‘I cannot undo the damage’
Ex-Lehigh U. student who attacked roommate will serve up to 20 years
The former Lehigh University chemistry student who admitted poisoning his roommate by slipping a toxin into his food and mouthwash will spend seven to 20 years in state prison for attempted homicide before he’s extradited to China.
Yukai Yang, now 24, apologized to victim Juwan Royal in court Wednesday, locking eyes with the man he said became his only friend during his time in the U.S.
He said he was sorry for hurting Royal, for the pain he caused the man’s family, and for the shame he brought to his own family and country.
“I cannot undo the damage to your body,” Yang said, referring to the still debilitating effects Royal suffers from his poisoning by thallium, a heavy metal. “I cannot erase the pain I caused your family. I am here today to accept the punishment I deserve.”
Yang pleaded guilty to attempted homicide in November. He admitted that over the course of weeks in the spring of 2018, he used thallium to slowly poison his roommate until the young man’s family took him to a New York doctor who finally diagnosed the symptoms as heavy metal poisoning.
Royal fainted multiple times, and suffered crippling fatigue and headaches as well as rashes and heart palpitations. Eventually, he
experienced excruciating pain, especially in his legs and feet until he finally lost feeling for a time in his lower extremities. His family described a month of sleepless nights while Royal cried out in pain and agony.
“The shrieks he’d make were as if someone was stabbing him with an ice pick,” father Ray Royal said. “I can’t get the shrieks out of my mind.”
Northampton County Judge Stephen Baratta handed down his sentence after a lengthy hearing that involved testimony from Royal, his mother, father and grandmother as well the psychologist who treated Yang. Letters pleading for mercy from the judge came from Yang’s parents and colleagues in China as well as from Lehigh professors, two of whom were in court Wednesday.
Baratta noted that for all his expressed remorse, Yang never spoke up while his friend was suffering to explain what he did or to point doctors in the direction to start effective treatment earlier.
“You sat by and watched your friend disintegrate like this right before your eyes,” the judge said.
Yang’s early life, during which he was separated from his parents at the age of 2 until high school, created traumatic attachment issues that were left unaddressed, psychologist Dr. Frank Dattilio testified. Though he was raised by his kind grandparents, Yang’s family emphasized academic success as a singular priority for him. This was so apparent, Dattilio said, that when Yang placed second in the country in a biology competition, Dattilio said, “he still viewed himself as a failure.”
Yang said in court that he had two majors and two minors at Lehigh and isolated himself with an obsession on his grades that was so intense he’d forget to eat for days at a time. Dattilio said this internal pressure coupled with a stigma on any mental health support created a dangerous environment for Yang.
“I’ve spent every single breath to become an academically successful person,” Yang said. “I think it drives me crazy.”
In Royal, another brilliant Lehigh student, Yang found a friend. Royal said that he’d try to cheer up and encourage Yang, who could fixate on negative emotions. The two were roommates in Lehigh’s dorms for four years and Royal brought Yang to visit his family on multiple occasions.
But in the final semester at Lehigh, when Royal divulged that he planned to move off campus to continue his studies, Yang became upset. Dattilio said Yang scrawled racist graffiti in the dorm room in an effort to get the attention he craved from Royal, who is Black. Yang told the psychologist that he meant to apologize for the vandalism, but believed he was unable to once the police got involved and charged him with ethnic intimidation. Those charges have not been resolved.
Yang said he planned to kill himself before graduation and had a “suicide missive” ready to send his family once he took his own life. He attempted suicide more than once and ordered thallium, formerly a rat poison that has since been banned in the U.S., for the purpose of poisoning himself.
In court, Yang said he wasn’t thinking clearly when he started putting the toxin in shared food and Royal’s personal products.
“I’ve learned that I should think before I act,” Yang said. “I learned that I should consider how I could hurt other people. I learned that it’s not shameful to talk about and get help for [mental health issues]. It is shameful to ignore it and hurt people.”
Royal’s family removed him from Lehigh after his mysterious illness grew worse. By the time a New York doctor diagnosed the poisoning, severe damage had been done and the treatment plan worked slowly.
Royal’s mother, Tanisha, described how much of a nightmare it was to watch her son suffer while she could do next to nothing to end the pain.
“I just treated him as if he was my 2-month-old baby again,” she said, describing how she rubbed his body until he fell asleep, singing to him and praying with him. “I just knew that my son wasn’t doing well and I thought I might lose him. And as a mother, you just kick into high gear and you just do what you have to to make him feel better.”
Ray Royal said his wife and mother-in-law were the strong ones during the ordeal, staying with his son as Juwan yelled in pain. The father felt himself a coward for leaving for work early just to escape the sounds of his son trapped in a pain no one could alleviate.
“I’m a Gulf War veteran. And I am not saying that for some praise,” Royal said in court. “I’m saying that to show that I’ve seen things and I came out OK. But this. This did something to me. We feared the night like some kind of horror movie.”
First Assistant District Attorney Richard Pepper called Yang “manipulative” for telling others he only meant to use the toxin to draw attention to his own pain, and he never meant to do any lasting damage.
“Whether or not he knew this was a fatal dosage, he knew damn well it could kill Juwan,” Pepper said.
Royal said he was ready to move past the pain, the anxiety and the fear of the experience, though he still has concerns over the long-term effects of the thallium on his body.
“Did you believe yourself close to death?” Pepper asked him. “Absolutely, yes,” Royal said. “Have you forgiven the defendant?”
“Yes.”
But Royal would later clarify that his forgiveness was only for the pain he personally suffered from the poisoning.
“I forgive him for what he did to me,” Royal said, “but I can’t forgive him for what he put my family through.”