In January 2017, the quiet suburb of Jackson Township near Canton, Ohio, became the epicenter of an intense, race-against-the-clock missing person investigation. Liang Zhao, the 34-year-old co-owner of Ang’s Asian Cuisine, placed a panicked call to 911 claiming his youngest daughter, five-year-old Ashley Zhao, had vanished. The timeline provided by the parents was straightforward: Ashley had been put down for an afternoon nap in a small fabric booth near the rear of the restaurant. Amidst a chaotic, understaffed dinner rush, the parents claimed they simply lost track of time, only discovering an empty nook when they prepared to close the restaurant at 9:30 PM.
Local law enforcement treated the call with immediate, high-priority urgency. Because Ohio winters bring severe sub-zero temperatures, an unprotected five-year-old wandering the streets faced a critical threat to survival within hours. K9 units, local volunteers, and state police mobilized to conduct sweeping ground searches of the commercial corridors along Portage Street Northwest. The initial operational focus targeted a potential parental nightmare: either the child had walked out into the freezing night in a state of confusion, or an intruder had slipped through the unsecured back door and abducted her.
“Mommy and daddy don’t want me to tell you what happened.”
This phrase alerted experienced detectives that the child had been intensely coached, exposing a dark, internal family secret that completely dismantled the parents’ credibility.
Video Breakdown & Key Interrogation Timeline
Review the critical chronological chapters of the official Law&Crime investigative footage to analyze the behavioral patterns, audio recordings, and structural transitions of the case:
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**** – The original, panicked 911 audio dispatch placed by Liang Zhao from the restaurant floor.
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**** – Initial police bodycam footage as Jackson Township officers secure the rear exit doors.
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**** – The launch of Mingming Chen’s station interrogation alongside a Mandarin translator.
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**** – Detectives detail the exact breakthrough moment where 6-year-old Jojo dropped her cryptic six-word clue.
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**** – The moment investigators confront Chen with the discovery of the body in the walk-in kitchen freezer.
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**** – Liang Zhao breaks down, providing a full confession of the domestic assault and the alibi plot.
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**** – Zhao admits to running the restaurant business as usual while Ashley lay dead in the building.
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**** – Deep-dive background into Ashley’s early childhood in China and the root of Chen’s psychological resentment.
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**** – Mingming Chen finally breaks her silence, admitting to physical violence against the five-year-old.
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**** – Local Ohio community members gather outside the closed business for a candlelight memorial service.
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**** – Final courtroom sentencing readouts and the judge’s closing address on parental betrayal.
The Subterranean Vault: The Sickening Discovery in the Walk-In Freezer
Armed with the psychological leverage of Jojo’s statement, forensic teams returned to Ang’s Asian Cuisine with a fresh, highly targeted search warrant. They bypassed the front of the house and conducted a forensic sweep of the kitchen infrastructure. Inside the commercial walk-in freezer, hidden on top of a storage shelf, investigators located a heavy plastic storage bin. Upon opening the container, they discovered the frozen, lifeless body of five-year-old Ashley Zhao. In a calculated effort to suppress natural decomposition and mask organic odors, the body had been completely covered in commercial rock salt.
The Staged Alibi Timeline (January 9, 2017) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [09:15 AM] -> Fatal assault occurs at the family home. [12:00 PM] -> Parents drive deceased child to the restaurant. [03:30 PM] -> Eldest sister Jojo is picked up; told Ashley is "sleeping." [05:00 PM] -> Dinner rush begins; meals served while body sits in freezer. [09:30 PM] -> Parents stage the "discovery" of the empty nook. [09:45 PM] -> Frantic 911 call placed to mobilize emergency response.Parents charged after missing 5-year-old found dead inside family’s restaurant When confronted with the discovery, Mingming Chen’s demeanor remained chillingly flat. Throughout hours of recorded interrogation, she exhibited an absolute lack of emotional distress or remorse. When pressed by investigators on her cold, detached reaction to her daughter’s death, Chen bluntly stated that she simply had “no water left” to cry. While Chen attempted to maintain a wall of denial, her husband in the adjoining room was already actively trading details for a plea agreement.
A Year of Rage: The Onset of Lethal Maternal Resentment
Liang Zhao’s full confession exposed a long-term pattern of severe physical abuse driven by deep-seated maternal resentment. Investigators learned that Ashley had been sent to China shortly after birth to be raised by her paternal grandmother, a common arrangement for intense, cash-heavy startup businesses. Ashley returned to the United States just one year prior to her death—a transition that sparked immediate friction. Chen struggled to form a biological bond with the child, increasingly viewing her as a massive operational hindrance in a high-stress restaurant environment.
The fatal catalyst on the morning of January 9 was shockingly trivial: a potty-training accident. Zhao admitted that Chen flew into a volatile rage, striking the five-year-old repeatedly in the head and violently driving her skull into the floor carpet. The blunt-force trauma left Ashley unresponsive and vomiting. Instead of contacting emergency medical services, the parents chose to protect their livelihood, watching the child’s breathing fail over several hours until her heart completely stopped.
To safeguard their business, home, and social standing, they executed a grotesque cover-up. They drove the body to the restaurant, positioned it to make Jojo believe her sister was merely resting, and operated the kitchen routinely—cooking and serving Chinese cuisine to hundreds of local customers while their daughter’s body sat hidden in the back. Zhao admitted they had debated whether to burn the body, bury it in a remote zone, or dump it in the ocean before deciding to store it in the freezer.
Judicial Outcomes and Sentences
The legal resolution of the case avoided a lengthy trial but delivered substantial prison terms for both perpetrators:
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Liang Zhao: In September 2017, Zhao pleaded guilty to complicity to commit murder, child endangerment, tampering with evidence, obstructing justice, and abuse of a corpse. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in exchange for agreeing to testify against his wife.
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Mingming Chen: Stripped of her husband’s protection and facing a potential life sentence, Chen dropped her initial plea of temporary insanity. In December 2017, she pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse. She was sentenced to 22 years in prison and faces mandatory deportation to China upon completion of her sentence.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Why was salt used inside the freezer container?
The parents covered Ashley’s body in commercial rock salt to slow down the natural processes of cellular decomposition and absorb organic moisture, attempting to prevent any odor from alerting employees or health inspectors.
What happened to the older sister, Jojo Zhao?
Following the immediate arrest of Liang Zhao and Mingming Chen, Jojo was permanently removed from the home by Stark County Job and Family Services and placed into a secure protective custody framework.
Did Mingming Chen face deportation after court?
Yes. Because Chen was not a naturalized US citizen and was convicted of an aggravated violent felony, federal immigration statutes dictate that she will be handed over to ICE and deported to China immediately upon completing her 22-year sentence.
Parallel Cruelty: The Universality of Parental Betrayal
The shocking depravity of the Ashley Zhao case reflects a broader, highly disturbing pattern within true crime history: the total subversion of the protective parental instinct by those trusted most. This dark phenomenon was similarly mirrored in the harrowing case of Jamie Varley, a former schoolteacher who was ultimately convicted of murdering his adopted infant son, Preston Davey. Much like Mingming Chen, Varley presented a highly curated, respectable public facade—leveraging his professional background in education to project an image of a nurturing, ideal caregiver. Yet behind closed doors, Varley subjected the defenseless infant to fatal violence, shattering the profound legal and moral obligations of adoptive parenthood. Both cases stand as grim reminders to criminologists that the most dangerous environments for vulnerable children can occasionally exist behind the closed doors of seemingly ordinary, stable households.
Read that article here: Betrayal of Trust: Teacher Jamie Varley Convicted of Murdering Adopted Baby Preston Davey
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