GRISLY MURDER CHARGE
Ex-husband accused in Quincy woman’s death
By BRIAN DOWLING
A 55-year-old Quincy man who told police he accidentally backed over his ex-wife last summer is facing a first-degree murder charge after authorities say he intentionally ran over the woman with the family van four times — leaving a gruesome scene marked by bloody tire tracks and body parts.
Yan Long Chow was sitting in the driver’s seat of his 2015 Toyota Sienna, which was parked at the end of his Phillips Street driveway, when his 52-year-old ex-wife, Zhen Li, walked out of the house and toward the vehicle the afternoon of Sept. 2, prosecutors said.
It was at that moment, Chow told investigators, that he blacked out before running her over four times and returning to the end of the driveway, according to a graphic police reconstruction of the crash that was detailed by prosecutors at Chow’s arraignment yesterday in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham.
The first time the van struck Li, prosecutors said, the heels of her shoes left an impression in the couple’s recently paved driveway and her body became lodged under the vehicle. After shifting the vehicle into reverse, prosecutors said, Chow dragged Li to the end of the driveway, where her mangled body became dislodged from under the van.
Chow drove the van over Li and backed over her one more time, leaving “blood marks … in the driveway evenly spaced identical to the track of width of the vehicle’s tires,” prosecutors said. Paramedics who tried to turn over Li’s body, which was laying facedown, “observed that the upper half ... rolled over, while the lower half did not,” police said.
Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally listed Li’s brutal injuries, which included a litany of fractures and crushed body parts, before Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone stopped him from continuing, saying: “OK, I’ve heard enough of the case.”
After the attack, prosecutors said, Chow called 911 and was taken to Quincy Medical Center after complaining about chest pains.
Cops say he later told investigators he knew he ran Li over the first time, but didn’t see her when he backed up and pulled forward again. Chow said he and Li were leaving for East Boston to pick up signs for their restaurant in Chinatown and stressed that he and Li had no marital issues.
But neighbors and family members told police the couple often argued about Chow’s gambling habit and Li had recently made plans to move back to China without him, authorities stated. The day before her death, Li told her mother she was upset with Chow because he “had not returned home from two successive days as he was gambling in Boston,” according to court documents.
Chow and Li married in 1985 in China; they divorced for the first time in 1993, before remarrying in 1998 and divorcing again in 2005, according to Chow’s lawyer Scott Martin, who said they “continued to live together, essentially lived as a married couple” with their two adult children.
“This is a tragic accident,” Martin said. “My client loves his family, including his ex-wife.”
Chow, speaking through a Mandarin interpreter, pleaded not guilty to firstdegree murder and was held without bail. He is due back in court May 8.