A woman who was accused of stabbing an Asian American student at Indiana University Bloomington last year after claiming to have “noticed” the victim was Chinese has pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime allegation, according to court documents.
Billie Davis, 57, entered the plea last week after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of felony Hate Crime Act violations. It comes after Davis repeatedly stabbed the 18-year-old student in the skull on a public transit bus, later informing police that she did it to have “one less enemy,” according to the plea bargain.
Davis, who will be sentenced in December, faces up to six years in jail under the plea agreement. She will also be required to serve probation upon her release and pay reparations to the victim.
Davis’ attorneys, Leslie D. Wine and H. Samuel Ansell told NBC News that the plea agreement, made after “extensive negotiations,” will allow the court to examine both the offense and her “diminished capacity” as a result of mental illness.
Ms. Davis is now properly medicated for her mental health conditions. She has consistently expressed her remorse for the pain she caused the victim and her family,” according to an email from the attorneys.
According to the plea bargain, the student, only identified as Z.F., was seated near the back of the bus when Davis boarded and sat nearby. When the student sought to exit at her stop, Davis stabbed her seven to ten times in the head with a knife. Davis ultimately exited the bus, and another passenger followed her in an attempt to confront her about the violence.
“The Defendant told the passenger that the female she attacked was going to blow up the bus because she was Asian,” the plea agreement stated. Davis reportedly shouted a racist term at the passenger.
When police arrived and arrested Davis, she claimed to them she “snapped a minute ago, I hit some girl,” and used a racial epithet to characterize the student, according to the plea bargain.
Following the incident, police obtained CCTV inside the bus that revealed no past interactions between Davis and the victim, according to a Bloomington Police Department press statement.
The woman, who was taken to a neighboring hospital, had many knife wounds to her skull, including cuts up to 1.75 cm deep and a hematoma, or pool of clotted blood. The injuries required sutures and stitches, according to the records.
Many Asian American students at the university were upset by the incident, and several had previously told NBC News that they did not feel adequately supported.
Marah Yankey, then-senior media relations consultant at Indiana University, stated last year that the victim’s request for privacy “limits what IU or other local officials can say publicly.”
“But it does not diminish our university’s commitment to providing support to them, their family, and — of course — to our students, faculty and staff,” according to an email she sent.
Some emphasized that the anti-Asian sentiment was especially troubling considering the area’s history of racial violence against Asian students. Former Indiana University student Benjamin Smith, a loud white supremacist, assassinated doctorate student Won-Joon Yoon, 26, outside the Korean United Methodist Church in 1999.
Smith, who had been wanted earlier that year in connection with a series of shootings targeting Black, Jewish, and Asian individuals, committed suicide that night.