The Korean American creative producer who was butchered in her Chinatown apartment by an alleged knife-wielding stranger had worked to fight against anti-Asian hate — and rallied others in her field to support the community, a distraught co-worker said.
Christina Yuna Lee, a 35-year-old senior creative producer at NYC-based online music platform Splice, started working at the company around the same time as a gunman killed eight people during a shooting rampage in the Atlanta area in March 2021, former co-worker Kenneth Takanami said Monday on Twitter.
“It was an emotional and gutting introduction,” Takanami recalled. “We met on a call with other Asians in our work community to support one another.”
Following the call, Takanami said he connected with Lee and the pair discussed how they could “galvanize” the moment and “do some really important” work at the digital music platform.
“We bonded over a shared mission for a more inclusive creator space, among many other things,” Takanami wrote. “She hoped to start conversations around diversity and opportunities for creators of all background at our company.”
Intent on fighting against racism and cultural appropriation, Lee formed the Art Appropriation Council to address the “place of Asians” within the music industry, Takanami said.
Lee and other Asian employees at Splice also “formed a channel” at the company for mutual support after the brazen and deadly rampage in the Atlanta area, where six of the victims were Asian women. Mass shooter Robert Aaron Long pleaded guilty to four counts of murder in July and was sentenced to four life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Long blamed the slaughter spree on a drunken, suicidal shame set off when his roommate caught him watching porn. He had previously claimed he was a sex addict trying to thwart “temptation” during his killing spree.
“The thought of folks we didn’t know being senselessly murdered struck us all deeply,” Takanami continued. “We had long conversations about how we could continue to be there for our Splice community.”
But Lee never got the chance to continue her mission. She was found fatally stabbed in her bathtub early Sunday and police said a homeless man, Assamad Nash, 25, followed her from the street into her Chinatown apartment.
Prosecutors said Lee had been stabbed more than 40 times and surveillance footage obtained by The Post shows Nash trailing Lee when she returned home at about 4:20 a.m. Sunday.
The last communication Lee sent to her co-workers on the Splice support channel was a happy Lunar New Year message to mark the Year of the Tiger on Feb. 1.
“There is not much else to say,” Takanami said. “Christina was an irreplaceable presence. Heartbroken or devastated doesn’t begin to cover it.”
Takanami said he’s now left with “no answers, just endless questions” in the wake of Lee’s killing. A judge late Monday granted a prosecutor’s request that Nash be held without bail in the gruesome slaying.
Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran said Nash even tried to trick police by pretending to be a woman as cops responded to Lee’s apartment. The homeless man barricaded himself for roughly 90 minutes inside Lee’s apartment before the door was kicked down, Yoran said.
“Life is fragile,” Takanami’s tribute continued. “Amidst all the headlines and take and posts, don’t lose sight of the human loss at the center of all of this. Hold tight those you love.”
Takanami did not return a message seeking additional comment Tuesday.
“I will miss you so much Christina,” he wrote on Twitter.
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