Xinyi is a 19-year-old Chinese international college student born on March 18, 2006, in Hangzhou, China. She is the only child of a middle-class family. Her father is an electrical engineer employed by a manufacturing company, and her mother is a mathematics teacher at a public high school. From an early age, she showed a strong interest in science and technology, leading her to pursue higher education in the United States. In the fall of 2024, Xinyi enrolled at a U.S. university as an Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) major. By the end of her first academic year, she had earned solid grades and was known among classmates as a quiet, hardworking student who spent most of her time studying or participating in engineering projects. She had no disciplinary history or prior criminal record. On May 17, 2025, one day after completing her final examinations for the spring semester, Xinyi boarded an airport shuttle from her college town to Detroit Metropolitan Airport to fly home to China for the summer break. After arriving at the airport, she mistakenly collected another passenger’s black carry-on suitcase from the shuttle’s luggage compartment because it closely resembled her own. Unaware of the mix-up, she proceeded to the airport security checkpoint with the suitcase. During inspection, security officers discovered multiple concealed packages containing a large quantity of illegal narcotics. Xinyi immediately stated that the suitcase was not hers and explained that she had accidentally taken the wrong bag, but she was nevertheless arrested and charged with international drug smuggling under the laws of the nation. The case quickly became a major national news story because of the quantity of drugs involved and the government’s uncompromising anti-narcotics policy. Prosecutors argued that possession of the suitcase at the airport was sufficient to establish criminal liability under the nation’s strict drug laws. Despite the defense’s argument that the luggage had been exchanged by mistake, the court found Xinyi guilty of drug trafficking. On December 18, 2025, the court sentenced Xinyi to death by decapitation. To underscore the government’s zero-tolerance approach to drug offenses and to maximize the sentence’s deterrent effect, authorities ordered that the execution be carried out publicly by guillotine at the stadium of the university where she had been studying. Xinyi remains incarcerated on death row pending the scheduled execution date.