January 16, 2024, Liren Chen, 27, a Google software engineer in Santa Clara has been charged of beating his wife to death in their $2 million home at 714 Valley Way. The couple both graduated from TsingHua University, #1 ranked school in China.
Valley Way has a dreadfully quiet and peaceful community. As stepping into the community block, all the sounds suddenly disappears, just like someone suddenly pushing your head inside the full water bucket. The only sounds come from birds, dogs, and animals unknown.
The house was protected by the Santa Clara police with alarm red sign. The ground has been cleaned up, only two new flush toilets were placed in the front yard. Flowers were left at the front gate in memorial of the dead. A Christmas decorative wreath was hanged on the door, peacefully.
I talked with a resident in the Valley Way community. He said he never met the couple since they moved into this community. “They had dinner with a friend before the night of murder and the husband was abnormal at that time,” the old man told me, “thus their friend called back tomorrow morning but found out there was no one. Then he called the police.”
“What a shame.” He repeated. “The house worth $2 million but now it’s just……”
The Google Map location at 714 Valley Way has been blurred after the crime happened. Just a month later, before Valentine’s Day, an ex-meta engineer in San Mateo, 26 miles away from the Santa Clara county, shot his wife in their $2.1 million home and later committed suicide, with their 4-year-old twins found dead in bedroom for the sake of poison. The police confirmed that there is “no history of violence” at home. The husband Anand Henry, 37, is a “Co-founder of Logits. Formerly Google, Meta, Salesforce, CMU” according to his bio on LinkedIn. Based on Henry’s LinkedIn profile, he has worked for Logits as a co-founder for only 9 months since he left his former employer Meta. Before that, he was a Google employee for 7 years.
Data from California Department of Justice show that domestic violence (DV) calls have significantly declined over 20 years across the states. In the last ten years there was only a 7% increase. However, the Santa Clara county tells a different story. From 2013 to 2022, there was a 70% increase in DV calls.
The San Mateo county has a decreasing rate in DV total calls over the past 10 years but the number of weapon involved DV cases reached 1,331 in 2022, a 76% increase compared to 2013.
Lynn Schuette, a director at the non-profit Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse, claimed that 1 in 4 homicides in the United States are due to domestic violence.
According to Angela Jia, an editor from The Crusader, there are approximately10,000 people a year suffering from domestic abuse in San mateo. Most of the victims were women, killed by former or current boyfriends.
Frances Lucero, 27, was shot four times by her boyfriend, Romier Taguiam Narag, in front of her toddler children, aged 3 and 4.
Maria Romero-Molina, 28, was strangled to death by her boyfriend, Eduar Pajoy-Delgado.
Claribel Estrella, 41, was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend, Mark Stephen Mechikoff.
Yesenia Lopez Hernandez, 41, was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend, Jose Uriarte-Martinez, in front of her 17 year old daughter who also got stabbed as she attempted to save her mother.
Grace Marie Kelly, 49, was shot and killed by her boyfriend, Aubrey Avery Jr, with body founded by her 83 year old mother.
Why Silicon Valley, a place where the average studio price is $3,000, a place where the average annual salary is $200,000, a place where all the worldwide elites gather around, a place where half of the world’s tech billionaires stay in, is such a place like this? Are people sincerely happy living on this wonderland where contributing nearly 40% of venture capital funding in the United States? Is it a fairytale that men conquer the world with women and children pay the bills?
Is it Silicon Valley or Silicon Deadly?
