UNC-Chapel Hill faculty murder: Who is suspect Tailei Qi?

A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate student, Tailei Qi, has been charged with first-degree murder and having a gun on educational property in connection with a shooting on the school's campus Monday, according to court documents obtained by Fox News.

The shooting incident that left Zijie Yan, an associate professor in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences, dead prompted a lockdown around 1 p.m. in UNC-Chapel Hill school buildings as students began their first week of classes.

"This loss is devastating, and this shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted in our campus community," UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said during a press conference Monday. "We will work to rebuild that sense of trust and safety."

Authorities did not say if Qi, 34, specially targeted Yan have not revealed a motive behind the killing. No other injuries were reported. Qi was a Ph.D. student and in the same research group as Yan, according to the school's website.

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Authorities said shots were fired around 1 p.m. at Caudill Laboratories, where Yan was apparently found deceased in a lab. 

Qi, who was allegedly armed with a 9 m.m. pistol, was taken into police custody around 2:31 p.m. The suspect is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday at 2 p.m.

In posts from Qi's apparent social media pages, he sought "new friends" and complained about hard work.

"[W]ould like to make some new friends," he wrote in a July tweet. "I am a second-year PhD student, interested in nanoparticle synthesis, optical trapping, self-assembly, spectra analysis, and ML. [A] bit stupid in daily trifles, very enthusiastic talking about research."

In a June post, he complained about "many counter-intuitive situation[s] in society," stating that "minimum wage do more harm [sic] to instead to protect the poor; gender quota is not to protect women but to enhance the discrimination."

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In May, he posted, "For a Phd student, pay much attention to working time every day is really childish...I know many people want to me to show them working and working, but no...that's not human at all."

Last year, he posted that he was walking less every day and feeling more "tired."

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"Just because I spend too much time to persuade myself that I work just out of interests instead of to show others I am working," he said. In yet another bizarre tweet from last year, he complained about "people" saying he is "lazy and that to prove me working hard [sic]."

Qi apparently attended Wuhan University in China prior to attending Louisiana State University, where he received his master's degree in science before heading to the nation's oldest state university in Chapel Hill, according to his LinkedIn profile.

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One student who spoke with Fox News Digital on the condition of anonymity Monday said he ran outside a large lecture hall after getting an alert about an armed and dangerous person on campus and "saw people running in the direction of the Genome Science building."

"I decided to take the corner and investigate to see what was going on. That’s when I saw cops engage their slides on their AR-15’s. I heard one large bang but nothing other than that," the student said. "I stayed around the area and saw people running out of the chem lab."

The student added that the "general feeling around campus described in one word is disturbed."

Aiden Scott, a UNC grad student and former classmate of Qi's, told WRAL News that Qi was quiet and "seemed very nice."

"I would have never guessed that he would be the kind of person who could possibly be capable of this kind of thing," Scott said. "He was always very quiet."

"Every single time he would talk to me, he seemed very nice. When I saw his face in the reports online, I was beyond shocked."

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"One of my friends worked with him in the chemistry lab. However, he graduated this past year and was not [there]," he said. "Overall, it was extremely unexpected. I would always see stuff in the news but never expected to see things like this in person first hand taking place. The campus is extremely saddened and frustrated by the current events. For example, [there] where petitions on campus to ban UNC police officers. And even having police free days. Which is disturbing all together. Because situations like this are when we need police more than ever."

Chapel Hill issued an "all clear" alert just after 4:30 p.m. All classes were canceled on Monday and Tuesday.