San Francisco authorities have identified the senior woman killed inside her apartment building on May 5.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner identified the victim as 64-year-old Mei Ran Hu.
According to the victim’s relatives, Hu was attacked and stabbed three times as she was going to the lobby of 462 Duboce Apartments.
Hu reportedly tried to flee to a nearby stairwell but eventually succumbed to her injuries.
Hu was reportedly unresponsive when an apartment staff found her bloody from her stab wounds in the north stairwell on the third floor. The first responders who arrived at 11 a.m. tried to revive the victim but declared her dead at the scene.
The San Francisco Police arrested Hu’s next-door neighbor, 41-year-old Jesus Esparza, and subsequently booked him into the San Francisco County Jail on charges of murder, elder abuse, and resisting arrest on the same day.
The case remains under investigation by the Police Homicide Detail, which has since requested CCTV footage.
According to neighbors and apartment staff, Hu is a monolingual Asian resident who had previously served as the primary caregiver for her mother, Mei Lan Situ, while residing at the complex. Following Situ’s passing a few months ago, Hu decided to stay in the apartment and requested to assume the lease.
While some staff and neighbors’ accounts suggest that Esparza had been grappling with severe mental health issues, the events leading up to the alleged stabbing of Hu remain unclear.
Hu’s family has set up a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe to help her only son.
