Last Take-out

Nineteen-year-old Huang Chen had no way of knowing as he crossed the street to the Rochdale Village apartments that he was walking to his death. Huang was doing what he did every other daymaking deliveries from Ming Garden, his familys restaurant on Guy Brewer Boulevard in Jamaica.
He left the eatery at about 10 p.m. Friday and hours later, when he did not return, his family called the police.
An apartment in Section 2 of Building 8 on 127th Avenue was the last known delivery address. When police arrived, 16-year-old Nayquan Miller answered the door. His hands and shirt splattered with blood, he was using bleach to scrub bloodstains from the ceiling, according to department sources.
A search turned up several blunt objects, including a baseball bat and a knife.
After brief questioning, it was determined Miller had lured the unsuspecting delivery boy to the apartment to rob him, and that he and a friend, Charles Bryant, also 16, allegedly participated in the brutal slaying that ensued. Bryant was later arrested at his home in Rosedale.
In the early morning hours on Saturday, the body of Huang Chen was found a short distance from the footbridge in Brookville Park near 147th Avenue. A plastic bag covered his head, and he had been viciously beaten about the face and stabbed repeatedly in the chest.
Outside the restaurant, those hearing the news began to gather, leaving candles, flowers and cards. The family met in the parking lot behind the restaurant; overwhelmed with grief, they stood huddled together weeping.
Long time resident Ed Thomas lives in the apartments and knows the Chens well. "I get food here two or three times a week," Thomas said. "This kid was always working, always smiling, and always so polite. I cant believe the shame of this."
Al Moonab, who owns the Rochdale Discount store next to Ming Garden, said the family has had the business for 15 years and he has known them for the past 13. "They are just good hard-working people. For this to happen is so sad."
While the restaurant shares a three-block shopping strip across from the apartment complex with several other restaurants and take-out stores, Ming Garden is the only one of them that didnt refuse to deliver to individual apartments in the buildings. The other stores stopped making deliveries long ago because of repeated incidents of robbery and violence.
Carmen Rampersad works next door in Crown Chicken. "We dont deliver over there. No one does except Mings." The reason, she says, is because all of the beatings. "Three years ago, another delivery boy went in there and came out with broken legs. Just six months ago Huangs father [the elder Chen] was beaten when he went in to make a delivery."
Rampersad said she and all the other storeowners are deeply shocked and saddened by what has happened. "We are trying to find out where the funeral was. I would close the store to go. They are good neighbors. He [Huang] would come in here and we would trade food. Sometimes they wanted burgers and we wanted Chinese."
The visibly upset storekeeper told The Queens Courier that all the Chens wanted was to have enough money so that Huang and his three sisters could go to college. "Huang was next in line to go but he stayed on at the restaurant to help his parents and let his sister go first. What will his mother do? Her son is dead. Now what else can you say about a boy like that?"
Across the street, neighbors at Rochdale Village were also stunned. One resident told The Queens Courier that Miller lived with his two brothers and his mother. "Shes a great mother. Raising three boys on your own could never be easy, but this will kill her. He was always a pretty quiet kid. I dont understand. I only know that today two mothers lost their sons."
Miller and Bryant have been charged with murder, robbery, criminal possession of a weapon and tampering with evidence. Police sources have stated that there may be a third suspect involved but will not give details until a further arrest is made.