Superior Court Invokes Rarely Used Statute in High Profile Orange County Murder Case

On September 18, 2026, an Orange County Superior Cout Judge ruled a defendant not guilty by reason of insanity in the August 28, 2023, shooting death of a UNC-Chapel Hill associate professor. Tailei Qi was charged with first-degree murder in the death of associate professor Zijie Yan. This ruling, coming just over three years after the date of the shooting, means that Mr. Qi will be committed to Central Regional Hospital in Butner, North Carolina indefinitely.

Testimony from prosecution and defense psychiatrists at the September 18^th hearing revealed that Mr. Qi had suffered from severe mental illness for decades. He suffered from untreated schizophrenia, delusions, and hallucinations that prevented him from understanding the wrongfulness of his actions in the shooting death of Professor Yan. Some of Mr. Qi’s hallucinations involved Professor Yan and others involved a belief that he was being followed by assassins.

At the time of the shooting Mr. Qi was a doctoral student and professor Yan was an associate professor in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences. In making its ruling, the court applied N.C.G.S. §15A-959(c) which provides: ”If the court determines that the defendant has a valid defense of insanity with regard to any criminal charge, it may dismiss that charge, with prejudice, upon making a finding to that effect.”