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'Don't worry, Mom'
`I have nothing to do with this' Min Chen tells mother
Wenying Hu `in a panic' but insists son innocent
MARTIN REGG COHN AND JIN YUEJUE
TORONTO STAR
SHANGHAI―The call woke up Wenying Hu at 6:30 a.m. A voice from Canada, a police officer speaking in Chinese.
Telling her, still half-asleep, that Min Chen, her only son, was behind bars.
In fact, the police probe wasn't a complete surprise. Chen had warned his mother early last week that detectives were on his trail, questioning classmates about his movements.
But in his daily long-distance conversations with his worried mother in Shanghai, in the days leading up to his arrest, Chen kept reassuring her that all was well in Canada. That she had every reason to be proud of him, even as police were poised to charge him, last Thursday, with kidnapping and murdering 9-year-old Cecilia Zhang.
"He told me, `Don't worry, Mom, I have nothing to do with this,'" a bewildered Hu, 48, recalled last night from her Shanghai apartment.
Her son could explain everything: "The police are investigating all my classmates, but I didn't do that. So don't worry. You should be strong."
Today, Hu is anything but strong. She is falling apart ― worried sick about the charges against her son, frustrated by the language barrier that has prevented her from talking to his lawyer, and desperate to get a Canadian visitor's visa.
"I don't know what to do now, I'm in a panic," she repeated, pleading for the phone numbers of the Chinese consulate in Toronto. "Can you get the number for me? Please help."
The Chinese Canadian police officer on the phone last week hadn't told her that Min Chen was an accused kidnapper and alleged killer. Or that a police chief had called her 21-year-old son "the most despicable of criminals ... a child murderer."
Looking grim and pale, the mother only learned the full details yesterday, from the Canadian reporter on her doorstep.
"The police didn't tell me how serious the situation was, they just told me they took my son and need to question him," said Hu, a civilian clerk working for the Shanghai police.
Now she knows that her son's photo has been brandished by Peel police as exhibit A: the chief suspect in the death of an innocent girl. But Hu, too, insists her son is innocent.
"I think it's unfair now what they are doing in Toronto, because the legal process hasn't begun," she said yesterday. "They shouldn't say my son was guilty. It's unfair what the police said."
Now she consoles herself with the last words uttered by her son before his arrest: "Mom, you should trust me: It wasn't me."
How could it be? Hu last saw her son in Canada last year when she spent two months checking up on him in Toronto. The trip soaked up much of her precious savings, but it was money well spent: looking over his school, meeting the teachers, satisfying herself that the costly investment in Chen's English education was paying dividends.
He mentioned the Zhang family "once or twice," but only in passing.
Chen had a new spiked haircut, but he was the same sweet boy: "My son is shy, and also soft."
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`I can't think of any reason or motive that he would do anything like that. He has no financial problems.'
Wenying Hu, mother of suspect Min Chen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`I have nothing to do with this' Min Chen tells mother
Wenying Hu `in a panic' but insists son innocent
MARTIN REGG COHN AND JIN YUEJUE
TORONTO STAR
SHANGHAI―The call woke up Wenying Hu at 6:30 a.m. A voice from Canada, a police officer speaking in Chinese.
Telling her, still half-asleep, that Min Chen, her only son, was behind bars.
In fact, the police probe wasn't a complete surprise. Chen had warned his mother early last week that detectives were on his trail, questioning classmates about his movements.
But in his daily long-distance conversations with his worried mother in Shanghai, in the days leading up to his arrest, Chen kept reassuring her that all was well in Canada. That she had every reason to be proud of him, even as police were poised to charge him, last Thursday, with kidnapping and murdering 9-year-old Cecilia Zhang.
"He told me, `Don't worry, Mom, I have nothing to do with this,'" a bewildered Hu, 48, recalled last night from her Shanghai apartment.
Her son could explain everything: "The police are investigating all my classmates, but I didn't do that. So don't worry. You should be strong."
Today, Hu is anything but strong. She is falling apart ― worried sick about the charges against her son, frustrated by the language barrier that has prevented her from talking to his lawyer, and desperate to get a Canadian visitor's visa.
"I don't know what to do now, I'm in a panic," she repeated, pleading for the phone numbers of the Chinese consulate in Toronto. "Can you get the number for me? Please help."
The Chinese Canadian police officer on the phone last week hadn't told her that Min Chen was an accused kidnapper and alleged killer. Or that a police chief had called her 21-year-old son "the most despicable of criminals ... a child murderer."
Looking grim and pale, the mother only learned the full details yesterday, from the Canadian reporter on her doorstep.
"The police didn't tell me how serious the situation was, they just told me they took my son and need to question him," said Hu, a civilian clerk working for the Shanghai police.
Now she knows that her son's photo has been brandished by Peel police as exhibit A: the chief suspect in the death of an innocent girl. But Hu, too, insists her son is innocent.
"I think it's unfair now what they are doing in Toronto, because the legal process hasn't begun," she said yesterday. "They shouldn't say my son was guilty. It's unfair what the police said."
Now she consoles herself with the last words uttered by her son before his arrest: "Mom, you should trust me: It wasn't me."
How could it be? Hu last saw her son in Canada last year when she spent two months checking up on him in Toronto. The trip soaked up much of her precious savings, but it was money well spent: looking over his school, meeting the teachers, satisfying herself that the costly investment in Chen's English education was paying dividends.
He mentioned the Zhang family "once or twice," but only in passing.
Chen had a new spiked haircut, but he was the same sweet boy: "My son is shy, and also soft."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`I can't think of any reason or motive that he would do anything like that. He has no financial problems.'
Wenying Hu, mother of suspect Min Chen
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