A 46-year-old Lincolnwood restaurant owner is accused of strangling to death a Chicago woman who was eight months pregnant with his child and then hiding her body, prosecutors said Thursday.
Cook County Judge Mary Marubio denied bail for 46-year-old Yaer Shen during a hearing livestreamed on YouTube on Thursday.
Shen was charged with first-degree murder, intentional homicide of an unborn child and concealing a homicidal death, according to Chicago police.
The victim, 40-year-old Bilian Fang, was last seen Oct. 9 in the 3000 block of South Lock Street near the city’s Chinatown neighborhood, according to prosecutors and a Chicago missing persons report. Fang’s body was found earlier this week in suburban Stickney.
According to prosecutors, the two were dating, and on the afternoon of Oct. 9, they left the Lincolnwood restaurant that Shen owns and drove to Shen’s home, where they began arguing about money.
Shen went into the home, where he lives with his ex-wife and children, while Fang walked to the front porch and began sobbing. Shen and Fang went into his vehicle again after his ex-wife told him there was a “crying woman” on the porch, prosecutors said.
Around 10:50 p.m. Fang called her 14-year-old daughter using Shen’s cellphone because Shen had broken hers the day before during a fight, according to prosecutors. Fang asked her daughter to contacted one of Fang’s friends and have him pick her up at 36th Street and California Avenue, prosecutors said.
After the friend went there but couldn’t find Fang, the teen called again and Shen answered saying that Fang “could go if she wanted to,” according to prosecutors.
Fang called her daughter again, and that’s when the teen heard Shen in the background arguing with Fang, prosecutors said. The daughter called a third time after midnight and nobody answered.
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The two continued fighting as Shen began driving, and after Fang slapped him in the face, Shen began choking her with his hands around her neck, according to prosecutors. He let go, leaving Fang still conscious, but after they continued to fight and Shen began to worry Fang would call police, he allegedly choked her again, and she lost consciousness.
Shen tried to perform CPR on her after she stopped breathing and then dumped her body in a water reclamation area in Stickney, covering her with branches and hurling her pink jacket into a wooded area, according to prosecutors and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Detectives using cellphone data tracked his whereabouts that night and obtained video of Shen at various points, including on southbound I-55 and near Morton College near a soccer field, where he stayed for about 45 minutes before driving to Stickney, and then back home, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said her body was found using the same cellphone data, and police found spotted her pink jacket, which contained her identification, keys, cash and a note handwritten in Cantonese, signed by Shen, which said: “I am sorry. I am not a good person. I made you suffer. I got scammed. I know it is irresponsible for me to leave you. I hope we don’t meet in another life.”
A Tuesday autopsy determined Fang died of multiple injuries from an assault, and her death was ruled a homicide, according to the medical examiner’s office. A separate autopsy was conducted on the unborn child, and the death was ruled a homicide, with a finding that the baby would have survived if it had been born at the time Fang was killed, according to prosecutors.
While in custody, Shen told police he had done “very bad things” and wanted to kill himself but couldn’t do it and also was afraid to go to prison so he didn’t turn himself in, prosecutors said.
Shen is due back in court on Nov. 22.