A Texas elementary school teacher who was found dead in her backyard with multiple gunshot wounds is said to have met her alleged killer on a dating app just a week before she was murdered.
Police responded to reports of a shooting at 9.50pm Jan 7 in the 1100 block of Oxford Mills Lane in Sugar Land Texas when they found Wendy Duan, 28, dead in her backyard.
The man she had been dating, Charvas Thompson, 26, was arrested in connection to the murder on Wednesday in Louisiana, over 260 miles from the deadly shooting.
The two had met on the dating app ‘MeetMe’ according to Duan’s mother, who did not want to be identified. She told KHOU11 that she had not been comfortable with the arrangement.
Texas elementary school teacher, Wendy Duan, 28 was found dead in her backyard with multiple gunshot wounds and is said to have met her alleged killer, Charvas Thompson, 26, on a dating app just a week before she was murdered
Thompson was arrested in connection to the murder, which took place in the 1100 block of Oxford Mills Lane in Sugar Land Texas, on Wednesday, in Louisiana, over 260 miles from the deadly shooting
‘She showed me the picture. I don’t know his name. She said, ‘do you like him?’ I said ‘no,’ Duan’s distraught mother recalled.
Despite her strong intuition and warning to Duan about the danger of meeting a stranger online she never imagined her daughter would end up dead.
‘It’s unbelievable. The guy is very evil. He took her life away. I hope this guy gets the full legal punishment,’ she said.
Duan was a third-grade language arts teacher with the Alief Independent School District and was named English as a Second Language (ESL) Teacher of the Year in December 2021.
According to her mother, Duan was a dedicated teacher who put her students first.
‘Every Thursday she asks me to go to dollar store to buy gifts for kids,’ she said.
Duan was a third-grade language arts teacher with the Alief Independent School District and was named English as a Second Language (ESL) Teacher of the Year in December 2021
Thompson is in the process of being extradited back to Texas. An arrest warrant was issued Sunday charging him with murder and setting his bond at $500,000.
In December 2021, Duan was named English as a Second Language (ESL) Teacher of the Year, according to a post on her Facebook page.
‘I still can’t believe that I won ESL teacher of the year. The whole time I kept telling people that there’s no way that I would win,’ she wrote.
‘Especially going against other teachers who have been teaching way longer than I have. Thanks to the people who believed in me and voted for me!’
In a video on her Facebook the 28-year-old teacher can be seen marking papers for school.
In the video Duan can be seen panning her mobile to a stack of paper she’d left to mark over the weekend.
‘My a** has been procrastinating because I’m just not one of those teachers that grades throughout the week so I wait last minute and their due tomorrow,’ she is heard saying.
On her Instagram profile the young educator wrote that she is a University of Houston Alumni and of Chinese-Vietnamese decent.
Tributes flowed for the Texas teacher after news of her death spread to family and friends. One person said that Duan loved to help her community posting pictures of her doing charity work
The person who Duan volunteered with wrote: ‘Sad to learn about one of our volunteers 29-year-old Wendy Duan being killed’
The bio on her profile reads an ominous homage to her feelings about life: ‘Live life to the fullest. We are only getting older.’
The profile has several pictures of the 28-year-old showing her day to day activities and hanging out with friends as well as pictures of her car.
Some posts indicate that Duan was never short of date offers, with followers questioning her relationship status and some even asking her out.
In a video post to TikTok Duan wrote ‘When you realize your Tinder guy can actually sing while doing drunk karaoke’ indicating the 28-year-old had previously used other dating apps, prior to ‘MeetMe.’
Tributes flowed for the Texas teacher after news of her death spread to family and friends.
‘The small moments I spent with her she was a force of light. You can just tell. I remember going to her home and see all the cards on her fridge from her students and the faculty members from her school,’ one person posted to Facebook.
‘She was and still loved by many people & my heart breaks that she lost her life. No one deserves that.
On her Instagram profile the young educator wrote that she is a University of Houston Alumni and of Chinese-Vietnamese decent
The bio on her profile reads an ominous homage to her feelings about life: ‘Live life to the fullest. We are only getting older’
Some posts indicate that Duan was never short of date offers, with followers questioning her relationship status and some even asking her out
‘When I met her we laughed and sang a Drake song and repeated all night ’21 can you do some for me’ we ran outside in the freezing cold, laughing and singing.
‘She was a kind soul, from what I knew of her and my heart breaks that none of her friends and family will ever be able to experience that again.’
Another person who Duan volunteered with said: ‘Sad to learn about one of our volunteers 29-year-old Wendy Duan being killed.’
‘She wanted to do some good deeds in the community, so she came out to volunteer with us. She was a very friendly, and soft-spoken person.
‘We all had a good genuine vibe about her. We had prayer with her…Wow you just never know what a person is going through. Our sincere condolences to her family.’
The Alief Independent School District wrote in a statement: ‘We are deeply saddened to learn about the tragic passing of Alief ISD employee Wendy Duan.’
‘She was a third grade reading and writing teacher at Boone Elementary. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family during this difficult time.
‘She is a 2017 Graduate of the University of Houston and was on the Dean’s List in the College of Education from Fall 2015-2017 and is the HAABE (Houston Area Association of Bilingual Educators) 2021-2022 Teacher of the Year.’
