OAKLAND (BCN) — Two people have been arrested in the killing of a dentist in Oakland in August, including her apparent boyfriend, and investigators allege she was killed for money, police and prosecutors announced Friday.
Lili Xu’s boyfriend 73-year-old Nelson Chia of Oakland and 33-year-old Stockton man Hasheem Bason may face life in prison without parole or the death penalty if convicted of the offenses that may be charged. Both may get charged with murder, among other offenses.
Prosecutors with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office expect to file charges Monday and Chia and Bason may be in court Monday or Tuesday, District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said at a news conference Friday about the case.
“This is not a case about race,” Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong said at the news conference. “This is a case about greed.”
Xu was killed on the afternoon of Aug. 21 in the 1000 block of Fifth Avenue in the city’s Little Saigon neighborhood. She was 60 years old and has an adult son, O’Malley and police said.
She was shot multiple times by someone who was waiting nearby in a white, older Lexus, Armstrong said. Besides a video capturing the suspect vehicle and the slaying, police received dozens of tips from the community, the chief said.
O’Malley said the romantic relationship between Xu and her apparent boyfriend may have ended before the slaying, but that detail remains unclear.
Police would not say any more about a motive in the case because the investigation is ongoing.
Armstrong said from the day police saw the video evidence, investigators thought something more than a robbery occurred the day Xu was shot. She died later at a hospital, police said.
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