The life and unsolved murder of Grace Chen, beloved Austin teacher killed 10 years ago

Jacky Chen received a call from his ex-girlfriend one day while attending college in San Francisco. His mother was dead.

Jacky Chen stopped everything. He hailed a taxi, jumped in and went straight to the airport.

Once he was inside the taxi — with the words "your mother's dead" playing over in his mind — he broke down and cried. The driver asked what was wrong.

“I couldn’t hold it anymore,” Chen said. Even though he knew his mother was gone, “I told him to just say it to me — just say to me: ‘Your mom will be OK.’ ”

The date was Feb. 19, 2014. On that day, the body of Xiaojia “Grace” Chen, a beloved mother and teacher of Chinese language and culture, was found in a locked private bathroom of her teaching studio in the Galleria Oaks shopping center in Northwest Austin.

Austin police determined that Grace Chen’s death was a homicide. Ten years later, her slaying remains unsolved.

Grace Chen’s death spurred concern throughout Austin’s Asian American community largely due to the randomness of her killing, leading some at the time to believe she could have been targeted due to her race.

While police do not believe race was the motive, many questions remain about why someone who was treasured by the community was killed. And who did it?

Although a decade has passed, Amy Wong Mok, the CEO and founder of the Austin Asian American Cultural Center, continues writing to the police chief and city leaders each year about the case, noting that members of the community always come to her in February during the center's Lunar New Year celebrations to ask for updates.

“The violent crime against Grace is never going to leave us until we get closure,” Wong Mok said. “It’s still an open wound for Jacky and our community.”

Who was Grace Chen?

Grace Chen was born in Chaozhou, a city in the southeastern part of China, in 1967. She has one older sister. In Chinese, her name means “elegance,” Jacky Chen said.

Jacky Chen, who was born in China, was mainly raised by his mother after his parents divorced. She balanced being a single mother with teaching Japanese to college students.

Years went by, and around 2005, she met Robert Liu, whom she would marry. Liu, a painter who already lived in the U.S., asked her to immigrate to be with him.

Jacky Chen recalled how his mother approached him about the move. She asked him, “How would you feel if we moved to America?”

“She’s always been careful with how I feel,” Jacky Chen said. “I just didn't know what it meant to move to a new country or to start a new life. And I'm sure my mom had some kind of expectation of her own. But (it) won't be the same as what she imagined it.”

A ‘fresh start’ in Austin

Jacky Chen recalled moving to the U.S. in 2007. First, the family went to New York, where his stepdad had a house. About a year later, they moved to Austin. Jacky Chen believed his mother saw Austin as a "fresh start."

When they first moved to Anderson Mill, Jacky Chen said his mom mainly kept to herself and took care of their rescue dog, a dachshund ironically named Fatty since he was underweight.

She soon landed a job teaching Chinese downtown. Around 2010, she opened her own business, where she would teach not only the language but also culture and calligraphy. Grace Chen also used the business as a way for Liu to sell paintings.

They named the studio Grace Language and Cultural Institute, according to previous reporting by the American-Statesman.

Through her studio, Grace Chen would become a pinnacle of the community — adored by her students and friends.

“She’s really passionate about her work,” Wong Mok said. “She’s very generous. … That’s why she’s so well loved and remembered.”

Many leads, no arrests

Feb. 19, 2014, was a sunny and rather warm day for Austin, with temperatures in the 80s.

Grace Chen had just returned home two days before from a trip to San Francisco to visit her son.

During the trip, Grace Chen said things at home weren’t going great, Jacky Chen recalled. He said she asked him how he would feel if she divorced his stepdad.

Jacky Chen was planning to take a semester or so off to come back to Austin and help out with her school.

However, about 3:30 p.m. that Wednesday, Austin police received a call from Wendy Wu, Jacky Chen’s ex-girlfriend, who also worked at Grace Chen’s school, according to cold case detective Daniel Jackson. She and Liu had found Grace dead.

By the time Grace Chen was found, she’d been there for a couple of hours, according to previous reporting by the Statesman. She was found in a private bathroom in the shopping center, accessible only to people who had a key, and the door was locked at the time.

An autopsy ruled the death a homicide. Jackson said there was “obvious trauma” to her body but would not say how she died.

In the days after Grace Chen’s death, community members came together to hold a vigil to honor her legacy. A community meeting between then-Police Chief Art Acevedo and community members also took place to help quell fears that her killing might be racially motivated.

Over the past decade, Jackson said there have been many leads in the case but not enough to make an arrest. He added that many tips have come in over the years about suspicious people in the area, but when police followed up, none of them had connections to the murder.

A 2017 article by the Statesman said that the detective at that time was hopeful police would be making an arrest soon. The article stated that Liu had been a person of interest and was “not cleared.” It also noted that he had been arrested about a year after her death for high-dollar art theft and had served two months in federal prison.

Jackson said police looked into Liu and that he’s still a person of interest, but they have not been able to connect him to the killing.

Liu declined to be interviewed for this story.

At this point, police are hoping for a break, whether that’s through a confession or an advancement in technology that could help close the case. Jackson is now the fifth detective the case has had. He said it has “more potential” than other cases he’s worked on.

The case file sits right next to Jackson’s desk.

“Every morning when I walk in, her name is right there,” Jackson said. “Unfortunately, we just don't have the evidence right now to take it any further. But it's not forgotten.”

A son’s hope for closure

With his family’s help, Jacky Chen was able to pay for his mother's body to be cremated and her ashes taken back to China. She’s now laid to rest at a cemetery with two more spaces reserved for her parents.

Jacky Chen and Liu have not spoken since his mother's death.

Jacky Chen still has their dog, Fatty. He’s 16 now and could be heard snoring in the background during Jacky Chen’s interview with the Statesman. He said Fatty helped him recover in the years after his mother’s death and waited outside during his college graduation.

Jacky Chen married in 2019 and said he wishes his mom could have met his wife. He also lost the chance to develop an adult relationship with his mom.

More than anything, he misses her voice.

And even though solving the case won’t bring Grace Chen back, it would bring her son some closure.

“I'm not sad all the time," Jacky Chen said. "But every time when I think of this, it feels like I'm dragged back to the moment right when I found out that she was murdered because there’s … no justice.”

Anyone with information about Grace Chen's murder can submit an anonymous tip by calling 512-472-TIPS or by visiting austincrimestoppers.org.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Search continues for killer of Austin teacher Grace Chen 10 years ago