Indiana woman faces up to 6 years in prison after repeatedly stabbing Asian American student on bus

A woman accused of stabbing an Asian-American student at Indiana University Bloomington last year because she said she “noticed” the victim was Chinese has pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime charge, court documents show.

Billie Davis, 57, pleaded guilty last week after being indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with violating the hate crimes statute. The move comes after Davis repeatedly stabbed the 18-year-old student in the head on a transit bus, later telling law enforcement she did it so there would be “one less enemy,” according to the plea agreement.

Davis, who will be sentenced in December, faces up to six years in prison, according to the plea agreement. She will also have to serve probation upon her release and pay restitution to the victim.

Davis' attorneys, Leslie D. Wine and H. Samuel Ansell, told NBC News that the plea deal, reached through “extensive negotiations,” will allow the court to consider both the offense and his “diminished capacity” due to his mental illness.

“Ms. Davis is now receiving appropriate treatment for her mental health issues and has consistently expressed remorse for the pain she caused the victim and her family,” the attorneys said in an email.

The student, who was identified only as ZF, was sitting in the back of the bus when Davis boarded and sat nearby, according to the plea agreement. When the student tried to get off at her stop, Davis stabbed her seven to 10 times in the head with a knife. Davis eventually left the bus, while another passenger followed her in an attempt to confront her about the violence.

“The defendant told the passenger that the woman she assaulted was going to blow up the bus because she was Asian,” the plea agreement states, adding that Davis also yelled a racial slur at the passenger.

After police arrived and arrested Davis, she told them she “lost it a minute ago, I hit a girl” and described the student with a racial slur, according to the plea agreement.

After the incident, investigators were given access to footage from inside the bus that showed no prior interaction between Davis and the victim, a Bloomington Police Department news release said.

The victim, who was taken to a nearby hospital, ended up suffering multiple stab wounds to the head, with cuts up to 1.75 centimeters deep and a hematoma, or pool of congealed blood. The wounds required stitches, the documents said.

The incident has shaken many Asian American students at the university, with several telling NBC News they felt they did not receive enough support.

Marah Yankey, then a senior media relations consultant at Indiana University, said last year that the victim's request for confidentiality “limits what IU or other local officials can say publicly.”

“But that does not diminish our university's commitment to providing support to them, their families and, of course, our students, faculty and staff,” she said in an email.

Some have pointed out that anti-Asian hate is particularly troubling given the region’s history of racial violence against Asian students. Benjamin Smith, a former IU student and white supremacist, murdered Won-Joon Yoon, a 26-year-old doctoral student, in 1999 outside the Korean United Methodist Church. Smith, who earlier that year had been wanted in a series of shootings targeting black, Jewish and Asian people, shot himself in the head that same night.