SANTA CLARA, Calif. (TCD) — A 27-year-old software engineer is in custody on suspicion of punching and beating his wife to death last week, leaving blood all over himself.
According to a news release from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, on Tuesday, Jan. 16, at approximately 11 a.m., Santa Clara Police officers conducted a welfare check at a residence on Valley Way after a concerned acquaintance tried to contact Liren Chen, but he failed to answer his phone or the door. From outside the home, the reporting party allegedly saw Chen on his knees, staring blankly with his hands in the air.
Police made entry and found Chen standing in the bedroom covered in blood. The district attorney’s office said his right hand was extremely swollen and purple, and there were scratches on his arm.
Officers also located Chen’s wife, identified by the San Francisco Standard as Xuanyi Yu, deceased on the floor with severe blunt force injuries to her head.
First responders asked Chen how he injured his hand, to which he allegedly replied, “I punched my wife,” and he suggested the fatal attack happened the day before. Officers took him into custody, and he was transported to a hospital.
The district attorney’s office charged Chen on suspicion of his wife’s murder. His arraignment was postponed to Jan. 19 due to his hospitalization. Chen faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted, the San Francisco Standard reports.
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, “Domestic violence deaths have been falling in our county but that does not measure the depth and destructiveness of the violence.”
According to their LinkedIn Profiles, both the suspect and his wife worked as software engineers for Google.
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