VINCENT ("ANDY") and EDWARD CHEN (and parents) - 7 and 10 yo - Guilderland, NY

'Whole family killed': 2 adults, 2 young boys found dead in upstate New York home

The Wednesday quadruple-homicide in Guilderland claimed four victims: a 39-year-old woman, a 37-year-old man, a 10-year-old boy and a 7-year-old boy. Police have not released the victims' names, their causes of death or any possible suspects.

BY Meg Wagner and Jason Molinet
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Thursday, October 9, 2014, 1:17 AM
Updated: Thursday, October 9, 2014, 3:59 PM


Two adults and two young boys were found murdered inside their upstate New York home Wednesday, police said.
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An upstate New York family of four was murdered inside their home Wednesday, police say.

Guilderland Police confirmed the victims of the quadruple-homicide as a 39-year-old woman, a 37-year-old man, and two boys: 7 and 10 years old.

They have been identified as Chinese, but at a Thursday press conference, officials declined to release their names because their next of kin have not been notified.

Police rebutted Thursday rumors that claimed a third child was found alive in the home: Only four people were in the home and all were pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Officers made the grisly discovery Wednesday afternoon, but officials have not revealed how the victims were killed.

Investigators are performing autopsies on the bodies.

Police did not name any suspects or motives in the case, but assured residents in the Albany suburb that they are not in danger.
While nearby schools were locked down Wednesday afternoon after the 2 p.m. discovery, they reopened Thursday morning.
Patrick Dodson/AP Albany County District Attorney David Soares (second from l.), alongside Guilderland Police Chief Carol Lawlor, speaks at a press conference on Thursday. 

"This is a very tight-knit community so we understand why they are concerned," District Attorney David Soares told the Albany Times Union. "This is not something the public should not be panicked by."

Police are working with translators fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin. While police urged anyone with information to call (800) GIVE-TIP, officers said the language barrier is making the case difficult.

News of the killings shocked the quiet suburb — neighbors were especially stunned by the second- and fifth-grade boys’ deaths.


"The children, the children. Every time I think of the children, I had to sit quiet for a while," neighbor Dawn Moore told CBS 6 Albany.

"Terrible. The whole family killed," C.C. Chen, an employee at a nearby takeout restaurant told the newspaper.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/family-killed-people-slain-upstate-new-york-home-article-1.1968369

Human trafficking, undocumented workers part of Guilderland homicide investigation


By Paul Grondahl
Updated 11:03 am, Sunday, October 12, 2014

Laura Hammes ties a white ribbon to a pole across the street from the homicide scene Friday afternoon, Oct. 10, 2014 in Guilderland, N.Y. Hammes said that she was told that the color white was the sign of mourning in China. With Hammes are her daughter Maddie, 9, second from left, Olivia Rutherford, 9, left and Jennifer Rutherford, right. Both children go to Guilderland Elementary School which is where the deceased children attended school. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union)

Guilderland
Jin Chen, the 39-year-old Chinese man killed Wednesday with his wife and two young sons in the family's modest bungalow on Western Avenue, allegedly handled large amounts of off-the-books cash that flowed through undocumented Chinese restaurant workers in a shadowy, underground economy that runs from New York City to the Capital Region and beyond.

"Off the grid" was the term local authorities used for Chen's clandestine enterprise, but who killed him and his family and why are unanswered questions at the center of an intensive multi-agency investigation led by State Police. A person close to the probe, which has been hampered by language and cultural barriers, said an offer of immunity from immigration charges is being contemplated in exchange for sealed grand jury testimony by reluctant witnesses who may be undocumented workers.

The only quadruple homicide in the region in recent memory took place on a busy commercial stretch in the suburban neighborhood of Westmere where thousands of motorists drive each day within 50 yards of the slain family's home.

On Friday morning, State Police detectives donned white gloves and tramped through woods behind 1846 Western Ave. The house is located along a row of postwar bungalows near the Celtic Tours office building at Venezio and Western avenues.

Investigators have not disclosed how the parents and their sons, students at Guilderland Elementary School, were killed, but a person with knowledge of the investigation said they were not shot, contrary to initial reports.

The murder weapon was a knife, according to an employee at King's Wok, which is owned by Chen's relatives and where he and the men whose affairs he allegedly managed worked. Chinese-language newspapers published in New York City, including the World Journal, which are read around the region, have sent reporters to Guilderland and reported that the four were attacked with a hammer.

"I am not commenting on any of that," said Trooper Mark Cepiel, a State Police spokesman. He would not release details of two autopsies conducted.

State Police did release the names of Chen and Hai Yan Li, 38, though not of the children due to their ages. But relatives and neighbors identified them as Edward, 10, and 7-year-old Vincent, also called "Andy."

Chen's family offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, according to Chen's relatives from New York City and Connecticut who held a news conference on Friday in Chinatown in New York City. The family — including six brothers and several sisters — was joined by friends from their hometown of Houyu in Fuijan province.

Jin Ming Chen dismissed reports in the Chinese language paper Sing Tao that his brother was murdered after a high-stakes gambling party attended by several people late Tuesday might and that the killer left and returned to murder the family and steal a large amount of cash.

He denied that his brother ran a lucrative gambling operation and said that he hosted small, low-stakes card games for friends at his home. "They said they all died for no reason," said Daisy Lie, a reporter for the World Journal, who covered the news conference.

"We all know there is a much bigger story here and we pressed the family on it, but they wouldn't say more."

Chen said his brother was murdered on the first floor, while the other three were killed in an upstairs bedroom and their bodies were placed on a bed and covered with blankets.

"I'm still sick. I've never seen anything like it," said Guilderland Police Chief Carol Lawlor, a longtime member of the force who grew up on the same block where the murders book place. "It really hit close to home."

Lawlor said the family was not on the department's radar because there had been no complaints from neighbors or other problems reported to police in the past three years at their home or next door at 1848 Western Ave., in which neighbors said they saw Chinese men living.

The going rate that undocumented workers must pay for fake documents, safe transport from China and assistance in finding a foothold in the underground economy is $30,000 to $50,000, according to a local Chinese pastor who did not want his name used. That money typically goes to so-called "snakeheads," a leader of a Chinese gang, or tong, in New York City's Chinatown who smuggle people to the U.S. from China.

Chen and the workers for whom he allegedly served as banker and manager were part of a network of exploitation and indentured servitude at Chinese food takeout joints that have become ubiquitous across the region.

The Chinese restaurant workers board unmarked charter buses in the predawn hours in Chinatown, are dropped off on Central Avenue in Albany or Western Avenue in Colonie, work 12- or 14-hour shifts and catch the bus back at 11 p.m. or later and sleep in their seats — repeating the routine the next day.

The local Chinese pastor who asked that his name not be used told of this practice and said the men come upstate for one-way bus fares of less than $5 because the New York City metropolitan market is saturated with such low-wage, Chinese restaurant workers.

The practice is documented in a 5,000-word article by Lauren Hilgers in the current issue of The New Yorker magazine titled, "The Kitchen Network: America's underground Chinese restaurant workers." It described an upstate pipeline that is one strand in a web connected by Chinese-run bus companies that transport workers from New York as far as Chicago and San Francisco.

The quadruple homicide sent shock waves through the area, particularly among the estimated 8,000 Chinese and Chinese-Americans who live and work in the Capital Region.

A man who lives behind the house where the killings occurred said, seen fleetingly, the victims seemed like an ordinary family. The mother gardened and watched her sons in the small back yard, where they kicked balls, rode their bikes and played on the small wooden deck.

"I'd wave to the kids and the wife," said the neighbor, who asked that his name not be used. "I talked a few times to Jin, the father. He spoke English. Nothing extensive, brief chats."

The neighbor, who was interviewed by investigators, said he was startled by the massive police presence at 1846 Western Ave.

"The first thought I had was Chinese mafia," he said. "It wouldn't shock me. Every nationality has a mob, right?"

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Evidence-technicians-return-to-seen-of-4-killings-5813957.php