Crime scene detectives investigate the scene of a multiple fatal stabbing Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in New York. Police said a mother and her four young children were stabbed to death in a brutal rampage just before 11 p.m. Saturday in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.NEW YORK – A Chinese immigrant who neighbors said struggled to survive in America was arrested Sunday on five counts of murder in the stabbing deaths of his cousin’s wife and her four children in their Brooklyn home – using a butcher knife.
The suspect, 25-year-old Mingdong Chen, implicated himself in the killings late Saturday in the Sunset Park neighborhood, police said.
“They were cut and butchered with a kitchen knife,” said Chief of Department Philip Banks III.
Two girls, 9-year-old Linda Zhuo and 7-year-old Amy Zhuo, were pronounced dead at the scene, along with the youngest child, 1-year-old William Zhuo – all attacked in a back bedroom, police said. Their brother, 5-year-old Kevin Zhuo, and 37-year-old mother, Qiao Zhen Li, were taken to hospitals, where they were also pronounced dead.
Chen is a cousin of the children’s father and had been staying at the home for the past week or so, Banks said.