Former Cal State Fullerton worker pleads guilty in fatal campus stabbing of boss

A former Cal State Fullerton employee will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to fatally stabbing his boss in 2019.

Chuyen Van Vo, 55, admitted to stabbing Steven Shek Keung Chan more than 30 times on a campus parking lot, the Orange County District Attorney's Office announced Thursday. Investigators said he worried Chan was about to realize Vo stole $200,000 from the school using a fake tutoring business he established.

The Huntington Beach native plead guilty to one felony enhancement of the personal use of a deadly weapon, a knife, and one felony count of grand theft by embezzlement, the DA's office said. He also admitted to the special circumstance of lying in wait and was immediately sentenced to life in prison without parole.

"He pled guilty because he wanted to spare the victim's family and his family the pain of going through a trial," Vo's attorney Edward Welbourn told USA TODAY. "He's a family guy and a spiritual guy. He realized that the pain that he had caused and he wanted to spare those folks the pain of having to go through all that."

The victim was killed in campus parking lot at the start of school year

The killing occurred the same week the 2019-2020 academic school year began.

On Aug. 19, 2019, Chan visited the school as a retired CSUF consultant and was immediately approached by Vo in a campus parking lot, where Vo killed him and ran away. First responders performed emergency procedures on Chan but he soon died on the scene.

Vo was arrested at his home two days later.

Authorities also discovered Vo left a backpack carrying a knife that had not been used in the stabbing and possible kidnapping items such as zip ties and wigs, Fullerton Police Chief Robert Dunn said in a 2019 news conference.

Victim's wife says a part of her died that day

Chan's wife Margaret told Orange County Superior Court Judge Sheila Hanson that her heart "shattered into pieces" after losing her husband, according to the OC Register. She said that "a part of me died with him that day."

"I can declare on Steve’s behalf that the villain did not win," Margaret said following Vo's sentence, according to the Register.

Chan's two sons told the judge their father was a devoted husband and father as well as a patient and hard-working family man who others repeatedly relied on.

"My dad was ripped away from us in the most brutal way possible," Matthew Chan said.