Family and friends will say goodbye this week to Eva Liu, the 21-year-old Naperville woman shoved into a ravine in southern Germany earlier this month.
Liu’s visitation is planned for 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Beidelman-Kunsch Funeral Home, 516 S. Washington St., in Naperville. A memorial service is planned for 10 a.m. Saturday at Living Water Evangelical Church, 1256 Wehrli Road, Naperville.
Meanwhile, new details have emerged about the man suspected of causing Liu’s death.
A neighbor in Lincoln Park, Michigan, told The News-Herald of Sterling Heights, Michigan, that the man had been known to walk his cat on a leash in his backyard.
“He kept to himself,” said Shelby Prater, who went to middle and high school with the man. “He was in band, and I want to say maybe drama club, as well. He was never like overly creepy, but never really very friendly, either. I can’t say I would have ever expected this, but I also haven’t heard anything of or about him since school.”
The man met Liu and Kelsey Chang of Bloomington, who both graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in May, while hiking near the Neuschwanstein Castle on June 14. The man is suspected of luring the young women onto a trail leading to a viewpoint, according to police. At some point he allegedly attacked Liu. When Chang tried to help her, the man allegedly threw Chang off a cliff. She fell almost 165 feet.
The man then apparently tried to sexually assault Liu before throwing her off the cliff as well. Mountain rescue teams were able to reach the women, but Liu died in a hospital that night.
The man is suspected of murder, attempted murder and a sexual offense, but prosecutors have said it may be three to four months before he’s indicted.
At the time of the assaults — and for months prior — the man had been chatting with a woman living in Thailand, Chanidtha Khumpuok, who shared her chat log with the News-Herald.
Khumpuok and the man first connected while playing an online video game, she told the newspaper.
Khumpuok said she’d had many chats with the man, during which he told her he was attracted to Asian women.
Khumpuok described the man as someone who didn’t have many friends because he was too logical and very private.
“He doesn’t have much interactions with people in real life,” she told the newspaper. “He is quiet. He loves cats more than people, he said.”
On the morning of the attack in Germany, the man began chatting online with Khumpuok early, telling her about a dream he’d had the night before.
A little later, he sent Khumpuok several selfies smiling near the castle. The man’s last message and photo was of a man and woman crouched down, preparing to take a photograph of the stunning vista.
Contributing: AP
