On January 5, 1982, Jenny Soo Chin, a woman of Asian descent, became the victim of a calculated plot to silence her voice. A former bookkeeper for the Candor Diamond Corporation, she had a close friendship with the company's comptroller, Margaret Barbera. After visiting Barbera at her home in Ridgewood, Queens, Chin's departure took a horrifying turn. An assailant in a ski mask ambushed her, forcing her into her own station wagon and speeding away. This brazen abduction, witnessed by others, was the last time Jenny Soo Chin was ever seen alive.
The investigation into her disappearance quickly uncovered a sinister conspiracy. Nine days after she was taken, her station wagon was found abandoned and stained with blood. Inside the vehicle, investigators discovered a spent. 22 caliber cartridge casing, a grim clue in a case with no victim. Her body was never recovered. The trail of evidence led investigators to the illegal activities of her former employer, Irwin Margolies, the CEO of Candor Diamond Corporation. Margolies was embroiled in a $5.7 million fraud investigation, and both Chin and Barbera were key witnesses poised to testify against him.
Fearing their testimony, Margolies and his lawyer took desperate and deadly measures, hiring a hitman named Donald Nash to eliminate the two women for a price of $8,000 per murder. The tragic story escalated on April 12, 1982, when Nash targeted Margaret Barbera in a rooftop parking garage. Three CBS technicians, Leo Kuranuki, Robert Schulze, and Edward Benford, witnessed the attack and bravely attempted to intervene. Nash tragically shot and killed all three men before fleeing. Barbera's body was later discovered in Manhattan.
The connection between the murders and Chin's disappearance became clear when forensic analysis confirmed that the cartridge casing found in her car was fired from the same weapon used in the rooftop killings. Donald Nash was arrested on April 19, 1982. In a trial bolstered by extensive forensic evidence, including hair samples and a bloody bed sheet, Nash was convicted on May 24, 1983, of four counts of second-degree murder and conspiracy. He received a sentence of 100 years in prison. Irwin Margolies, the architect of the deadly scheme, was sentenced to 50 years for his role in ordering the murders. Despite the convictions, the remains of Jenny Soo Chin have never been found, leaving her family without a final sense of closure.
