Chinatown killing
Police arrested a person of interest on Mon., July 16, for the June 29 shooting deaths of two women whose bodies were found in a fire in a Henry Street apartment. A New York Post item said the person of interest, a tattooed gang member, was detained on a Delta Air Lines flight at J.F.K. about to take off for Hong Kong.
Firefighters found the victims, Xiao L. Li, 70, and Yong Hua Chen, 36, shot in the head in a ground-floor apartment where two fires had been started at 83 Henry St. near the Manhattan Bridge overpass.
Law enforcement officials had impounded the suspect’s car at a Chinatown curbside parking spot two days before his arrest, the Post said. The killings were believed to be connected to a Chinatown lottery club.
Mistaken DNA match
DNA on a CD player found eight years ago in Inwood Hill, where a Juilliard student was murdered, appeared last week to match DNA found on a chain used as part of an Occupy Wall St. demonstration in March at an E. Flatbush subway station.
But the match was soon found likely to have been the result of careless handling by a lab technician who worked on both cases.
An Occupy Wall St. spokesperson said he was outraged that police had searched for DNA on a chain used in a peaceful protest.
The mistake still leaves the mystery of the 2004 murder of Sarah Fox, 21, the Juilliard student. Only one suspect ever emerged from the Fox murder, Dimitry Sheinman, but he was never charged. Sheinman, 47, moved to South Africa but returned to New York recently where he was reported giving police the name of the true killer which came to him in a psychic vision.
Cab hits pedestrian
A taxi hit a 50-year-old man around 4:20 a.m. Sat., July 14 at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street, knocking the victim unconscious, according to reports. An Emergency Medical Service unit took the victim to Bellevue Hospital where he was said to be in stable condition. The cab driver remained at the scene, and police said no criminality was involved.
–Albert Amateau
