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Here are Miss Chen's qualifications for the 2006 Da Er Wen (达尔文) Award:
- Currently on trial in Shanghai for murdering and dismembering her husband, He Lei, last August in West Lafayette, Indiana, where both, at one time or another, were graduate students at Purdue University.
- Chen, a Sichuan native, admitted to shooting He in the head with a gun she bought online using the name Jack Washington. "When I saw blood gush out of his head, I tried to stop it by covering it with clothes, but I could not," Chen told the court. "I held his head and burst into tears." Chen said she shot her husband because he wanted a divorce.
- The reason He wanted a divorce is because Chen was facing deportation the US ... because of a 2004 assault charge ... in which she allegedly stabbed her husband twice in the chest. Some reports said the assault happened while the couple was having sex. Mr. He spent US$50,000 to bail out his wife and helped her hire a lawyer. After three months of counseling, a restraining order against Chen was lifted and the couple got back toggether. Chen is still listed as a wanted criminal on the Purdue University Police Department website. She is wanted for "FAILURE TO APPEAR-ATTEMPTED MURDER, BATTERY COMMITTED BY MEANS OF A DEADLY WEAPON, CRIMINAL RECKLESSNESS."
- Although Chen admitted to the murder, she says she is not the person who chopped He up into eight pieces. "I wanted to put him into the refrigerator, but he was too heavy to move," Chen said. She says an American guy she met on the internet did the dismembering for US$2,000 (although she only thought he was going to move the body). The guy's name? Jack. Police have found no proof this guy existed.
- But the police did find receipts at Chen's Indiana apartment that show she went shopping after the murder. She bought garbage bags, gloves and cleaning detergent. She claims "Jack" told her to buy these items.
- Less than a week after the murder, Chen purchased a plane ticket to Shanghai using her dead husband's credit card. She managed to board the plane in Chicago using her dead husband's passport with a doctored photo. She was discovered by authorities at Pudong International Airport.
- Officials searched her possessions and discovered to-do notes reading "have to finish dealing the body" and "purchase air ticket with his credit card."
- Evidently, Chen did not follow her own advice. He's dismembered body was found in the trunk of the couple's car in the parking garage of an airport hotel in Chicago. Someone complained to police about the stench.
- A psychological examination of Chen found she didn't suffer from any mental illness. This finding surprised her family, who claimed she suffered from an inherited mental affliction.
Also receiving votes:
He Lei: For getting back together with Chen.
O'Hare Airport: For letting Chen get on the plane in this time of heightened security and vigilance.
The United States: For making it so easy to buy a gun online.
Related:
Wife admits dismembering husband (China Daily ... headline is wrong)
Wife held over killing (Shanghai Star)
Woman's fear of divorce kills husband (Shanghai Daily)
For more information about the Darwin Awards, go here. Technically, Chen is not dead, but at least she is removing herself from society.
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From a jurisdictional standpoint, I don't think that the nationality of the victim is relevant
I think the only thing that would be different in your hypo is that the US would probably be asking a little louder to try her in the US.(all they can do is ask nicely)
"The question I'm still wondering about is whether Chen would have been arrested, held and tried in China if, all other elements in the case being the same, her husband (or any murder victim in this case) were not a P.R.C. citizen. And would the U.S. be asking for her return if the victim were a U.S. citizen?
A quick answer to your first question is YES. US may be inclined to require PRC to extradite Chen if her hubby is an American but it'll more than likely to turn out in vain coz most countries don't extradite their own citizen including PRC. It's not a theoretical legal question but pretty practical, such cases happen very often.
The legal questions here are interesting.
There are no extradition treaties between the U.S. and China, but what is it in Chinese law that gives them jurisdiction over a crime alleged to have happened in the U.S.? Is it because the victim was a P.R.C. citizen, the suspect a P.R.C. citizen, or both? And if either of them weren't a P.R.C. passport holder, would the P.R.C. still be trying the suspect? (Again, a legal question.)
Put another way, shouldn't this crime be prosecuted in the States? I'm no lawyer--don't even play one on TV--but maybe someone has seen this addressed somewhere? It's not in the linked stories.
Where's ChinaLawBlog? Maybe he can shed some light....
Another one for the courts. Why do I get this every time I post comments here:
Movable Type
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Status: 302 Moved Pragma: no-cache Location: http://blogs.gothamistllc.com/mt/mt-comments.fcgi?entry_id=58912
(But then it goes through)
test
Mark,
I think I just fixed that error right as you first posted, but please let us know if you continue to see errors.
thanks,
Neil
of course, right as I post that, I get the error. we'll continue to look into it.
Wow, what a story. And I thought Shanghai girls were tough...so happy my job working on tourist boats out of Chongqing years ago never worked out.
I'm gonna nominate He Lei for the Darwin award, principally because he is a) dead (call me a stickler for semantics here) b) stupid enough to not only bail her out, but support and go back to his clearly pyschotic girlfriend after she stabbed him twice.
Still a story worthy of the Darwin awards with all that superflous studity.
China exerts extraterritorial jurisdiction over its citizens. This means that a Chinese court can hear a case involving a PRC national pretty much anytime it wants.
The thing about the idea of jurisdiction is that a country can say it has jurisdiction over anything it wants. In practice this does not happen because 1) most developed legal systems have enough of a caseload that they don't want to take more cases, especially ones that will be difficult to try and 2) because usually criminals are caught in the country where they commit the crime in and that country exercises its jurisdiction.(an interesting twist on possession is 9/10ths of the law)
Mark, PRC got the jurisdiction over Chen if she is a PRC citizen committing a crime outside PRC with a sentence of fixed-term imprisonment more than 3 years under PRC Criminal Law.
She's incompetent, yes, but not quite Darwin material, IMO. No "OMG how STUPID is this girl" reaction when I'm reading this.
Now, the one who really would be eligible for a Darwin would be the hubby, cuz you don't think a guy would go back to the girl who stabbed him twice in the chest, but maybe he was just blinded by love?
Still not quite as deserving of a Darwin as some of the other idiots out there.
Thanks for sharing your insights, Jason and zhwu. Much obliged.
The question I'm still wondering about is whether Chen would have been arrested, held and tried in China if, all other elements in the case being the same, her husband (or any murder victim in this case) were not a P.R.C. citizen. And would the U.S. be asking for her return if the victim were a U.S. citizen (e.g. "Chinese Grad Student Kills, Dismembers West LaFayette Mayor Jan Mills")?
Again, these is just a theorhetical legal question, though I suspect Jason is spot on with his reference to caseloads as opposed to, say, blind justice.
"the assault happened while the couple was having sex."
Wow, how very "Basic Instinct"...
Just in case anyone has been wondering about the case. Chen Danlei was sentenced to 2 years suspended death on 9/4/2006, which equals to about 12-15 years under current Chinese legal system.
BTW, that picture is not Ms. Chen, but a drug dealer executed years ago.