MOM TOOK A WHILE TO DIE
Lovers leave grisly trail of evidence in twisted Tribeca slay: sources
Two’s company – and three’s a crime.
A callous Tribeca man suspected of slashing his mother’s throat and tossing her corpse in the trash enlisted his two girlfriends to dispose of the body in a bizarre ménageà-macabre, according to a criminal complaint and friends of the suspects.
Jared Eng, 22, told his two gal pals he killed 65-year-old Paula Chin — and heartlessly recounted how his widowed mother “took a while to die” inside their blood-spattered Lower Manhattan apartment, shocking court papers allege.
His mom’s desperate Jan. 31 struggle to survive only delayed Eng’s plan to drive her corpse to his family’s posh New Jersey country home and cover up the deed with his two partners in crime/love, authorities charge.
Eng made the damning admissions in a speakerphone conversation with lovers Caitlyn O’Rourke, 21, and Jennifer Lopez, 18, the detailed criminal complaint alleges. Eng and O’Rourke met about 18 months ago, with Lopez joining the “throuple” last fall, according to two close friends of O’Rourke.
Authorities believe Eng slashed his mom’s throat during an argument in their Tribeca home when she told him the time had finally come for him to move out. A source told the Daily News the feud possibly also involved an inheritance from Eng’s late father, Philip.
After the killing, surveillance video captured Lopez behind the wheel of the slain mom’s gray 2004 Toyota Land Cruiser reversing into a spot outside the Vestry St. crime scene. Someone emerged from the building with a blood-soaked black duffel bag and shoved it quickly into the vehicle’s trunk, the complaint says.
With Lopez at the wheel and the victim’s body in the trunk, Eng rode 35 miles across the Hudson River to Morristown, N.J., in the darkness of night, leaving his mom’s body inside the family’s home there, authorities say.
Lopez and Eng at some point called O’Rourke on speakerphone, with Eng explaining everything that had transpired and convincing O’Rourke to return to New Jersey with them the day after the slaying to stuff Chin’s remains into a garbage can outside the home for trash pickup, authorities allege.
Lopez, who allegedly helped sanitize the crime scenes, even sent a chilling text message to O’Rourke deof scribing the aftermath the killing, the complaint says.
“It’s all clean,” Lopez allegedly texted. “The hardest part was backing up the car.”
O’Rourke agreed to make the second trip with them and loaded bloodied clothing taken from the Manhattan apartment into the washing machine in Morristown as Eng poured detergent into the appliance, authorities claim.
Chin’s remains were discovered Tuesday still in the garbage receptacle, one day after a concerned relative — apparently the victim’s other son, Brandon — reported the family matriarch missing.
Investigators also found the duffel bag they say was used to
transport her body filled with bloody clothes and tape, prosecutors said.
More blood was found in the Tribeca home, along with signs of a desperate crime scene cleanup, authorities said. Detectives at the Tribeca crime scene used a substance that confirmed the presence of bloodstains no longer visible to the naked eye.
Eng and his two alleged accomplices were arrested Wednesday. All three are charged with concealing a corpse and tampering with physical evidence.
Eng, a student at SUNY New-Paltz who dropped out in December, denied playing any part in his mother's death.
“No I didn't,” Eng insisted as he was led from the 1st Precinct stationhouse in Lower Manhattan. “I love her very much. She gave me everything.”
But O'Rourke spilled the details of her three-way conversation with the other suspects when questioned by homicide detectives about the disappearance of Chin, prosecutors say.
Eng acknowledged to cops that he hadn't seen his mother since Jan. 31 but denied killing her. He claimed the motivation for his trip to the family's New Jersey home was to grab his antique coin collection — so he could put it up for sale to finally cover his own rent.
Nobody has yet been charged with killing Chin, but additional charges are expected against Eng once an autopsy is completed to determine his mother's cause of death. The Morris County (N.J.) medical examiner transported Chin's body to the Manhattan medical examiner's office for an autopsy. No results were available Thursday.
All three suspects were arraigned early Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where O'Rourke broke down in tears.
A judge ordered Eng held without bail while driver Lopez's bail was set at $100,000.
O'Rourke, a student at SUNY New Paltz, was ordered held on $50,000 bail as her family wept in the courtroom.
“You see us here panicking,” her father told a reporter. “No comment. You're fake news anyway.”
All three suspects are now being held at Rikers Island.
“There's not even a suggestion here she had anything to do with a more serious crime,” said O'Rourke attorney Sarah Kaufmann. “This woman is a young person in a terrible situation.”