Man Pleads Guilty to Double Murders; Sentenced to Life Without Parole

Man Pleads Guilty to Double Murders;
Sentenced to Life Without Parole

August 5, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Joe Scott, Director of Communications
Sandi Gibbons, Public Information Officer
Jane Robison, News Secretary
Shiara Dávila, Assistant PIO
(213) 974-3525

LOS ANGELES – A man who fled Los Angeles County more than nine years ago pleaded guilty today to murdering his estranged wife and her teenage son at the family home in 1998. He was sentenced to spend the remainder of his life in prison.

Fu Lin Wang, 61, entered the plea before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David S. Wesley, who immediately imposed sentence. The defendant, wearing an orange jail uniform and sitting in a wheelchair, spoke through a Mandarin interpreter as he answered questions from the judge and the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Vivian Moreno.

Moreno filed a felony complaint for arrest warrant against Wang in early March of this year. The resulting news stories carried in Chinese-language publications across the country led to a tip and the arrest of Wang in Chicago’s Chinatown in mid-March. He waived extradition and was returned to Los Angeles.

Wang, who also had been featured on television’s “America’s Most Wanted,” pleaded guilty to the first-degree murders of his estranged wife, Carol Lee, and his stepson, 18-year-old Michael Chu. The victims were shot to death at the family home in Alhambra on Dec. 14, 1998. Wang and Lee’s 9-year-old daughter was home at the time, but was not harmed.

The daughter, now a young woman, attended today’s hearing, but did not speak.

Wang admitted the special circumstance of multiple murders. He also admitted he personally used a handgun to commit the crimes and had two prior serious or violent felony convictions in 1995. The convictions for assault with a firearm and shooting into an inhabited dwelling were counted as strikes.

The defendant’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Frederick Brennan, concurred and the plea was accepted by Wesley.

The judge sentenced the defendant to life without the possibility of parole for the special circumstance murders, plus 75 years to life for the murder of his estranged wife and the related gun use and prior conviction allegations.

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