California prosecutors say man in Oakland murder-for-hire plot stood to receive $1M after girlfriend’s death

The boyfriend of a beloved San Francisco-area dentist who was killed in a murder-for-hire-plot stood to receive $1 million after she died, prosecutors said Monday. 

Nelson Chia, 73, was arrested last week for allegedly planning the killing of Lili Xu, 60, his girlfriend of about a decade who worked in Oakland, Fox San Francisco reported. Chia killed himself hours after being taken into police custody at the Santa Rita Jail. 

Authorities said Chia had Xu killed by a suspected gunman, Hasheem Bason, 33, over the summer in Oakland’s Little Saigon neighborhood, according to Alameda County court documents. 

She was shot and killed at about 2:30 p.m. on Aug. 21 while with Chia in her vehicle. He told authorities the couple had arrived for an appointment to get massages after running errands. Security footage shows a suspect getting out of a nearby Lexus and approaching Xu’s vehicle.

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When Xu got out, the pair struggled, and she was shot. The gunman then fled. 

Chia told investigators that Xu had between $12 million and $14 million from property, life insurance and trusts. Prosecutors said he was a trustee and would receive $1 million upon her death. 

“Further communications after the murder between Chia and Bason demonstrate that Chia conspired with Bason to murder Xu for financial gain,” Oakland police Detective Yun Zhou wrote in court records. “Chia agreed to provide Bason with a significant amount of money for murdering Xu. Chia and Bason planned the day, time and place of the murder. Bason acquired a vehicle, recruited a driver, and waited to ambush Xu a block from the location of the appointment. Chia drove Xu to the agreed upon location.”

For weeks after the killing, the community believed the murder was part of a series of anti-Asian hate crimes.

Investigators learned that Chia had been communicating with Bason in July. In the weeks after the murder, Chia had taken control of Xu’s financial accounts and “orchestrated” it so that he would have income from her estate for the rest of his life, authorities said. 

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Bason was identified as the suspected shooter from DNA from a bullet casing and from the trunk of the Lexus, police said. He allegedly held onto the murder weapon, which was seized during a search of his home in Stockton.

Police also allege that Chia was given a picture of Bason during a photo lineup and said he didn’t recognize the image.