Murder of USC Chinese students brings second life sentence

LOS ANGELES -- A second man was sentenced Monday to life in prison for killing two University of Southern California students from China two years ago in a crime that fueled concerns in that country about the safety of students abroad.

Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Marcus sentenced Javier Bolden to two life terms without the possibility of parole, and other sentencing enhancements. He had also said Bolden, 22, showed a lack of remorse and said it was "truly one of the saddest cases that I've had to preside over," according to CBS Los Angeles.

Bolden was found guilty of first-degree murder last month for the shooting deaths of 23-year-old graduate students Ming Qu and Ying Wu as they sat in a car about a mile from the USC campus on April 11, 2012. Bolden also was convicted of attempted murder and assault with a firearm in earlier shootings that wounded two men and a woman.

Qu's father told CBS Los Angeles that the judgment offered "no comfort or consolation" and was "humiliating to the people of China as well."

Bolden's friend, Bryan Barnes, 22, who also shot into the car the students occupied, pleaded guilty in February to two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Authorities said Bolden told a cellmate that he shot the engineering students. The cellmate was a police informant and secretly recorded Bolden discussing how he and his friend had planned to steal the couple's BMW.

The killings stirred worries about the safety of foreign students, an issue that arose again this summer when four teens were charged with murder in the beating death of a USC graduate student from China as he walked to his off-campus apartment.

Since the 2012 killings, USC has added dozens of security cameras, including license plate readers, around the campus. The university also deploys private security officers in nearby neighborhoods.

Parents of the slain students have filed a lawsuit accusing USC of misrepresenting security at the campus, which has a large population of international students.