Metro

Man who ‘butchered cousin’s family’ deemed unfit for trial

The Chinese madman who murdered his cousin’s wife and their four young children has been deemed incompetent to stand trial and will undergo psychiatric treatment until he’s found fit for trial, a Brooklyn judge said Monday.

“The report indicates that the defendant is unfit to proceed,” said Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Vincent Del Giudice in a hearing Monday.

Mingdong Chen, 25, allegedly butchered Qiaozhen Li, 37, and her son Kevin, 5, in a front family room inside their Sunset Park apartment in October, then moved on to the back bedroom where he allegedly killed the woman’s three other children, Linda, 9, Amy, 7, and William, 1.

Chen appeared in court Monday dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit. He glanced around the court a few times, but mostly stared straight ahead and did not speak during the proceeding.

With the results of the psychiatric exam now in, Chen was also formally arraigned.

He pleaded not guilty, and was held without bail.

“The findings were that he’s currently exhibiting symptoms of a serious mental illness that impair his ability to assist in his own defense,” Chen defense lawyer Danielle Eaddy said outside court.

Chen will next appear in a ‘Special 11’ court, which handles cases with defendants suffering from mental illnesses and will undergo psychiatric treatment until he is fit for trial, Eaddy said.

“He has to go to a psychiatric institution to be medicated,” Eaddy said. “He should go to a facility.”

Speaking generally of defendants with psychiatric issues, Eaddy said, “They could become fit in a week. They could become fit in years. Some people never become fit.”

Eaddy indicated that the psych exam did diagnose Chen with a specific mental illness, but declined to reveal what it is.

The illegal alien from China slashed and hacked his victims all over their bodies and also cut their throats, using a meat cleaver about a foot long for the savage attacks, law-enforcement sources have told the Post.

Chen will make his first appearance before the Special 11 judge in Brooklyn Court on February 6th.