SANTA CLARA — A man has been charged with killing his wife earlier this week after a police call led to officers finding him covered in blood and the victim lying nearby, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office announced Friday.
Liren Chen, 27, faces one count of murder and is being treated at a local hospital for undisclosed injuries, according to the DA’s office and jail records. Still, he’s been technically booked into the county jail system and would be transferred to jail custody if and when he is medically cleared.
Santa Clara police were called around 11 a.m. Tuesday to a home on Valley Way in the southern portion of the city after someone requested a welfare check there. Responding officers were met by a person described as an acquaintance of Chen and his wife, who told them that Chen was refusing to answer phone calls or the front door.
This person, whose name was not released by authorities, also told police that he looked inside the house and saw Chen “motionless on his knees, had his hands in the air and was staring blankly,” according to prosecutors.
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The officers entered the home and detained Chen. Soon after they found his wife’s body — with visible blunt-force injuries on her head — on the floor of a bedroom behind where Chen was standing.
Her name has not been publicly released by the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office pending her formal identification and notification of her next of kin. But information posted by the coroner online indicated that she was 27 years old and of Asian descent.
Prosecutors said when officers arrested Chen, his right hand was “extremely swollen and purple,” he was covered in blood and he had scratches on his arm.
Chen’s initial arraignment was scheduled Thursday but was postponed because he was in the hospital. Prosecutors anticipated that the new arraignment time set for Friday could be similarly delayed.
