A 61-year-old Naperville man has been found guilty of beating his wife to death in early 2020 after finding texts on her phone from another man.
DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin announced today that Judge Ann Celine O’Hallaren Walsh has found Alan Wang, formerly of the 1100 block of North Mill Street, guilty of one count of First Degree Murder following a four-day-long trial which concluded on September 12. Judge O’Hallaren Walsh found Wang guilty of one count of First Degree Murder. On March 11, 2020, Wang appeared at a bond hearing where bond was set at $850,000 with 10% to apply. After posting the necessary 10%, or $85,000, Wang was released from custody on electronic monitoring.
Originally charged with one count of Aggravated Domestic Battery, the charges were upgraded and Wang was indicted on two counts of First Degree Murder on June 19, 2020, after an autopsy performed by the DuPage County Coroner’s Office concluded that the victim died as a result of blunt force trauma due to assault.
According to prosecutors, on March 8, 2020, at approximately 4:50pm, personnel from the Naperville Police and Fire Departments responded to a call at the couple’s residence regarding a female who was not breathing, later identified as Wang’s wife, Hongyan Yang, 35. The victim was immediately transported to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead at 5:54pm. Following an investigation conducted by the Naperville Police Department into Yang’s death, authorities learned that in the evening hours of March 7, 2020, Wang and his wife were in their bedroom and when Wang found texts on her phone from another man, he kicked his wife multiple times. The following day, a relative of the couple called 9-1-1 when it appeared that the victim stopped breathing.
“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Violent Death Reporting System, in 2020, the year Hongyan Yang was murdered, 1,364 women lost their lives to domestic violence,” Berlin said. “Those thirteen-hundred-plus women are not just a statistic however, they were mothers, daughters and sisters, each of whom had a full life ahead of them. Their tragic deaths remind us we have a long way to go in preventing domestic violence. Judge O’Hallaren Walsh’s guilty verdict ensures that Mr. Wang will be held responsible for the brutal murder of his wife, Hongyan. To Hongyan’s surviving family and friends, I offer my sincerest condolences on their loss and wish them strength as they continue their lives without the love and support she once provided.”
Wang’s next court appearance is scheduled for November 12, for post-trial motions and return of the Pre-Sentencing Report.
