NEW YORK—Four hearses waited outside a Brooklyn funeral home Sunday to transport four children and their mother to a cemetery in New Jersey, two weeks after they were killed in their Sunset Park apartment.
Mourners lining the street corners around the funeral home were expressionless. A strong wind blew as the crowd stood outside. The building had already filled to capacity.
State Sen. Martin Golden arrived early to pay his respects to the family, but did not attend the funeral. He told the children’s father, Yilin Zhuo, to contact him if there was anything that the family needed. Zhuo told Golden that he just wanted to make sure that Chen Mingdong—the accused killer who is also Zhuo’s cousin—was punished to the fullest extent.
Chinese community leaders were in attendance. Deputy Consul General of China in New York Dong Xiaojun spoke briefly during the eulogy about the “incident.” His language surprised some people who regarded the killings a tragedy.
At 2 p.m., after roughly four hours of funeral services, the five coffins were loaded into the hearses. Chinese ethnic music played with suonas and percussion. A Daoist priest conducted some rites of passage for the murder victims, chanting incantations and throwing special money into the wind.
Zhuo, flanked by the funeral director, held a picture of his wife and young children and a large stick of burning incense. His controlled expression betrayed pain.
The wind blew furiously as the last two children’s coffins were lifted into the hearses. Flowers were hurriedly placed on top, as pallbearers pushed the white bouquets against the wind.
The body of the youngest child, 18-month-old William Zhuo, was placed in the same hearse as his mother, Li Qiaozhen, 37. They were buried together.
Nine-year-old Linda Zhuo, 7-year-old Amy Zhuo, and 5-year-old Kevin Zhuo will be buried next to them at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Relatives leaving the funeral propped up the children’s two grandmothers, who wailed softly and could not walk. Both women had traveled for the funeral earlier in the week from Fuzhou Province in China.
One grandmother, Li’s mother-in-law, fainted shortly after the funeral started, and was aided by ambulance staff throughout the funeral. Li’s mother stood up shakily to thank people for attending.
A relative in mainland China had said Li and her mother-in-law had been very close. Li called her mother-in-law over the Internet nearly every night at 8 p.m., so she could see her grandchildren eating dinner.
The bodies of the victims were found with multiple stab wounds at 10:40 p.m. on Oct. 26, while their father was at work in a restaurant on Long Island.
Mingdong Chen, 25, was indicted on five counts of murder in the first degree, five counts of murder in the second degree, one count of resisting arrest, and one count of attempted assault in the third degree.
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Ralph Aievoli & Son owner Joseph Aievoli, who operates Wan Shou Funeral Home in the same building, said in his 50 years in the business he never saw so many family members killed in one attack.
“I spoke to one of the community affairs guys [from the NYPD] and he said that we have to start to teach these people [Chinese] that when they see something going on they should get involved,” Aievoli said, adding that the neighbors knew the accused killer was acting crazy an hour or two before.
“Even if they are illegal they should call 911,” he said. “No one’s going to ask to see their citizenship papers if someone’s going crazy.”
Amy Li, from Wan Shou Funeral Home, was feeling nauseous after the funeral finished. She couldn’t say much, except, “It’s so sad.” She dealt with the family in the days leading up to the funeral.
The family’s lawyer, Salvatore Aspromonte, said in a statement, “No one but Yilin Zhuo can know how it feels to have this horrible crime committed upon his loved ones. This brutal act breaks our hearts.”
