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NYC Student Convicted Of Mother's Violent Murder In Tribeca Apartment Gets 22 Years To Life
Jared Eng reported his mother missing in 2019, days after he beat and stabbed her to death in her Tribeca apartment. Days later, Paula Chin was found in a garbage can at the family's New Jersey home.
A young man who confessed to murdering his mother in an alleged attempt to collect his multi-million dollar inheritance early has been sentenced to decades behind bars.
Jared Eng, 25, will spend no less than 22 years in prison for the “brutal” murder of his mother, Paula Chin, 65, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Wednesday. Prosecutors accused Eng of murdering his mother at her Tribeca apartment in January 2019 and leaving her body in a garbage can at their weekend home in New Jersey.
Eng pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree murder on Sept. 16.
“This sentencing finally closes a challenging chapter for this family and their loved ones,” DA Bragg stated. “I thank our prosecutors for their diligent work and commitment to ensuring accountability.”
Eng, a former student at the State University of New York - New Paltz, reported his mother missing on Feb. 4, 2019, days after investigators believed she was killed.
Eng’s brother, Brandon, told investigators he last saw his mother on Jan. 31 at her Vestry Street, Tribeca apartment, where Jared Eng also lived.
For the next few days, according to prosecutors, Jared Eng “sanitized the apartment” and sent incriminating texts following Chin’s disappearance, including “It’s done,” “I’m free,” and that he “got rid of [his] problem,” according to the district attorney.
“Within days of the murder, Eng began the process of changing the passwords on Ms. Chin’s bank accounts, searching for inheritance lawyers,and researching various ways to dispose of his mother’s body, including a Google search for ‘DIY bone meal,’” according to Wednesday’s release.
On Feb. 5, 2021 — one day after Eng reported his mother missing — Chin's body was found stuffed in a garbage can at her Morristown, New Jersey, residence, about 30 miles west of Chin’s main Manhattan home.
A postmortem examination revealed that Chin had sustained “multiple stab wounds and signs of blunt impact to her head,” according to the district attorney’s office.
Multiple news outlets, including Fox News, reported Chin’s throat had also been cut.
“Bloody rubber gloves were found during the investigation, along with blood stains and duct tape,” according to Manhattan officials. Police reportedly found these items in the garage of the Morristown home, according to a criminal complaint cited by the New York Times.
Prosecutors accused two of Eng’s friends, then-18-year-old Jennifer Lopez and then-21-year-old Caitlyn O’Rourke, of helping Eng move Chin’s body between New York and New Jersey, possibly because Eng didn’t know how to drive.
O’Rourke and Eng were reportedly in a romantic relationship, the New York Times reported.
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Eng allegedly admitted to the women that he killed his mother, claiming she took “a while to die.”
Investigators reviewed surveillance footage showing Eng loading a duffel bag into Chin’s vehicle, which was then allegedly driven by Lopez, on Jan. 31, 2021, according to the complaint.
O’Rourke allegedly told authorities that she joined Eng and Lopez when they returned to New Jersey to move the body for a second time on Feb. 1.
After Chin’s body was discovered, police found a bloodied carpet, blanket and duct tape inside her vehicle, according to the complaint
The three friends were arrested on Feb. 6, 2021, the day after Chin’s body was found.
Lopez was charged with three counts of first-degree hindering prosecution, three counts of tampering with physical evidence and one count of concealment of a human corpse. O’Rourke was charged with concealing a human corpse and tampering with evidence.
Both women’s cases are still pending.
Prosecutors believe Eng killed his mother because he felt cheated when the inheritance from his father didn’t go directly to him and his brother after their dad died in 2008. Instead, it reportedly went to a trust for the boys, which they couldn’t collect until after their mother’s passing, Eng said in a 2019 jailhouse interview with the New York Post.
