Slain Attorney Didn't Back Down from Opposing Party's Alleged Threats
Updated: When Xia Zhao graduated from the University’s of California’s Hastings College of the Law in the midst of the dot-crash, she was disappointed that she didn’t get a big-firm job offer.
But that didn’t stop the Chinese immigrant, who had already surmounted many other obstacles, from founding her own Pacific Crossing Law Offices in 2003, getting married and having a baby boy. Last week, however, her 17 years of hard work and success in this country came to an abrupt end when she was shot to death outside her San Jose, Calif., law office as she was getting out of her car to start her work day, reports the Mercury News.
Jason Cai, 50, her suspected killer, was arraigned Thursday on murder charges. Zhao was one of several lawyers representing the family of Cai’s former wife, who was murdered in 2003, in a wrongful death case against him, as discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post. Cai was acquitted of her murder by a jury in 2006.
In court papers filed when she sought a restraining order against Cai, less than two weeks before her murder, Zhao said he was harassing and threatening to harm her, the Mercury News reported in an earlier article.
But Zhao, while fearful that Cai might kidnap her father or son, “never thought Cai would use a gun,” said her husband, Kevin Schwarckopf.
He tells the newspaper he told his wife before her murder that she should walk away, if she was “really nervous” about Cai. But she told him she didn’t have a major role in the wrongful death claim, and added ” ‘If I walked away every time somebody threatened me, what kind of business would I have?’ “
A funeral is planned on July 12. Details are provided in a subsequent Mercury News article.
Updated at 3:35 p.m., central time, on July 9, 2008, to link to new article with funeral information.
