The trial of Charlie Tan ’17, who was accused of murdering his father last year, will be featured in the NBC News program Dateline in a segment called “House of Secrets” on Friday at 10 p.m.
Democrat and Chronicle reporter Jon Hand, who wrote about Tan’s case and covered Tan’s murder trial, helped Dateline journalists prepare the story, according to The Ithaca Journal.
Tan was arrested and charged with second-degree murder after his father, Liang “Jim” Tan, was found shot dead in the family home in Pittsford, New York, The Sun previously reported.
Tan pleaded not guilty and received overwhelming support from friends and neighbors who raised thousands of dollars online to finance his legal defense, The Sun previously reported.
At his trial, Tan’s attorneys argued that his father had abused both him and his mother and that the prosecution failed to prove that Tan ever even held the murder weapon — a shotgun — according to The Democrat and Chronicle.
Tan’s trial began on Sept. 22, 2015, and after weeks of deliberation, Monroe County Court Judge James Piampiano declared a mistrial. At his hearing on Nov. 5, Piampiano dismissed the murder charge, claiming that not enough evidence had been presented to justify it, The Sun previously reported.
Tan has been a free man ever since but has decided not to return to Cornell, The Sun previously reported. Liang Tan’s murder remains officially unsolved.
Maybe the Sun should consider not running the guy’s mugshot after the charges were dismissed.
If there is one positive thing that came out of this whole affair, it is that millions of us got to know about Charlie Tan. His selflessness, and his supportive, loving, and absolute commitment to others has inspired a lot of people. NON SIBI.
Why didn’t he return to Cornell? Was it because the Cornell Daily Sun doesn’t understand the concept of innocent until proven guilty and destroyed his reputation and ability to function on campus? Just a question…
They wouldn’t let him back. Let’s face it who do you really think pulled the trigger??????? Let’s be realistic
I didn’t see the NBC program so I don’t know how they played it. But the vast majority of people who followed the case every day agreed that the prosecution never got over the hump of reasonable doubt. And Charlie comes across as an especially loving person who not only would be willing to take the fall for his mother to keep her from going to prison but would absolutely insist on it, even over her strenuous objections.
o The prosecution could not even establish when the killing took place. It might well have happened before he left Ithaca to go to Rochester.
o Charlie’s demeanor, including his tearful conversation with his Cornell coach and his desperate urgency to get a particular type of shotgun and get to Rochester, were the behavior of somebody who was trying to take the blame for a crime that had already occurred (whether committed by his mother or by somebody engaged by her).
Which is not to say that Charlie’s mother — or somebody else — did commit the murder, only that the prosecution was never able to overcome reasonable doubt, nor could it have.