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Felicia Chen pleads guilty to 3 counts of manslaughter

GeneralFelicia Chen pleads guilty to 3 counts of manslaughter

Chen was in a stressed state due to an abusive relationship and rejection by the children’s paternal grandparents, psychiatrist says

Felicia Chen, the twenty-three-year-old mother who was indicted on three counts of murder for the unlawful death of three of her four children on April 27, 2013, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter when she appeared this morning before Supreme Court Justice John “Troadio” Gonzalez.

The court has set Monday, July 14, as sentencing day for Chen.

Early last month, Chen, who was unrepresented by an attorney, attempted to plead guilty for the three murder indictments, but Justice Gonzalez advised her that she could not plead guilty to murder and that she must be represented by an attorney.

Chen is accused of the drowning deaths of her children, Trinaya Teul, 1; Triana Tuel, 3; and Thomas Teul, 4.

She is currently being represented by attorney Leslie Mendez, who worked on the appeal of Lavern “Anti-Christ” Longsworth and managed to get her murder conviction reduced to manslaughter and her life imprisonment sentence set aside.

Following the deaths of her children, Chen had undergone a psychiatric evaluation that confirmed that she was clinically depressed. Eventually, she was diagnosed as being well enough to stand trial and she was removed from a hospital’s care to the remand section of the Belize Central Prison.

Prior to her appearance in the Supreme Court, another psychiatric evaluation was performed on Chen by Wesley Peter A. Quimbo, MD, a psychiatrist.

Quimbo’s finding was that Chen, when she killed her children, was not fully responsible for her actions. Her responsibility was found to be diminished due to her psychological state, and this finding was instrumental in the Crown’s amendment of the murder indictment.

After the guilty of manslaughter pleas were accepted, the prosecution’s facts of the case were read in court. At this point, Chen appeared sad, and her eyes began to fill with tears.

Following the reading of the facts, Gonzalez asked Chen whether or not she accepted the facts as read by the Crown. Chen replied that she accepted the facts.

Chen did not seem remorseful, noted Judge Gonzalez. He asked her if she felt remorse for what she did.

Chen replied, “Yes, I am. I know that what I did was wrong and unforgettable, but I beg you to please give me the minimum time because I need to be with my daughter and I need to provide her with many things and to tell her I am sorry.”

Before mitigation was heard, Chen’s sister, Rosella Chen, 29, an employee of Angelus Press, asked the court to be lenient on her sister, because she still has one child alive who still needs her.

“Not a day goes by that we wish we had comforted her about her situation [speaking about the living daughter of Chen]. Many nights we tried to, but we can’t. She already lost her father and brothers and sisters. Her father has not been in her life. The only person we are now trying with is her mother, Felicia. So I ask you to please be lenient on my sister,” Rosella Chan said.

After she had spoken, both Chen and her sister began to cry.

Chen’s last words to the court were, “On April 27, 2013, I, Felicia Chen was not in my right mind. I went to Cleopatra White Clinic and was treated for depression. I know I was not the best mother, but I loved my children. I was a very hardworking mother, but when I couldn’t find a babysitter, I had to stop work. I had to sell my body. I would never think of hurting my children. My babies were my joy, my life, my everything, and not a minute goes by that I don’t think of them. I wish I could hug them, but I do realize I have my oldest daughter to live for. I would not do the same thing again to her, nor try to hurt her. I will not try to kill myself again, either.”

In mitigation, attorney Mendez told the court that they came to the court on behalf of Chen to beg for mercy in sentencing.

Chen, she added, in noting the particulars of the case, has suffered from a borderline personality disorder of some sort since she was a 15-year-old student at Saint Catherine Academy.

Then, Mendez noted, she became pregnant and had to take full responsibility for her child, so she could not continue her education.

According to Mendez, during Chen’s relationship with her children’s father, she was abused physically and mentally, and their children had to endure this. The children’s father was not dependable financially.

Due to the abuse, Chen later had to move in with the children’s paternal grandparents, who later asked her to leave, and when she tried to seek help through a social program, she was denied assistance due to the fact that the children had a father who could provide for them, so she was forced to go back into her abusive relationship with the children’s father.

Chen later went back to live with her mother, but while living there, there was a lot of pressure on her to find employment, and pressure on her to re-enter a relationship with the children’s father, especially since at that time she already had four children.

Mendez said that Chen told her that on the day of the incident, while on the bus, she kept hearing voices from the family members, such as their need for peace. They were tired of hearing babies crying, and they were tired of paying for babies’ expenses.

So when the bus made a stop at the police checkpoint, she got off and took the children with her and went towards the sea.

She said she then heard a voice of a man who kept telling her to drown the children. She was hesitant at first, but the voice kept saying, ‘you must do it, you have to do it’.

Mendez submitted that these hallucinations were what led to the tragic events of that day.

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