Man guilty of murdering fellow Goldsmiths student

An American student has been found guilty of murdering his on-and-off girlfriend in her south-east London home.

Joshua Michals, 26, stabbed fellow Goldsmiths University student Zhe Wang, 31, at her flat in Manor Park, Lewisham, in March 2024.

Creative writing student Ms Wang suffered two stab wounds to the face and a post-mortem examination also revealed she had been strangled.

He claimed he had been acting in self-defence stemming from an argument about a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

They had first met on the Goldsmiths campus and began an on-and-off casual relationship in 2023.

Michals told jurors he had felt “so-so” about pursuing a relationship with Ms Wang because she had a phobia of germs.

After finding a “red dot” on her skin after sex, she demanded he get an STD test, even vowing to find him on campus to “drag” him to see a GP, the court previously heard.

The student said he went to her flat on 20 March with a charcuterie selection to bring some “normalcy” to the “bizarre situation”.

He claimed that when he arrived at the flat in Lewisham, he found Ms Wang “cold” and monosyllabic, and that she attacked him with a knife as he came out of the bathroom.

During the trial, prosecutor Henrietta Paget KC said Michals had “flown into a rage” and killed Ms Wang after meeting her there.

Michals previously told jurors he did not mean to strike Ms Wang with the knife, saying: “I just wanted to get her away from me.”

He also said he pressed his forearm to her neck to try to restrain her and he did not mean to kill her or cause her harm.

Michals called his father after the incident and obtained the details for a solicitor before going to his own flat and calling 999, the trial heard.

He also took Ms Wang’s phone from her kitchen and put it in a bin outside, jurors were previously told.

It was recovered days later at a refuse area in Newham, east London.

Jurors were told that Michals never had a sexually transmitted disease.

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Michals studied film-making at university before moving to London to pursue a year-long master’s degree at Goldsmiths.

The London university paid tribute to Zhe Wang following the verdict, deploring the loss of “a remarkable writer” adding that her work would be published posthumously in an upcoming Goldsmiths anthology.

Dr Francis Gilbert, senior lecturer in the School of Mind, Body and Society at Goldsmiths, said: “We are devastated by the loss of Zhe Wang, who was a wonderful student, a remarkable writer and a thinker who combined deep intellectual curiosity with creative courage and approached writing as a mindful practice.”

Michals, of Deals Gateway, south-east London, will be sentenced at a later date.