Cops: 'Jealous' Cousin Killed NYC Mom, 4 Kids

Drifter resented others' success, sources say
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 28, 2013 2:08 AM CDT
Updated Oct 28, 2013 4:03 AM CDT
'Jealous' Cousin Kills NYC Mom, 4 Kids
Mingdong Chen, a suspect in the murder of a five people in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood, is taken by police from the 66th precinct.   (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)

A drifter from China who had been struggling with life in America hacked his cousin's wife and four children to death out of jealousy, a police source tells the New York Daily News. Family members say Ming Dong Chen, who came to the US in 2004, had been unable to hold down a job and had been moving around the US for years, staying with the Brooklyn family on and off. "He's crazy," a cousin of the murdered woman says. "He came here illegally from China. He was living with them. He's not stable."

Chen, 25, was arrested at the cousin's Brooklyn home after the wife called relatives to say he had been acting strangely. They arrived at the home to find Chen covered in blood. Inside, police found the bodies of Qiao Zhen Li, 37, and her children Linda, 9; Amy, 7; Kevin, 5; and William, 1. After his arrest, he "made statements implicating himself," the police source says. "He said other people are doing better than him. He was pretty much upset that his lot in life wasn't that great." (More New York City stories.)

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