Chinese Immigrant Pleads Guilty To Killing 5 Boro Park Relatives

A Chinese immigrant who butchered five relatives, including four small children in a fit of jealousy pleaded guilty on Wednesday to murder and manslaughter charges and must serve at least 125 years in prison.

Mingdong Chen admitted that he killed his cousin’s wife, 37-year-old Qiao Zhen Li, and her children, 9-year-old Linda, 7-year-old Amy, 5-year-old Kevin and 1-year-old William Zhou in October 2013 at their Boro Park home.

Prosecutors said Li called her mother-in-law in China on the evening of Oct. 27, 2013, saying Chen was in the house with a knife and threatening the family. When the mother-in-law heard children crying in the background, she called other relatives in New York, and they rushed to the home on Ninth Ave. By the time they arrived, the five relatives were dead.

When detectives questioned Chen, he told them he was jealous of the success of his fellow Chinese immigrants. He had been fired from different jobs.

“The burning question is why these things happen, but in the sum total of things it really doesn’t much matter,” said Assistant District Attorney Mark Hale.

This article appeared in print on page 5 of the October 9th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.