commentary by Patrick H. Moore
From 1991 through 2011, the violent crime rate in the U.S. either dropped or remained stable. Recently, however, the statistics have shown that the 20-year trend toward safe streets and secure homes could be coming coming to an end. Between 2011 and 2012, the violent-crime rate rose 15 percent, based on data from the annual National Crime Victimization Survey. I suspect that even without the statistics some of us had the feeling that the violent crime rate was rising. And more and more of these horrific assaults and slayings seem to be the “handiwork” of the mentally troubled. As if we needed any more proof of this sobering trend, a particularly abhorrent mass murder occurred on a Saturday night in October of last year in Sunset Park in Brooklyn where a mentally-ill 25-year-old named Mingdong Chen turned a normal family home into a slaughterhouse killing a mother and her four young children.
Larry Celona, Kevin Sheehan and Laura Italiano of the New York Post write:
A crazed man turned a Sunset Park, Brooklyn, home into a slaughterhouse late Saturday, leaving a 37-year-old mom and her four young children stabbed to death.
A 25-year-old suspect — preliminarily identified as the children’s mentally troubled older cousin — was arrested after being subdued at the scene, his feet bare and soaked in blood.
According to a law enforcement source, the police seized a machete and scissors from the home as evidence. Neighbors reported that the suspect — who reportedly lived at the home — did not flinch as cops led him in handcuffs from from the “house of horrors”. One of the children was removed from the house on a stretcher, the top of the little boy’s yellow pajamas cut open by paramedics in their struggle to save him. Sadly, the child was pronounced dead early Sunday morning at Maimonides Hospital.
The killer’s disconcertingly flat affect was very apparent, according to a witness who requested that his name not be used:
“He [the suspect] was bizarrely calm. He was completely composed and answering their questions — even as they brought out two black bags with the kids in them,” the neighbor said.
“He was still calmly answering their questions as the stretcher with the bloody child was rolled right past the car,” the neighbor said. “Again, he seemed unfazed.”
The children’s father reportedly came home from work too late to save his family, according to neighbors and law-enforcement sources, who stressed early Sunday that their information was still preliminary. For reasons not yet understood, the mother’s sister — who appears to have been in the house as the crimes were occurring — was not harmed, and called 911.
“The father walked in and grabbed [the stabber] and tried to stop him but it was too late,” said one law-enforcement source.
“He’s the father! He’s the father!” one neighbor could be heard screaming to cops as they arrived at the scene, apparently to ensure that he was not confused with the killer.
“The father was freaking out,” said neighbor May Chan. “He just came home from work and saw the police and they told him. He was hysterical… I always see (the kids) running around here. They run around by my garage playing. They run up and down screaming. They’re little kids … that’s so heartbreaking. Innocent kids, my God.”
Neighbors thought they were watching a horror movie.
“I saw the mom and the kid, just covered in blood,” said Kenny Lin, 33, who lives down the street. “They were both on stretchers.”
Rencong Lee, 26, said she saw a distraught 40-year-old woman — possibly another relative — being comforted by a friend.
“She said, ‘My family was cut … there’s so much blood,’” Lee said. “She was crying, I think she was panicking.”
Like the little 5-year-old son who was still alive when the authorities arrived but was pronounced dead at Maimonides Hospital, the mother, 37-year-old Qiao Zhen Li, was still breathing when the police and the paramedics arrived. She was transported to nearby Lutheran Hospital but had expired by the time the ambulance got her there.
According to sources, of the five individuals who were assaulted, not a single stabbing victim survived.
Police identified the victims as 1-year-old William Zhuo, 5-year-old Kevin Zhuo (the boy who was taken to Maimonides Hospital), 7-year-old Amy Zhuo, 9-year-old Linda Zhuo, and the mother, 37-year-old Qiao Zhen Li.
The suspect remained overnight at the 66th Precinct station house.
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It’s hard to imagine anything more horrific than suddenly having a family member turn on you and your loved one’s with murderous intent, but this appears to be exactly what happened in this case. Hopefully, the surviving aunt and the father will be able to shed some light on why the slayer snapped and turned on those closest to him. The fact that he displayed no emotion as the scene unwound in uncanny and only adds to the overall horror of this heartbreaking scenario.
Update:
Mingdong Chen was found unfit to stand trial in January of this year after psychiatrists declared that he “is currently exhibiting symptoms of a severe mental illness.”
According to court documents, Mr. Chen told detectives that the multiple murders occurred because “I was thinking about not having a wife and job.”
He had been without a permanent home, “staying at his cousin’s house after his cousin had tried to move him to a residence in Flushing.” He had resented the Flushing accommodations, however, later telling investigators, “It’s a mahjong spot. I didn’t like staying there because it was too loud. So I argued and took a knife to them.”
Chen’s conspicuous mental instability was very evident during his interrogation where he “lashed out at detectives, allegedly punching one in the chest and attempting to kick one with his blood-soaked boot.”
The plan is to put him on medication and periodically reevaluate him “until the psychiatrists deem he is fit to stand trial. He is facing life with no parole.”
As of December of this year, there is apparently no word as to whether his mental state is improving.