By Connor Adams Sheets
Police have arrested a man accused of stabbing a 46-year-old woman to death Tuesday evening in an apartment building in downtown Flushing, police said.
Huang Chen, a 46-year-old Asian-American man was charged with second-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
Police say they received a 911 call and responded to the scene at 135-32 40th Road, where Asian-American Qian Wu was already dead in the second-floor hallway.
Chen had been stalking Wu, the owner of an employment agency that declined to find Chen work, since 2006, and she had filed multiple police reports and had taken out nine of protection against him, police sources said.
Chen served 30 days in jail after punching Wu in May 2006, according to the New York Post.
Chen allegedly followed Wu into her apartment Tuesday evening and allegedly stabbed her multiple times in the torso, then fled, according to the Post.
A female neighbor of Wu called 911 at about 7:35 p.m., when she saw blood in the building, the Post reported.
Chen, after allegedly killing Wu, was allegedly caught on a surveillance video entering his building in bloody clothes and leaving in clean clothing, the Post said. He then went to New York Hospital Queens, according to police sources, seeking assistance for wounds he allegedly sustained during the attack, saying they occurred while he fought off a robber in his home, police said.
When investigators went to his apartment, they found the video, and he was later arrested.
The video also revealed Wenxin Zhang, a 54-year-old Asian-American woman, walking out of the building shortly after him, according to police sources.
She carried a bag, which was later found stuffed with bloody clothing, a knife and a hammer in a park half-a-block from the crime scene, according to the Post.
Police accompanied a man who said he is Wu’s husband on Wednesday afternoon to the third-floor apartment, where she is believed to have lived. He only said that he did not speak English. He was led away from the scene at about 3:45 p.m. by police and Walter Chi, an aide to Councilman Peter Koo (R-Flushing), who said he was there to help.
Droplets of dried blood still remained on the apartment building’s second-floor walls and stairs, and a stairway railing was broken between the first and second floors.
Justin Qui, a Bayside High School student, said he was visiting his girlfriend in Flushing Tuesday evening, and walked by 40th Road.
“I was coming back from Best Buy in Elmhurst and I got bubble tea with my girlfriend and we walked down here and we saw there were cops and a bunch of other people at about 8 o’clock and the street was blocked off,” he said.
Kim Smith, who lives down the street from the scene, said that crime has increased in the area in recent years.
“I’ve been here 30 years and I’ve watched the change,” she said. “This wasn’t like this, it really wasn’t like this.”
Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at csheets@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 138.
