Judge Rejects Killer’s Plea Agreement Confessed Double-Murderer Had Hoped Deal Would Avoid Death Penalty

A district judge on Friday rejected a plea agreement for confessed double-murderer Wenkai Li and ordered the former University of Idaho student to stand trial.

Judge John Bengtson made his decision in the third day of a sentencing hearing after concluding the case appears to have an “open-and-shut aggravating factor” that could justify the death sentence for Li.

Li, 25, was trying to avoid the possibility of execution when he pleaded guilty to first- and second-degree murder in the killing of another student and his wife.

Despite the pleas, Li’s attorneys appeared to be arguing at the sentencing hearing that he committed only manslaughter, Bengtson said.

A new trial will be expensive, Bengtson said, but “economics cannot guide my decision as to what to do in this case.”

Bengtson also excused himself from the case. Having heard much of the evidence, including Li’s admission that he stabbed to death student Ning Li and his wife, Xia Ge, last May, Bengtson said he did not want to risk an appeal on the grounds that the judge had been “tainted” by previous testimony.

Relatives of the victims, who came from China, Maryland and New York for the hearing, were frustrated by the serpentine nature of the case.

“I think law in America is too complicated,” said Yuan Zhang Li, Ning Li’s cousin. “I think the law in America is too kind to the serious criminal. This needs to be changed. In China, everything is easy. Maybe two months, everything is finished.”

Wenkai Li surely would have been put to death in China, said the victims’ friends and family, who asked during the sentencing hearing that he be put to death here.

Against defense counsel Michael Henegen’s advice, Li agreed to plead guilty to first-degree murder for Xia Ge’s death and second-degree murder for killing Ning Li, with the option of withdrawing the plea if he didn’t like the minimum sentence.

The arrangement unraveled Friday morning as Deputy Prosecutor Robin Eckmann evoked several inconsistencies in Li’s earlier testimony.

Li had testified he had a knife in his jacket when he went to Ning Li and Xia Ge’s apartment. But after his arrest in Wyoming, he told investigators he was not wearing a coat during the murders. Eckmann noted that the temperature was 85 degrees at the time.

Li had also testified that he bought two sleeping bags two days before the murders because he would need them if he stayed with an aunt in Los Angeles. But the aunt told an investigator that she had told him he could use her son’s bedroom, Eckmann said. Li later used the sleeping bags to transport the bodies to Wyoming, where he dumped them on a remote highway.

Finally, Li failed to account for how he first stabbed Ning Li after he pushed the defendant to the floor.

” Li said. “We were pushing the knife together.”

“So you stabbed him on accident?” Eckmann asked.

Li: “No.”

Eckmann: “You stabbed him on purpose?” Li: “No.”

Eckmann: “What was it?” Li: “I don’t know. I killed him. It was not an accident.”

“What is it?” interrupted Bengtson, clearly frustrated.

After meeting briefly with attorneys in his chambers, Bengtson ordered a trial. He also urged the Legislature to write a law making all Idaho taxpayers, not just those in Latah County, liable for the cost of a trial since the case is being brought in the name of the state.

, DataTimes