NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A Chinese immigrant charged in the brutal stabbing deaths of a woman and her four children in Brooklyn is set to face a judge on Monday.
Mingdong Chen, 25, faces five counts of murder in the stabbing deaths of his cousin’s wife and her children in Sunset Park on Saturday.
Chen was led out of the 66th Precinct police station in Borough Park Sunday night no longer wearing the blood-covered clothes investigators said he had on when he allegedly murdered his cousin’s wife and her four young children.
NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks III said the five “were cut and butchered with a kitchen knife.” Banks said the victims died of stab wounds to their necks and torsos and that Chen had implicated himself in the killings.
Two girls, 9-year-old Linda Zhuo and 7-year-old Amy Zhuo, were pronounced dead at the scene, along with 18-month-old William Zhuo, police said. They were all found in a back bedroom, police said.
Their brother, 5-year-old Kevin Zhuo and their 37-year-old mother, Qiao Zhen Li, were found in the kitchen and taken to hospitals, where they also were pronounced dead, police said.
“Horrific, horrific crime,” Banks said. “It’s a scene you’ll never forget.”
Investigators said Chen had been staying with Li’s family for about eight days. Li had apparently seen Chen acting strangely and tried calling her husband at work, but couldn’t reach him, police said.
That’s when Li called her mother-in-law in China, who also could not reach her son. The mother-in-law then reached out to her daughter who lives in the same neighborhood, Banks said.
At about 11 p.m., police said the sister-in-law and her husband went to the house and found the bloody scene.
“The sister arrives at the location with her husband and they bang on the door and they bang on the door,” At some point, Banks said Chen “opens the door and they see that he’s covered in blood.”
The couple fled and called 911. Police quickly responded to the home and arrested Chen at the scene.
On Sunday, Li’s husand arrived at the precinct house dazed after learning that his own cousin is now charged with allegedly killing his entire family.
Police still have no clear motive.
“He made a very short comment that since he’s been in this country, everybody seems to be doing better than him,” Banks said. ”And that was a short comment we’re not really sure what that means.”
Banks said Chen still was fluent only in Mandarin Chinese almost a decade after coming to the United States as a teenager. Neighbors and relatives said he was unemployed after being fired from a string of restaurant jobs.
Banks said Chen had resisted arrest at first and assaulted a police officer while being processed. He was set to undergo a psychiatric evaluation on Sunday.
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