Yes, if you bothered to follow national news sources & also news media in the LA area, you would have known about this relationship.  Relying on the Register Guard to give you the full story on anything happening outside of Eugene is never enough, if you want the full details..

As it now turns out, though, what started this chain of events was a relationship break up.   The killer, Mainak Sarkar, first murdered this woman in Minnesota a couple of days earlier for leaving him, and he then traveled to California to settle this old grudge that he had with these two professors.   He had graduated from UCLA in 2013, so he had not had any contact with these professors for 3 years.

So this is one of the oldest motives for murder there is:  a woman wants to leave a man, he cannot cope with the shame and humiliation, and he then kills her.   In Muslim culture, this is especially a big No-No for women to do.  And Sakar was a Bengali Muslim, who came to America to study.