An hour before sunrise on March 10, 2020, firefighters in Port Coquitlam, BC stumbled upon a gruesome scene – metal pots containing body parts set on fire and a young woman standing nearby “remote and remote.” According to court documents, when asked what she was burning, Tracy Chen replied “things I didn’t want.” The body parts belonged to her twin sister and roommate — Ivy. This week, Tracy was found not criminally responsible for Ivy’s death and dismemberment – the final act in a family tragedy almost impossible to contemplate. Tracy’s lawyer says her parents live in Taiwan. As they mourn one daughter, they are still determined to love the other. “They’re very sad about what happened,” Chris Johnson told the CBC. “But as parents, they are still the parents of their remaining child and have tried to support her despite their grief at losing their other child.”
“An entity created by the Canadian government”
Tracy Chen was charged with first degree murder and indecency with a dead body two and a half years ago. On Thursday, a New Westminster BC Supreme Court judge found the 39-year-old not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder in relation to both charges after a joint submission by the Crown and defence. RCMP block the entrance to Minnekhada Regional Park immediately after the discovery of Ivy Chen’s body on March 10, 2020. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC) Ivy Chen was a massage therapist. Tracy did administrative work for her sister. According to an admission of fact, Tracy stabbed her sister to death in their shared apartment, which was owned by Ivy Chen. A downstairs tenant told RCMP she often heard arguments in the unit above: “mainly one side, yelling … kind of rage” and “boiling aggression.” On the day Tracy killed Ivy Chen, the tenant downstairs said she and her boyfriend were awakened by loud noises. “The noise was described as the sound of a woman wailing in that despair in the bedroom directly above her,” according to the affidavit of facts. Johnson said Tracy was examined by psychiatrists for both the Crown and the defence. They both concluded that she suffered from schizophrenia and was in the midst of deep depression and was unable to know right from wrong – a requirement for a finding of not criminally responsible. Chen believed that Ivy had been possessed by an entity that planned to kill her. “She was not clear at times as to who the entity was, but she said on more than one occasion that it was an entity created by the Canadian government in order to experiment on her dead body,” Johnson said. “She believed that this had to be done by her birthday, which was in May 2020, and that led her to purchase the tools that she eventually used to dismember her sister.”
“I just had to get rid of it”
Records taken from Tracy’s cellphone and laptop showed she had researched murder weapons, dismemberment tools and ways to dispose of and burn a body. When they searched the apartment after Ivy Chen’s body was discovered, police found a reciprocating saw, a chainsaw, a machete and two axes. They also found a four liter container of muriatic acid in the bathroom. According to the statement of fact, Tracy Chen tried to dispose of Ivy Chen’s body by dismembering it in the apartment. But when that failed, she put the remaining parts into metal containers and loaded them into her black Ford Fiesta. He drove into Minnekhada Regional Park, a giant forested area west of the Pitt River, just before dawn. “After parking the Fiesta, he proceeded to a spot in the nearby woods, placed the body parts in the metal pots and set them on fire,” the statement said. Firefighters arrived a short time later to find Tracy Chen standing near the points with a stick. “I just had to get rid of it,” he told them. “I have to get rid of it.” Chen was arrested within an hour of her sister’s body being discovered. He gave two statements to the police. She told an officer that she took eight types of medication daily, but had not taken any for 48 hours at the time of her arrest. As a result of the not criminally responsible finding, Chen has been sent to the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam. Johnson says his client “continues to suffer from schizophrenia and depression.” “She’s a very quiet, sad person, is probably the best way to describe her,” he said.
