face me,” he said. “She just threw herself back at me. She practically ran into me.”
She grabbed his collar and they both fell to the floor, the knife still embedded in her cheek, jurors heard. He said he grabbed the knife and threw it away from them.
Michals told jurors that he continued to restrain her, telling her to ‘calm down’ and ‘stop’ until she ceased struggling. He said throughout the incident Ms Wang didn’t say anything to him, and the only sound she made was a ‘grunt’ when she was cut.
Brian St Louis KC, defending, asked: “What do you think would have happened to you if that knife had remained in Ms Wang’s hands?”
Michals replied: “She would have stabbed me. She wouldn’t stop, she wanted to use the knife.”
Police found Chinese national Ms Wang with two stab wounds to her face after the defendant called 999.
Previously, Michals had told the court he was unsure about pursuing a relationship with Ms Wang due to her phobia of germs.
The court heard that she demanded he get an STD test after finding a ‘red dot’ on her skin after sex, even vowing to find him on campus to ‘drag’ him to see a GP. Jurors have been told that Michals, of Deals Gateway, south east London, never had a sexually transmitted disease.
Michals denies murder. The trial continues.
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