By Stephen Stirling
A Flushing man was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the brutal murder of his former girlfriend and her brother in 2005, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Following a four-week trial Jin C. Lin, 27, of 59-12 155th St., was sentenced Monday morning in Queens Supreme Court by Justice Gregory L. Lasak after being convicted of first-degree murder and attempted robbery in May, Brown said.
Just over three years ago, Lin stabbed his former girlfriend, Cho Man Ng, and her brother, Sek Man Ng, 59 times with a butcher knife in what an officer investigating the murder called “a crime of passion,” the DA said.
“The defendant has been convicted of taking the lives of two innocent victims in a horrifying stabbing in their home,” Brown said. “The victims, a brother and sister, were stabbed a combined total of 59 times. The defendant has now been rightfully sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison as a punishment and to protect society.”
Brown said Lin went to Cho Man Ng's home in Flushing around 3 p.m. on May 12, 2005, where he was let in by her brother.
Sgt. Michael Breidenbach, then head of the 107th Precinct Detectives Squad, said Sek Man Ng wrote in an electronic journal that evening how “uncomfortable” he was having let Lin into the apartment.
Lin had arrived at the door, saying he was there to retrieve a fishing pole from Cho Man Ng and asked the Queens College freshman if he could wait for her to return from work, Breidenbach said.
A few hours later, Lin bound Ng's brother with tape and placed a butcher knife to his neck before searching the apartment for cash while he waited for Cho to return home. When Cho returned home several hours later, Brown said Lin used the butcher knife to stab the siblings nearly five dozen times in the neck and body.
Confronted with the evidence, Lin soon confessed to tying up and fatally stabbing first Sek and then Cho, as she came through the door, claiming he was trying to steal money to buy a plane ticket back to Hong Kong, according to Breidenbach.
But police were dubious about the motive after they recovered such a ticket already purchased by Lin.
“I believe it was more a crime of passion,” Breidenbach told TimesLedger in 2005.
Reach reporter Stephen Stirling by e-mail at Sstirling@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 138.
