The guy accused of carrying out the vicious hammer attack that killed a New York mother and seriously injured and likely killed her two young children made his court appearance on Thursday.
Liyong Ye, 47, is suspected of murdering Zhou Zhou, 43, in Brooklyn on Wednesday while inflicting serious injuries on her three-year-old daughter and five-year-old son.
Prosecutors claim that the man initiated the assault because he held the mother responsible for the small living space in the three-bedroom Sunset Park condominium that he shared with her family.
Ye, who is accused of killing Zhou and beating her children, allegedly told a witness that he intended to fight Zhou before he killed her. He has also been charged with two charges of attempted murder.
With her children, she was sent to NYU Langone Hospital Brooklyn but was later declared dead from a severe brain injury. The kids’ injuries will probably cause them to pass away, according to the prosecution.
Ye was discovered by police outside the flat he shared with Zhou and her family, covered in blood.
Inside, they discovered her and her two young children, ages three and five, who were in such horrible shape that police had to take them directly to the hospital rather than wait for an ambulance.
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Prosecution Outlines Alleged Attack Plan in Brooklyn Apartment Case
When Ye was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court, the prosecution laid out how he planned the alleged attack.
In the apartment on 52nd Street, he sublet a room from Zhou and lived there with his nine-year-old kid. A single tenant was renting the third room. Neighbors claimed to have overheard Ye and Zhou arguing loudly in recent weeks.
Authorities claim that Ye repeatedly objected to the third roommate about the disorderly conditions in the kitchen and bathroom weeks prior to the attack.
On the day of the assault, he allegedly called the roommate and asked whether they could pick up his son.
The roommate reported to the police that when they got home, they found Ye bloodied, holding a hammer over the three victims.
They dialed 911, and when police discovered Ye attempting to leave the residence, he was detained and the bloodied hammer was found.
Langsam informed the court that the kids were still in the hospital battling for their life.
Just before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, according to the police, there was an assault at the second-floor apartment, which is also sublet to another renter.
Ye poses a flight risk, thus Judge Simiyon Haniff granted the prosecution’s plea to hold him in detention without bail.
According to the defendant’s attorney, this was his only encounter with the law, and no mental health difficulties are thought to exist in him.
Source: Daily Mail, New York Post
