Mingdong Chen: Man Who Killed Family Members With A Meat Cleaver Is Sentenced, How Many Years Did He Get?

Mingdong Chen, the Chinese immigrant who slaughtered five relatives with a meat cleaver, was sentenced today to a total of 125 years behind bars. The sentencing for Chen was broken down into two parts. The first part for Chen was three terms of 25 years to life for murder and two terms of 25 years to life for manslaughter. Ken Thompson, Brooklyn district attorney, commented on the sentencing of Mingdong Chen.

“This defendant’s vicious and sadistic attack makes him completely unfit to remain in society, and he will now spend the rest of his life behind bars. While we will never know what drove him to commit these murders, I hope that this sentence will offer this grieving family some measure of comfort.”

No one knows why Mingdong killed his five relatives. He has not told authorities why. Police believe that the motive for Chen was that he was jealous of his family members. Chen came to the United States around ten years ago and was struggling with his life in America. He lost multiple jobs working at restaurants, and police think that Chen was unable to deal with the fact that his family was doing better than he was. The part of Brooklyn that Chen was living in had mostly Chinese immigrants who were able to assimilate and find success. Chen saw this and he could not deal with it. Chief of Department, Philip Banks III, was able to get Chen to talk a little bit.

“He made a very soft comment that since he came to this country, everybody seems to be doing better than him.”

Chen was living with Qiao Zhen Li and her children. Li was the wife of Chen’s cousin. The family was living in a two-story home and Chen was living with them on the first floor.

In October 2013, Chen, with a meat cleaver, killed Qiao Zhen Li and her four children. The ages of the children who were murdered were 1, 5, 7, and 9-years-old. The victims had stab wounds on their necks and torsos.

On the night Chen killed his relatives, Qiao Zhen Li was scared due to Chen acting strange. Li’s husband was working at a restaurant on Long Island on the night of the murders. Li was unable to reach her husband at work and decided to then call her mother-in-law in China to see if she could reach her son at the restaurant. She was not able to. Li’s mother-in-law then called her daughter who lives in Brooklyn. She told her daughter that Li was scared and Chen was acting strange. The daughter and her husband went to Li’s house and arrived around 11:00 p.m. When the arrived, they could not get into the house. Chen eventually came to the door and opened it. According to the statement that was given to Banks, the daughter and her husband saw Chen “and they see that he’s covered with blood.” The couple ran from Chen and called 911.

When police arrived, Chen resisted arrest. The officers were able to get control of Chen, arrest him, and get him out of the house. When they arrived at the police station to process him, Chen assaulted a police officer.

Mingdong Chen confessed to the murder of Li and her four children. On October 7, 2015, Vincent Del Giudice, State Supreme Court Justice, was willing to accept a plea deal from Chen and his attorney. According to the plea deal accepted by Giudice, Mingdong Chen was to “be incarcerated until the day he dies”.

Do you think that Mingdong Chen should have been given the plea deal?

[Image Via YouTube]