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Ashley Zhao Murder: Dad’s 911 Call Released, ‘I Can’t Find My Daughter,’ Plus Who Has Custody Of Her Sibling

By Patricia Ramirez
Published on: 18:37 PST, Jan 12, 2017

On Monday night, Ohio five-year-old Ashley Zhao was reported missing by her father’s 911 call. Liang Zhao told dispatchers that his daughter had disappeared, simply vanished. By the next afternoon, he would be in police custody accused of hiding the little girl’s assault and murder, a murder that allegedly resulted from Ashley Zhao’s mother repeatedly punching her small daughter in the face. Now, reports WKYC 3, authorities have released the recordings of the 911 call made from Ang’s Asian Cuisine in Jackson Township for the first time.

Ashley Zhao’s father began his 9:30 p.m. conversation with 911 dispatchers by telling them that he was in need of help.

“I can’t find my daughter.”

Liang Zhao went on to say that Ashley hadn’t been seen for roughly five hours hours; her father calmly claimed that she’d gone to take a nap in the back of Ang’s Asian Cuisine, the family’s restaurant. He added that he had and others had seen five5-year-old Ashley Zhao sleeping, but when he went back to check on her after “getting busy,” she was gone.

“She was there sleeping… where was she sleeping in the restaurant. We all saw her sleeping there… and we got busy and then… uuuh after it got busy we started cleaning up. We opened the door and she’s not here.”

Police quickly responded to the family’s restaurant, and a cursory search led investigators to believe that Ashley Zhao may have wandered out the building’s back door. On Tuesday afternoon, Ashley’s remains were found “concealed” in the very restaurant she had supposedly wandered away from. Her mother, Mingming Chen, has been arrested and charged with murder and felonious assault. Her father has been charged with complicity to murder and complicity to commit felonious assault. Each is being held on a $5 million bond.

Police haven’t disclosed how they came to know that Ashley Zhao had been murdered, nor how her remains were allegedly concealed in the Chinese restaurant, reports ABC News. They have said that Ashley’s 29-year-old, an illegal Chinese immigrant, allegedly struck the five-year-old repeatedly in the head.

Ironically, Mingming Chen claims to be a follower of the Chinese spiritual belief system of Falun Gong, which touts truthfulness and compassion as its central tenants. She has reportedly remained in the U.S. as an illegal asylum seeker (reportedly, her applications to remain in the U.S. legally were denied) because she claimed that the Chinese government persecutes those who share her spiritual belief. Ashley Zhao’s mother was reportedly ordered deported back in 2012.

After the alleged assault on the little girl, she reportedly began vomiting “green fluid,” which her father then attempted to wash off in the restaurant’s bathroom. While he was cleaning Ashley Zhao up, her 34-year-old father, a naturalized U.S. citizen, reportedly realized that his daughter was no longer breathing. He reportedly claimed to attempt CPR on Ashley, but was unsuccessful in reviving her.

According to the Stark County Sheriff’s Office, Ashley Zhao died roughly 12 hours before her parents reported her missing.

On Wednesday night, her Jackson Township community came together in a show of solidarity for murdered five-year-old Ashley Zhao, holding a candlelight vigil in memorial and remembrance.

While Ashley was the only one who lost their life in Monday’s alleged violent beating, she is not the only child victim of the senseless, tragic crime. That’s because Ashley Zhao has a six-year-old sister whose life has been turned upside down by Ashley’s murder and her parents’ arrests.

As the Canton Rep reports, authorities took Ashley Zhao’s older sibling into custody upon her parents’ arrest on Tuesday afternoon. A custody hearing in the case had been scheduled for the unidentified girl on Wednesday, but due to a lack of an interpreter, was pushed to Thursday.

On Thursday afternoon, Family Court Judge David Nist ruled that Ashley Zhao’s older sister will remain in the custody of Stark County Job and Family Services foster care, at least for now. Reportedly, the agency is attempting to find a more permanent custody solution for the six-year-old, including looking into potentially placing her with someone in her family.

However, in order to for the six-year-old to be placed in a family member’s home, that family member would have to pass state-sponsored criminal background checks and other screenings.

According to the Stark County Job and Family Services, they had never had any contact with the family of Ashley Zhao prior to the girl’s murder.

[Featured Image by Stark County Sheriff’s Office]

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