Two police officers pull up Yao Jiaxin, who was trying to kneel before the husband and father of the victim of his alleged crimes, in a courtroom in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, on Wednesday. [Yuan Jingzhi / for China Daily]

XI'AN - A college student went to trial on Wednesday on charges of stabbing a young mother to death after he had accidentally run into her with a car last year, said court officials in Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province.

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The city's intermediate people's court heard that Yao Jiaxin, a 21-year-old student at the Xi'an Conservatory of Music, was driving his Chevrolet Cruze at about 11 pm on Oct 20 when he knocked down Zhang Miao, who was on a bicycle.

Afterward, Yao saw Zhang staring both at him and at his number plate and decided to stab her to death, prosecutors said. In his hurry to flee the scene, Yao injured two other passersby, a man and a woman, according to the police.

The case has been widely reported and drawn much attention throughout China.

On Oct 23, Yao went with his parents to the local police and was detained.

According to police, Yao admitted to killing the victim, saying he had committed the crime out of a fear that the "peasant woman would be hard to deal with."

And it's true Zhang, 26, the mother of a 2-year-old boy, was a peasant woman. On the night of her death she was on her way home from a temporary job she held as an assistant at a canteen at Northwest University's Chang'an Branch.

Yao told police that he caught Zhang looking at him and his car after the traffic accident. He said he worried she would remember his appearance and his license number and later make trouble for him and his family. So he took out a knife he had bought that day in a supermarket and stabbed her eight times in the body.

An investigation report showed that Zhang Miao had suffered light injuries to her leg and head from the traffic accident and was killed with eight wounds by a knife. Among the wounds, one had gone direct to her heart.

At the courtroom, Yao expressed deep regret and apologized to the family of the victim. Even so, Zhang's husband Wang Hui said he will never forgive Yao. Wang Hui said it was bad enough that Yao had not tried to save Zhang's life, let alone that he had gone so far as to kill her.

Media reports about the case have driven the public both to condemn Yao and to think hard about what turned a young student into a cold-blooded killer.

Shi Xiaomei, a professor at the Xi'an Conservatory of Music, where Yao had studied, said Yao was a good student and never did anything to harm classmates.

"I think our teachers and students should look deep into themselves to try to understand why a good student would commit such a despicable act," Shi said. "And we should do more to instill morality into our students."

According to one of Yao's classmates, who refused to be named, Yao had almost no friends in college.

"A lack of certain social experiences might have made Yao more likely to kill the woman, since he did not know how to deal with the possible consequences," the student said.

Fang Ligang, a lawyer in Xi'an, speculated that the court will spend a lot of time trying to ascertain whether Yao surrendered to police after the woman's death, an action the victim's lawyer, Xu Tao, said Yao did not take.

Fang said Yao could face the death penalty if he is convicted of murder. The rejection of the murder charge, in turn, will lead to the more lenient penalty of 10 years in prison.

Sources close to the victim's family have said Zhang's father turned down 30,000 yuan ($4,575) in compensation from Yao's parents, Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

Wang Hui said he has refused to accept an apology from Yao's family and he will do all he can to ensure the killer is brought to justice.