Purdue University student was charged with one count of murder in the fatal stabbing of his roommate in their dorm on the West Lafayette, Indiana, campus last week.
During a hearing Thursday, the Tippecanoe County Prosecutor’s Office formally charged Ji Min Sha, 22, with the killing of Varun Manish Chheda, 20, a senior from Indianapolis, who was in his third year of college and was graduating early.
Prosecutors requested Sha be held without bond.
Sha, a junior cybersecurity major and international student from South Korea, called 911 around 12:44 a.m. Oct. 5 to alert police about Chheda’s death.
When officers arrived at their first-floor room at McCutcheon Hall, they found Chheda, who was studying data science, in a chair with “multiple stab wounds and lacerations” to his head and neck, according to a probable cause affidavit filed days after the killing.
There was “blood spatter on the wall, a pool of blood on the floor and a folding knife on the floor,” according to the document.
Sha admitted the knife belonged to him and confessed to the slaying to officers on the scene, according to the affidavit.