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Lower East Side Murder-Suicide Fire
By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 17, 2005
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 17, 2005
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Last night, the top floor of a co-op highrise at Delancey and Columbia Streets was on fire, attracting over 100 firefighters and a police helicopter. As firefighters cleared the smoke and wreck, more details emerged: Bao Lun Zheng shot and stabbed various family members, killing his son and niece, wounding his wife and nephew, and a fire left three charred bodies. It's unclear whether Zheng, his son, and his niece died from wounds or the fire, or how the fire started, but the Post reports the family returned to the apartment to find Zheng acting "deranged." When the events unfolded, neighbors were startled to hear Zheng's wife, covered in blood, yelling that her son was dead. Neighbors said the family was very quiet and believed they were vendors in Chinatown. Another neighbor told the NY Times the fire "sounded like a sonic boom," and the fire did cause one window to fly 100 feet from the building. The two-alarm fire was put out in about an hour; the news footage was very dramatic, with smoke pluming out of the top floor windows.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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