More than a year after 30-year-old Scott Fisher was arraigned on charges of murdering the girlfriend he lived with in Presidio Heights, we are finally hearing many of the details of the investigation via a preliminary hearing.

Tech product designer Kimberly Wong was found brutally stabbed in the apartment she owned on Clay Street on November 30, 2023, while police were performing a welfare check on the urging of her friends. She was 27.

The case was shocking in part because of its brutality, as well as the quiet, tony neighborhood in which it took place.

One week later, her boyfriend Scott Fisher was arrested for the crime, after he had reportedly been hospitalized in Concord. A judge has now ruled that there is sufficient evidence to move forward with a trial.

As the Chronicle now reports, Wong had been upset by, and scared of, Fisher's behavior in the days before she was found dead, and descriptions of that behavior that she gave to friends suggest some sort of mental break.

Wong's friends reportedly described Fisher as a "gentle giant" who experienced some "mental deterioration" and began acting strangely. Friends plan to testify Fisher was expressing paranoia about AI, and changed the name of a group chat from "SF buddies" to "International AI-assisted buddies."

Fisher had been employed as a financial analyst, though it is not clear if he was employed at the time of Wong's killing.

Wong allegedly told a friend that she had woken up around 5 am on November 29 to find Fisher shaking her, and then straddling her on the bed, only to roll over and go back to sleep as if nothing happened. She had also told friends that Fisher had "lunged" at her in the shower about a week earlier.

Wong was disturbed enough by Fisher's behavior that, investigators say, on November 29, she drove him to his father's house in Oakland and she went to stay with friends that night. The next morning, having talked to him on the phone and believing that he was in a more stable place, she picked him and the two went back to the Clay Street apartment.

According to surveillance video obtained by police, Wong would not be alive long after they arrived home.

A delivery driver reportedly flagged down a police officer in nearby Laurel Village, reporting that he had heard a woman screaming "Help!" in the vicinity of the Clay Street apartment. When friends were not able to get in touch with Wong that afternoon, knowing the volatility of the situation, they called police for a welfare check.

SFPD Officer Brian Alston testified in the hearing that he performed the welfare check, entering the apartment through an open window on a fire escape after getting no answer at the door. From the window he could see blood, and a pair of legs on the floor near the refrigerator in the apartment's kitchen. He says he entered and found Wong's body under a blanket, with stab wounds to her heart, lungs, breast, abdomen, chest, and other areas. A large chef's knife was lying nearby.

DNA evidence found on the handle of the knife show a probably match to Fisher.

The surveillance video showed the couple arriving back at the apartment at 10:49 am, and Fisher exiting alone at 11:17 am. He was also seen exiting twice between noon and 12:04 pm, which was the last time he was seen at the building.

Prosecutors say that Fisher's father subsequently took him to an emergency room, and he landed in a behavioral health unit at John Muir Medical Center in Concord, where he was arrested a week later. Blood evidence was reportedly found on Fisher's sneaker, which shows a match to Wong.

Investigators who spoke to Wong's friends say that among the last things Fisher texted, on the night that they were apart before the killing, was, "They’re here for me, help."

Fisher's private attorneys appear to be aiming to question the prosecution's timeline of events, and the fact that Officer Alston testified to the fact that the living room of the apartment looked "pristine." The defense reportedly sought to suggest that a home invasion robbery could have taken place after the couple arrived home.

No trial date for Fisher has yet been set.

Previously: Suspect In Kimberly Wong Murder, Scott Fisher, Appears In Court as More Details Emerge In Case