Paula Chin

True Crime All The Time

The episode explores the tragic murder of Paula Chin, a wealthy Tribeca businesswoman, by her son Jared Ng. Driven by an intense desire for

Key takeaways

• Jared Ng killed Paula Chin by beating her and stabbing her in the throat during an argument over money.
• The victim's body was discovered hidden inside a trash can at a property in Morris Township, New Jersey.
• Accomplices Caitlin O'Rourke and Jennifer Lopez assisted in moving the body and cleaning the crime scene.
• Surveillance footage captured Jared and two women struggling to move something heavy into Paula's car.
• Investigators found significant forensic evidence, including blood-stained clothes in a car and blood spatter in the Tribeca home.

Main topics

• The murder of Paula Chin
• Inheritance disputes and greed
• Forensic investigation techniques

Notable quotes

It's done. I'm free.

Conclusion

A harrowing examination of how entitlement and greed can lead to the d

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:34) Hello everyone and welcome to episode 534 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Give me how are you? I'm doing good, man. And you? I'm Speaker 4 (0:45) doing great. You're always doing great. Speaker 3 (0:47) Most weeks I really am. Speaker 4 (0:50) Yeah. Speaker 3 (0:50) I like my life. I like my Speaker 4 (0:53) life too. Speaker 3 (0:55) I'm pretty happy. That's Speaker 4 (0:56) good. You should be. Speaker 3 (0:57) Most of Speaker 4 (0:58) the time. Yeah. Speaker 3 (0:58) Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Elizabeth Neal. What's going Speaker 4 (1:02) on, Elizabeth? Speaker 3 (1:03) Leah Stebbins. Speaker 4 (1:04) Hey, Leah. Speaker 3 (1:05) Goose DeWitt. Well, thanks, Goose. Alexandra. Hey, Speaker 4 (1:08) Alexandra. Joe Speaker 3 (1:09) Revin. What's going on, Joe? Wendy. Ah, just Wendy. Nicole Williamson. Hey, Speaker 4 (1:14) Nicole. And Speaker 3 (1:15) last but not least, Whitney Goff jumped out at our highest level. Whitney Goff. So, yeah. Thanks for the new support. And then if we go back into the vault. Speaker 3 (1:25) This week, we selected Brandon Leon. Mr. Leon. So appreciate the continued support as well. We do. So we have an episode out right now on True Crime All the Time Unsolved where we're talking about Michelle Parker. She went missing in 2011 after dropping off her twins at her ex-fiance's home. Now over 10 years later, there has been no sign of her. And no charges have ever been filed in connection with her disappearance. Speaker 4 (1:56) It's going to be a good one to dive into. Speaker 3 (1:59) Yeah. Yeah. We get into all of it. And then on next Thursday's TCAT, we're talking about the 1991 abduction of Cindy Winner. She was abducted from her home outside Sacramento and then later found strangled to death. It's a fascinating case because it took. 30-some years to figure it out. But authorities used facial recognition to help solve her murder. Speaker 4 (2:29) Again, that was challenging, but they came through. Yeah. Speaker 3 (2:34) All Speaker 4 (2:34) right, Speaker 3 (2:34) buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am. We're talking about Paula Chin. Paula Chin was a wealthy Tribeca woman who was reported missing in February, 2019 and was later found dead in a trash can at her second home in New Jersey. Authorities quickly found a surprising killer with a personal motive. And I mentioned it when we did our Patreon this week, but. You know, I don't know a lot about New York city. You know, I've heard of Tribeca. I always thought of it as like a kind of a posh trendy place, but I've never actually been to New York city. So most of my knowledge is gleaned from TV shows and movies, New York city and you and your old El Paso commercials. Speaker 4 (3:28) They got some good salsa there. But Speaker 3 (3:31) my wife has been on me for years to go to New York, and I think we're going to have to go. Speaker 4 (3:36) Sure. Speaker 3 (3:36) But you know I don't like crowds. That's the wrong place to go, man. It's probably what's kept me from going all these years. Speaker 4 (3:43) You know, let's go for a weekend. Yeah. It's enough to see what you need to see. Yeah, Speaker 3 (3:49) I got to do it. I'm 53 years old. At some point, you got to tick some of this stuff off your bucket list. 65-year-old Paula Chin was a retired businesswoman who lived in a townhome in the Tribeca neighborhood of lower Manhattan. She grew up in Queens. Those who knew her described her as a fun person who was willing to try new things, and she always had a smile on her face. Speaker 4 (4:15) Happy-go-lucky. Speaker 3 (4:16) Yeah, which is a good way to be, right? People prefer to be around those types of individuals. Nobody wants to be around a sourpuss all the time. You know, it's just not fun. What Speaker 4 (4:30) if somebody does? Like, I want to surround myself with a bunch of miserable sourpusses all day. Speaker 3 (4:36) And maybe there are some individuals like that. I'm not one. You know, I like to be around positive people who, you know, are having a good time, enjoying themselves, going through life in a good manner. I don't want to be. around Debbie Downer from Saturday Night Live all the time. I Speaker 4 (4:56) think it'd Speaker 3 (4:56) be Speaker 4 (4:56) okay to do once in a while just to piss them off. Like, just be like, man, things are great today, guys. Isn't it? Isn't it? Come on, guys. You know, aren't you having a great time today? No, Speaker 3 (5:06) they're not having a good time. Paula was married to Philip Ng. They had two sons together, Brandon and Jared. Paula was a successful businesswoman. She and her husband amassed significant wealth in real estate with a paper. products business. In 1987, they purchased their town home in Tribeca and another home in Morris Township, New Jersey. Paula lived in one of the most coveted areas of Tribeca. And I think you would need to be pretty successful. You would need to have some money, right? To, to live in this area. Real, we know real estate is very, very expensive. Yeah. Speaker 4 (5:48) The paper product business is a good one to be in. I mean, Michael Scott did pretty good there. He Speaker 3 (5:53) did. Speaker 4 (5:53) So even Speaker 3 (5:55) started his own company at one point. Speaker 4 (5:56) He did. Speaker 3 (5:57) Now, I would say he was not nearly as successful as I believe Paula was. Sadly, Philip died of lung cancer in 2008 when he was just in his 50s. His sons at that time were just six and eight years old. But all of the money was left to Paula. She devoted her life to her sons. She emphasized the importance of education. Brandon and Jared attended exclusive high schools in New York City. It was said that she was close with both of them. Paula decided to retire in her mid-60s. She was looking forward to traveling and enjoying the money she worked so hard to earn. Speaker 4 (6:36) That's what you're supposed to do. Speaker 3 (6:38) It's kind of the dream, right? You know, we work hard. Speaker 4 (6:42) Yes. Speaker 3 (6:43) And we work a long time. Speaker 4 (6:45) That's true. If Speaker 3 (6:46) you think about it. Still Speaker 4 (6:47) am. Speaker 3 (6:48) That's what I'm saying. From late teens, for some people, early 20s, to what? 65-ish is probably the average retirement age. Speaker 4 (7:02) Yeah. I mean, I've been going at it since eight, though. They start putting me in front of certain people doing equations and stuff. Yeah. Speaker 3 (7:10) Solve this now, please. You were also in the. the little rascals there for a while. Speaker 4 (7:15) That's true. You know, froggy, froggy. And then I also did some stand in for alfalfa, you know, stunt work. But this is what people aspire to do, Speaker 3 (7:24) right? You work hard, you save your money. And then when you retire, you, you have enough so that you can do what you want to do. Late on February 4th, 2019, Paula was reported missing by her sons. Jared, who by that time was 22 years old. and Brandon, who was 24. Paula was last seen at the end of January. Jared and Brandon had been trying to reach her for three to four days, but their calls went straight to voicemail. And I'm sure that was very concerning for them. We talked about it, right? How close the three of them were, the mom and the sons. Their dad died when they were very young. So growing up, that's really... the only person they had was their mom. It sounds like. Speaker 4 (8:13) That's probably why they got even closer. Speaker 3 (8:15) Yeah. I would say that had a lot to do with it. Jared mentioned that Paula was suffering from dementia right away. Jared provided the name and number of a man Paula was seeing, but investigators couldn't get in contact with him right away over the phone. And obviously, as we've talked about in many cases, you're going to want to talk to the current partner. Right. First and foremost. Yeah. And then you branch out, you tell you, you're going to want to talk to exes. You want to talk to family members because I just got done talking about how much money Paula had amassed. So if you're an investigator working this case, do you also have to think about the sons? Speaker 4 (9:00) Oh, I think so. I mean, money's them could be the potential motive, right? And they would be said. To Speaker 3 (9:07) inherit, you would think, all of her money. Police checked local hospitals and processed Paula's license plate through the NYPD's license plate reader system. This tool showed that Paula's car made several late night trips from Tribeca to New Jersey in the three to four days before she was reported missing. This was unusual, as she had never made this trip in the middle of the night before. Paula also had no history of running away. Speaker 4 (9:37) There would be no reason somebody at her age with her type of money would need to run away. Speaker 3 (9:44) And by my way of thinking, there would also be no reason why she would need to make this trip in the middle of the night. Speaker 4 (9:51) Yeah. Speaker 3 (9:52) I think her schedule was probably fairly open. Most people don't like driving at night. It's harder to see, especially as you get older. That seems like, you know, that would be very out of the ordinary. And from the beginning, things just weren't adding up to investigators. Detectives arrived at Paula's home at 2 a.m. on February 5th. Her car was parked right in front of her townhouse. Inside her car was a bag that contained the clothes Jared said his mother was last seen wearing. And those clothes, Gibbs, were stained with blood. Investigators also found a blanket and duct tape and blood on the carpet. Speaker 4 (10:35) Well, as these officers show up, their suspicion level has to be through the roof. Speaker 3 (10:41) Oh, once you find this stuff, oh my gosh, yeah. Someone's reported missing. Their car is there, but there's bloody items. There's blood on the carpet. Okay, things aren't looking too good. And when you find duct tape, that is nine times out of ten. A red flag. I would Speaker 4 (11:01) say yes. Speaker 3 (11:02) Now, Speaker 4 (11:02) duct Speaker 3 (11:02) tape can be used for a lot of things. It Speaker 4 (11:04) can be. But Speaker 3 (11:05) it is also often used by nefarious people. That's why you keep seven, eight, nine rolls in your vehicle at all times. I Speaker 4 (11:15) do have some duct tape in my vehicle and zip ties. So many uses for those zip ties. Speaker 3 (11:22) Yeah, it's all going to come out when they do the Netflix documentary down the road at some point. While they still didn't know for sure if they were dealing with a homicide, the detectives at the house had a bad feeling that something terrible happened to Paula. And we just talked about it, right? How could they not based on what they found in the car? The car was processed for fingerprints and DNA. The search then moved inside Paula's house. Investigators used a special light to illuminate blood spatter in the kitchen, which indicated. someone had attempted to clean up the blood. And that's always fascinating, right? To see a room light up and for them to be able to see right away where blood was. And oftentimes you can see like the swirl marks where somebody was cleaning and cleaning, but they just, they can't remove every trace of it. They Speaker 4 (12:21) think they can. Speaker 3 (12:22) Sure. Because to the naked eye, it might look clean. Carpeting, pillows, and kitchenware were collected from the scene. Investigators then rushed to Paula's second home in New Jersey. In the basement was a child-sized winter sled, and they found blood under the sled. More blood was found in the garage, as well as duct tape and bloody rubber gloves in the garbage. Speaker 4 (12:48) So someone didn't do a great job of getting rid of evidence. Speaker 3 (12:53) Yeah, and I wonder... why that was, you know, was the killer rushed in some way? Did they feel rushed or were they just sloppy? Had little knowledge of forensics or we just don't know. Speaker 4 (13:09) Did they think they had more time that they could come back later and possibly. Speaker 3 (13:14) Yeah. Outside, investigators found a trash can and Paula's feet were sticking out of it. The trash was due to be picked up that morning, meaning they narrowly missed the