Roommate charged with murder for fatally beating Brooklyn mom with hammer

NEW YORK – A man was charged Thursday for brutally beating a Brooklyn mother to death and assaulting her two young children with a hammer in the apartment where they were all roommates, police said, as her widower anxiously waited at his kids’ hospital bedside.

Liyong Ye, 47 – taken into custody Wednesday afternoon moments after the carnage in the Sunset Park apartment was discovered – has been charged with murder, attempted murder, assault and weapons possession.

He allegedly killed Zhao Zhao, 43, inside the apartment on 52nd Street near Fifth Avenue shared by the two families, plus another man.

Zhao’s 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter were also attacked and were rushed to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn. They were then transferred to Bellevue Medical Center, where their father and uncle were pulling for them on Thursday.

“He is very scared for his kids,” the uncle, Chen Lin, said of the father.

The dad drove from Ohio, where he works as a cook, to be with his children, according to the uncle.

“He is doing really badly,” said Lin, 41. “Not sleeping, not eating. He came here yesterday from Ohio at 3 or 4 p.m.”

Lin described the young victims as being as in bad shape but expected them to survive. One was taken off intubation on Thursday afternoon, he said.

Witnesses recounted a horrifying scene in Sunset Park the day before.

“I was standing right here. I heard the ambulance first,” said Kokila Frank, 69, who lives across the street from the crime.

As she saw a bloody child being carried into an ambulance, she initially thought the young victims had fallen out of window, he said.

But then Frank, a retired librarian, realized that window bars “everywhere” made that impossible. She also saw cops go after Ye.

“I heard the police screaming across the street ‘Get him! Get him!’ ” she recounted. “So the guy was trying to run away and they arrested him.”

Ye, covered in blood as he left the building, was busted by responding police officers and taken to Maimonides Medical Center, where he underwent a mental health evaluation.

He has no criminal history in New York and police have yet to determine a motive.

“It was a horrific and senseless act of violence that took the life of a married mother of two,” New York Police Department Chief of Patrol John Chell said at a press conference shortly after the incident.

Video viewed by the New York Daily News showed two cops on the second floor of the building holding the bloodied children as they waited for an elevator.

“I don’t think we should wait,” an officer said as he held the girl’s limp body.

“Go! Go!” the male officer responded as he held the boy.

Both officers then raced toward a stairwell.

After the murder, the suspect called the third roommate and told him to “Come pick up my son,” according to state Sen. Iwen Chu.

When the roommate arrived, he found the bloodied bodies and called 911.

On Thursday, Ye was transferred from the precinct to Brooklyn Criminal Court for his arraignment.

He wore a white Tyvek suit and had his head bowed and his eyes squeezed shut as he walked to a car, ignoring questions. After detectives fastened his seat belt for him, he put his head on the car door as they drove off.

The victim’s husband returns from Ohio to visit once a month, a common arrangement for immigrant families struggling to make ends meet, according to Chu.

The happily married couple came to the U.S. about six years ago, said Lin. The children had been “very good,” too, according to the uncle.

But he said the family hadn’t gotten along with Ye for a long time, adding that the alleged killer “had a problem” with them.

Neighbors said they’d known of discord between the roommates before it turned into a horror scene.

“I heard them. They’ve been fighting for a long time – years, I think,” said Jason Zhen, 16, who lives on the same floor. “Last year, I heard them. Two days ago, on Monday night, I heard them fight as well. They both yelled. I thought it was personal.”

“I know the kids,” he added. “The kids were good. They’d play outside.”

Frank said that the Sunset Park block is not used to this level of violence.

“This is a very quiet neighborhood,” she said. “It’s shocking, especially to see the babies like that and the mother dead.

“You get angry, OK? You use your words, OK? But don’t take a hammer,” Frank continued. “The kids seeing this. (Ye’s) son saw everything … Even if the babies survive, the 5-year-old will remember.”