A transgender woman who was convicted of a sword attack that left her wife dead and her mother-in-law injured in San Dimas was sentenced Monday to 37 years to life in state prison.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mike Camacho imposed the term on Weichien “Evelyn” Huang, 45, who was convicted last week of the first-degree murder of her 47-year-old wife, Chen Chen Fei, on July 18, 2024, at the home the couple shared, along with the attempted murder of her mother-in-law the same day.
Jurors also convicted Huang of one misdemeanor count each of injuring a spouse and destroying a wireless communications device stemming from an alleged prior incident of domestic violence involving Fei in May 2023.
Speaking through a Mandarin interpreter over the phone, Fei’s mother said the defendant was “acting like a vampire,” using the sword to draw as much blood as she could and “enjoying” seeing the blood during the attack.
“She doesn’t show any regret at all,” the woman said, adding that she can’t understand “what kind of hate would cause her to kill like that.”
Deputy District Attorney Brittany Saleeby told jurors in her closing argument that Huang was “angry, dangerous, violent and controlling” and called Fei’s killing a “targeted attack,” while defense attorney Magaly Cole countered that her client — who testified that she has no memory of the crime — should be convicted of the less serious offense of involuntary manslaughter.
Jurors heard during the trial from the defendant, who told them she had taken medication for at least 15 years to treat chronic pain and had no memory of what happened for four days, including the day her wife was killed.
Under cross-examination, she testified that she normally kept the sword — one of two she owned — in the living room and said she didn’t have any memory of plunging the weapon into her wife.
When asked if it was the first time she has ever had no memory of a very significant event in her life, Huang responded, “Yes.”
Huang said her last memory before her wife’s death was sending text messages to her mother about coming to the United States because she hoped it would help to control the behavior of her wife, from whom she had filed for divorce.
Jurors also heard from the victim’s mother, who testified that she routinely stayed with her daughter and the defendant — whom she referred to as her “son-in-law” — for at least three months a year and observed some “pretty intense” arguments between the two, including one in which a half-empty bottle of alcohol was thrown at her daughter.
The now 74-year-old woman said she heard the two arguing late at night about their divorce case, subsequently awoke upon hearing noises from her daughter’s room and rushed in to see the defendant holding a sword and standing next to her only child, who was in a pool of blood.
She testified that the defendant then repeatedly slashed her with the sword and told her that her upcoming birthday would be the day of her death before she was able to grab the sword and escape from the home to seek help.
In her closing argument, the prosecutor told jurors that the defendant used a sword to stab her wife 13 times while the victim was either lying down or sitting on her own bed.
“This was a surprise attack and the defendant is a calculated coward for doing that,” Saleeby said.
The prosecutor said Huang next attacked the victim’s mother, saying that Huang took “numerous slashes at her” and that the older woman managed to wrestle the sword away from her and “had the injuries to prove it.”
The deputy district attorney contended that Huang — who had filed for divorce while her wife was in Taiwan with her mother and was due in court on criminal charges stemming from the couple’s May 2023 run-in — “needed Chen Chen out of her life.” She noted that the defendant had told her wife, “You should kill yourself. You don’t deserve a life” during a 2022 argument recorded by Fei.
The deputy district attorney said Huang knew that she was “going to go down for murder” if her mother-in-law survived last year’s attack.
The prosecutor said the defendant then unsuccessfully tried to end her own life after her mother-in-law fled from the house.
Saleeby called the defense’s contention that Huang was unconscious of her actions and had blacked out an attempt to “avoid accountability,” saying that “there is no evidence of unconsciousness that you can rely on.”
The prosecutor said medical records indicated that Huang admitted to having suicidal thoughts and had possibly tried to overdose on medication.
“I want to make abundantly clear that this is a murder,” the deputy district attorney told the panel.
Huang’s attorney countered that it was a case of involuntary manslaughter, noting earlier that such an offense involves “a killing that happens without meaning to … when the person is unconscious or impaired.”
“… Unconsciousness doesn’t mean you’re on the ground asleep or can’t move,” Cole said, telling jurors that the most important instruction jurors had received was “voluntary intoxication causing unconsciousness.”
The defense attorney told jurors that it was “not a free pass” and “takes into account what is in your mind.”
Huang didn’t try to flee or conceal evidence and was still at the house in her own bed when Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrived, Cole said.
“She was in medical crisis,” said Cole, who told jurors earlier in the trial that “the evidence will not show an intent to kill herself” and that she was “suffering from a serious medical condition.”
The defense lawyer said the prosecution’s contention that her client had downed a bottle of pills in an apparent suicide attempt after her wife’s death doesn’t make any sense because the woman was basically catatonic when authorities arrived at the home soon afterward and wound up being intubated.
She also accused her client’s mother-in-law of purposely “misgendering” her client.
Cole noted that there were a lot of pictures and videos that were “upsetting to watch” and were “playing on your emotions.”
“… I’m asking you to follow the law whether you like it or not,” she said.
Huang has remained behind bars since her arrest by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies the day of the crimes.