Barbara Wu Update: Calif. college student to stand trial for alleged murder plots against ex-boyfriends
(CBS) RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Barbara Wu, a former University of California, Riverside honor student was ordered Monday to stand trial on felony charges that she plotted to have two ex-boyfriends killed, CBS Los Angeles reports.
Wu has pleaded not guilty to six felony counts, including solicitation of murder and stalking. She is also charged with vandalism, witness intimidation and making criminal threats, the station reports.
Wu, 22, was arrested May 23 after allegedly asking her boyfriend, a fellow student, to kill one of her ex-boyfriends.
Prosecutors say a second former boyfriend came forward after the initial charges against Wu were made public. The second boyfriend, identified only as John Doe, reportedly told investigators Wu had also asked him to kill yet another boyfriend and he believed he may have been the target of Wu's second plot.
In a preliminary hearing Friday, the John Doe testified Wu asked him to help her hit her ex over the head, tie him up and torture him until he handed over his ATM card and PIN number, the station reports.
"He would be tied up and he'd be sitting there, and there were needles where she would slowly poke it into his hands -- his fingertips -- until he finally cracked and gave her the number," the John Doe testified of the alleged plan.
The couple would then knock him out, kill him and later dispose of the body in Mexico, he testified, according to the station.
On Friday, the man who first came forward testified that last spring Wu asked him to break an ex-boyfriend's legs, kick him in the groin, then kill him and dispose of the body. Wu was allegedly angry that the former boyfriend had broken up with her by e-mail.
Wu's attorney maintains her ex-boyfriend fabricated the murder-for-hire plots.
She reportedly faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.