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Alleged Duck Sauce Killer's Full Suicide Note Revealed By His Widow's Lawyer
A lawyer representing Dorothy Hirsch, the widow of alleged "Duck Sauce Killer" Glenn Hirsch, is fighting to have her estranged husband's suicide note submitted to a grand jury in her firearm possession case.
A recent court filing has put the lengthy suicide note left behind by the murder suspect known as the “Duck Sauce Killer” into the public record.
Glenn Hirsch, 51, sustained a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound earlier this month just hours before he was set to appear in a New York court to face murder charges. His suicide came after he allegedly became “overwhelmed” by the media attention surrounding the 2021 murder of Chinese food deliveryman Zhiwen Yan, 41, whom Hirsch was accused of fatally shooting.
Glenn’s estranged wife, Dorothy Hirsch, 62, is currently facing firearm charges in connection with the case. She was arrested in June following a raid of her Queens home, where officials found several guns in a closet that her defense says Glenn used for storage. The two lived separately at the time of his death.
“She had absolutely no part in obtaining the firearms, nor did she have any knowledge they were inside of her residence,” Glenn wrote in his suicide letter, dated Aug. 5.
As a result of the suicide and the note, Dorothy Hirsch’s attorney, Mark Bederow, had requested that the Queens District Attorney's office drop the charges but, as indicated in the recent letter, the office declined to take Glenn’s suicide note into consideration and opted to continue to pursue a grand just indictment against Dorothy.
On Monday, Bederow wrote Queens Assistant District Attorney Thomas Salmon, demanding that his office present Glenn’s suicide letter to the grand jury considering Dorothy's indictment.
The suicide note in its entirety was attached to that letter and, in the seven-page dying declaration — which was e-mailed to several people involved in the case, including Justice Kenneth Holder and employees in the district attorney’s office, by Hirsch before his death — the suspect proclaimed his innocence while criticizing the NYPD and the Queens County District Attorney’s Office.
“My indictment and subsequent arrest in connection with this matter is one of the most obscene and egregious cases of defamation and wrongful arrest in recent memory,” Glenn wrote in the e-mail. “It is a textbook case of sloppy police work, confirmation bias, political pressure and a rush to judgment.”
Hirsch was accused of harassing and stalking employees with the Great Wall Chinese food restaurant in Queens after allegedly becoming enraged at not getting enough duck sauce packets with a food order he placed in November 2021. The months-long harassment continued into April, when Glenn allegedly tailed Great Wall driver Zhiwen Yan on his delivery route and then gunned him down at a Queens intersection.
Media outlets dubbed Glenn “The Duck Sauce Killer.”
“Notwithstanding the typical puffery and creative license afforded a free press, their (the press’s) actions undermined my fundamental right to a presumption of innocence,” Glenn wrote in his final letter. “It is clear to me that the DA’s Office and the tabloid news media acted with intentional malice with respect to this case.”
Glenn wrote at length about things that could have been argued during the trial, including his version of events and his claims that the media allegedly got it all wrong. For instance, Glenn stated, “there was absolutely no dispute concerning duck sauce, soy sauce, or any other condiment.”
“In a ridiculous and feeble attempt to portray me as someone who is ‘condiment obsessed,’ and overly vexatious or disturbed, the NYPD took photographs of my refrigerator, wrongfully reporting that it was filled with condiments,” Glenn wrote.
He went on to try and clear the name of his wife, whom he referred to as “a woman of impeccable character,” as outlined in a previous motion by Bederow, who noted that both she and Glenn said that he'd used her closet for storage without telling her what he had stored there.
Bederow told Oxygen.com he hoped the district attorney’s office would dismiss the charges against his client.
“All of the evidence clearly established that the guns belonged to Glenn. None of the evidence comes close to establishing she knew what he kept in the bags and boxes he maintained in her closet,” said Bederow. “The DA is indicting first, investigating second — which is not a good model for prosecution.”
According to Bederow’s recent filing, the district attorney’s office declined to share the suicide letter with the grand jury for three reasons: that it is hearsay; that Glenn may not have been competent when alleging Dorothy’s lack of knowledge of the guns; and that the letter has not been authenticated.
Bederow acknowledged the Yan family was “denied justice” upon Glenn’s suicide but said, “justice is not served by prosecuting a good woman because of her relationship to Glenn.”
The Queens District Attorney’s Office did not respond to Oxygen.com’s requests for comment.
Glenn maintained in his noted that he believed his case was “winnable” but said the damage to his life was already done, according to the letter.
“I’m not one who would ever willingly give up the fight,” Glenn wrote. “I may bend, but I have never been broken. But the pain associated with this series of events is too much to bear. I haven’t made an emotional decision but rather an intellectual one. Try as I may, I’ve analyzed the problem, and there is no solution.”
Dorothy Hirsch remains out on bail.
