UNNAMED CHILD - 9 yo (2009)/ Charged: Mother; Fang Chi-Xue - Quincy MA

DEDHAM, Mass. —  A Massachusetts woman charged in the deaths of her 9-year-old daughter and unborn son has been arraigned on murder and manslaughter charges, but an evaluation done for the court found her still incompetent to face trial.

Authorities say Fang Chi-Xue of Quincy fatally stabbed her 9-year-old daughter in April and stabbed herself in the abdomen, killing her unborn baby. She is also accused of trying to strangle her 14-year-old daughter, who told police her mother believed her husband was going to leave her.

Chi-Xue was arraigned Thursday in Norfolk Superior Court. A not guilty plea was entered on her behalf after the judge was told she remains mentally incompetent.

She is due back in court March 12, when a new report on her competency is due.

That is unbelievable, seriously messed up.

what ever happened in this case?

From June 2009....

An interpreter crouched next to Chi
Xue-fang's wheelchair, quietly translating the courtroom proceedings to
the immigrant mother. Her ankles were shackled, her legs too weak to
walk. As legal terms such as "mental competency" and "murder charge"
were decoded into Mandarin, the slender Chinese woman looked ahead with a
blank stare.
She had high hopes when she joined her
husband in this country two years ago, but then her life collapsed. At
the court hearing last month, she sat accused of killing one of her two
daughters, along with her 7-month-old fetus, and nearly herself in a
bloody rampage that was as horrific as it was perplexing.
In the four months before that fateful
day, some doctors and therapists had detected that she was
psychologically fragile. But the 38-year-old Chi kept a distance from
these clinicians.
Only to relatives did she confide her anguish over her husband, whom she alleged
badgered her with physical and financial threats, while making clear
his love for another woman who lived nearby. Perhaps worse for Chi, this
girlfriend had borne him his first son - giving her a special status
in traditional Chinese culture.
By mid-April, Chi resorted to behavior not uncommon among rural Chinese
women faced with family disgrace: She sought to end her life. And she
apparently wanted to take her children with her.
"So often, people think they can handle
their problems on their own," said Catherine Vuky of South Cove
Community Health Center, where Chi received much of her prenatal care.
"They don't know the violence they're capable of."
In some ways, Chi had an auspicious place
to begin her life in America. In the North Quincy neighborhood where she
and her husband rented an apartment, bilingual Chinese-English signs
hang from many of the storefronts.
Though Chi spoke little English, she found
part-time work at a restaurant. Her husband, Xue Zhuo-xing, largely
supported the family working as a Chinese cook. He had arrived first in
2000, then later arranged for his wife and the two girls to leave Fujian
Province for the United States.
Months after coming here in 2007,
relatives and neighbors said, Chi learned that her husband had a Chinese
girlfriend he had met while living alone in the United States. And in
the past year, this woman bore him a son.
"In our culture, a woman wants a very
happy family," said Chi's uncle, Lin Guang-Hua, who lives in New York.
"Unfortunately, she had an unfaithful husband."
Chi kept much of her pain to herself. Yet
two neighbors, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being drawn
into the criminal case, said they often overheard Chi arguing with her
husband and sobbing.
Chi's husband, Xue, declined to be interviewed when reached by telephone last week.
Chi's life became even more
complicated last fall, when she learned she was pregnant and, shortly
thereafter, quit her job. By winter, it was clear that Chi was spiraling
into deep distress. On Feb. 1, during a prenatal visit at Tufts Medical
Center, she told staff that her husband had once assaulted her, Quincy police said.
Chi promised to file a domestic violence report, but police said she never did.
The state's child-protection agency, the
Department of Children and Families, subsequently contacted Chi's home,
police records show, though the extent of the agency's involvement with
the family is unclear.
Three weeks later, trouble mounted. An ambulance was summoned to the home,
where Xue said his wife had ingested dishwasher detergent, police said.
Police could not determine whether this was a suicide attempt or a plea
for attention.
Chi was later admitted to the psychiatric ward at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center, where she stayed for a few days, according to someone who is
familiar with Chi's medical case but is not authorized to speak publicly about it.
When Chi was released, she promised to seek outpatient mental health services at
South Cove, where the overwhelming majority of staff and patients are of
Asian background. However, Chi canceled many of her therapy
appointments, said the individual with knowledge of her medical case.
The couple began to talk of divorce.
Chi's relatives said, however, that the husband set harsh terms for Chi
to keep the girls, ages 9 and 14. He told her she would have to pay him
$80,000 for each daughter; otherwise, he would take them. Chi was
frightened because she was ignorant of the US child custody system, the relatives said.
On April 16, upon returning from work around 10 p.m., Xue saw blood throughout one
of the bedrooms and frantically called 911. Police found Chi lying on
the bed, unconscious, with deep gashes to her left wrist and puncture
wounds to her abdomen. Next to her was her 9-year-old daughter, Xue Wen,
a third-grader at Wollaston School in Quincy, unresponsive.
Later when questioned by police, records
show, the older daughter said her mother had earlier that day tried to
strangle her but she had gotten away.
When asked by police why her mother would
want to kill them, the 14-year-old said her mother didn't want her girls
to live with "their father's girlfriend."
In the days that followed, the home was
staked out by the media, including the Chinese-language press, which was
generally sympathetic to Chi.
"A lot of new immigrants have been in similar situations - they have no
friends, they are helpless," said Carrie Tang, a reporter in the Boston
bureau of the World Journal, a national Chinese-language newspaper.
For Linda Chin, president of the
Boston-based Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence, Chi's plight is
also a case of missed opportunities for intervention.
"We come up against thousands of years of
ingrained values in which the man rules, marriage is sacred, divorce is
shameful, and boys are valued," Chin said.
Relatives have portrayed Chi as a woman
who lost her mind from family stress, though it remains unclear whether
she was mentally ill prior to immigrating to the United States.
Some lawmakers have raised questions
about whether the state acted aggressively enough to protect the
children. The Children and Families agency has declined to say how
actively it was monitoring Chi's situation and whether it was aware of
her missed mental health appointments.
Officials issued only this statement:
"With the presence of a second caretaker, and an understanding that the
mother would seek and receive proper medical care, removal of the
children from the home was unwarranted."
On May 19, Chi appeared in public for the
first time since she was charged.
Sitting in her wheelchair in a Quincy
courtroom, Chi was motionless. A large beige elastic bandage covered her
left arm, where she had cut herself almost to the bone. The district
attorney's office said after the hearing that the fetus she had been carrying was a boy.
Judge Mark Coven, after reviewing a state hospital report, deemed Chi
temporarily incompetent to be arraigned.
Neither prosecutor Thomas Finigan nor
defense attorney Randolph Gioia disclosed Chi's diagnosis in court,
though Gioia later said it was related to severe depression with "some
psychotic dimensions."
As the judge set the date for her next hearing, Chi looked on in silence.

From December 2009....

A grand jury has indicted a Quincy woman for the murder in the April
deaths of her 9-year-old daughter and unborn son.
Fang Chi-Xue was charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of her
9-year-old daughter, and with manslaughter of her unborn child, who died
after she allegedly stabbed herself in the abdomen.
Norfolk District Attorney William Keating said Monday the 38-year-old
mother was charged in the unborn baby's death after a medical opinion
found he was viable and her wounds caused his death.
Prosecutors said she also tried to strangle her 14-year-old daughter,
who told police her mother believed her husband was going to leave her.
Chi-Xue was
found incompetent to face charges. Her status will be reconsidered
at a hearing Wednesday.
Her defense declined to comment.

yvette67 wrote:what ever happened in this case?

---The latest info I can finds indicates that though the Mom was indicted by the Grand Jury she was deemed unable to participate in her own defense due to serious psychological impairment. Periodically the courts have been known to review the prognosis of the patient/perpetrator and if and when recovered the charges can be leveled. At this time, all indications are she is still under treatment at a psychiatric hospital.

EXTRA IN YOUR Ledger
By Kaitlin Keane The Patriot Ledger
Publication: The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA)
Date: Friday, January 21 2011

Fang Chi-Xue of Quincy, the pregnant mother of two accused of killing her 9-year-old daughter and turning the knife on herself to kill her unborn fetus in April 2009, has been deemed unfit for trial. She remains in the Worcester State Hospital psychiatric facility, with another competency hearing set for Feb. 2.

http://www.allbusiness.com/society-social/families-children-family/15454171-1.html

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