Mingdong Chen has been charged with the brutal murder of a woman and her four children in Sunset Park on Saturday night. Chen, 25, is the cousin of 37-year-old Qiao Zhen Li's husband, Yi Lin Zhuo, and had been staying with the family. All of the children were between the ages of one and nine-years-old; two of them were reportedly decapitated with a meat cleaver.
Chen, an illegal immigrant who relocated from China nearly a decade ago, was reportedly jealous of others' success, feeling like "[others] had everything, while he had nothing," as one neighbor told the New York Daily News.
According to Gothamist, Chen's behavior concerned Li, whose attempts to contact her husband were unsuccessful. She ended up calling her mother-in-law back in China, who instructed another daughter-in-law to go check on the family at the apartment. That's when when Chen opened the door and the murders were dicovered.
NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks described the scene, saying "[the victims] were cut and butchered with a kitchen knife. We have the knife, the perpetrator made statements eluding that he utilized this knife to commit this act." He hopes that Chen's arrest will "bring some type of relief to the family members if possible."
Chen was charged with a count of first-degree murder, four counts of second-degree murder, resisting arrest and criminal possession of a weapon.
[via Gothamsit and New York Daily News]
