DA drops charges against East Bay library aide from murder to manslaughter

OAKLAND — A Bay Area man’s murder case was reduced to manslaughter at the start of his August preliminary hearing, without the defense attorney even having to lift a finger.

At the start of 25-year-old Alexander Northern’s preliminary hearing, an Alameda County prosecutor announced the District Attorney’s office wouldn’t be seeking a holding order for murder, but rather voluntary manslaughter. Up until that point, Northern had been charged with murdering his roommate, who indisputably attacked Northern first by spraying him in the face with cleaning chemicals, court records show.

Last February, Northern, a library aide in Alameda at the time, was arrested and accused of beating Wai Tsui during an argument about loud music in the Oakland home the two men shared with two other roommates. Northern, who is autistic, was released from jail to an Antioch assisted living center in August 2024, court records show.

At the preliminary hearing, prosecutors centered much on their case on the physical differences between the two men. Tsui was about 5′ 7″, weighed around 150 pounds and was more than 25 years older than Northern, who is at least eight inches taller and 75 to 100 pounds heavier, according to witness testimony.

Tsui suffered extensive injuries, including fractured cartilage inside his neck, liver hemorrhages and fractured ribs, according to court records. During a police interrogation, Northern told police he “snapped” after Tsui sprayed him in the face and allegedly brandished a wrench at him.

“I haven’t been getting enough sleep for a long time because of him, so I snapped. And then just did that,” Northern told police, according to a transcript of the interrogation. “I have no intention of embellishing, trying to make my self sound any better or worse. Is he going to be okay? Or am I probably going to go to prison?”

At the hearing, Assistant Public Defender Jennie Otis argued that Oakland police took advantage of Northern because of his autism, and did a “minimal” investigation overall.

“(Police) did not take into consideration at all that Alex is autistic and…how that might affect how they interview him, how he’s able to recite what happened, whether he’s impressionable when they suggest things to him, whether he goes along, whether there’s a form of question that’s more difficult for him to understand,” Otis said. “They didn’t take any of that into consideration. But they also didn’t ask him basic questions like, ‘How long was this verbal argument?’”

Prosecutors conceded that for much of the incident, Northern was justified. At a certain point, “that changed,” Deputy District Attorney James Logan argued.

“I don’t think he intended to kill this guy, but I think he went overboard on his self-defense and sort of disregarded any threat and just went beyond into he was upset at this guy and continued to beat him,” Logan said in court.

In issuing a holding order for the manslaughter charge, Judge Thomas Steven focused on Northern’s “I snapped” remark and noted that Northern admitted at a certain point he stopped paying attention to whether Tsui was fighting back.

“To me, that’s another way of saying, ‘I snapped, I lost it, I didn’t care, and I was going to keep beating him,’ for whatever his purposes were,” Stevens said.

The trial has been set for Nov. 9. Northern remains out of jail in the meantime, court records show.