An elderly Fresh Meadows man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for beating his live-in girlfriend to death over the summer.
Chitwah Tse, 73, was charged with first-degree manslaughter after killing his girlfriend, Huizhen Zhan, 61, in their apartment in August 2016.
On Monday, Aug. 1 at 7:15 p.m., officers from the 107th Precinct discovered Zhan inside her apartment on 65th Ave. She was lying face up in a bed in the basement, unconscious and unresponsive. The body was covered with a sheet that was soaked in blood, there was blood on the walls and ceiling and broken glass on the bed.
Zhan was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. According to the Chief Medical Examiner, she received blunt force trauma to the head and classified the death as a homicide.
According to District Attorney Richard Brown’s office, at 7:15 p.m. on Aug. 1, Tse walked into the law office of Garo Kapikian and said that there was a corpse in the basement apartment of 158-10 65th Ave. in Fresh Meadows. Kapikian called the police with this information.
On Wednesday, Aug. 3 between 2:15 and 2:30 p.m., Tse climbed over the balcony of the 22nd floor at 401 Broadway in Manhattan. He found his way onto an I-beam near the balcony and threatened to jump. Members of the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit and the Hostage Negotiation Team grabbed Tse and pulled him from the railing and back inside of the building.
Tse was transported to Bellevue Hospital and was later charged with the death of Huizhen Zhan. Tse pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in December 2016.
Brown said, “The victim was beaten bloody and left for dead in their bed that was soaked crimson red. The defendant will likely spend the rest of his life incarcerated for this heinous crime.”
