A Man Was Stabbed Over 100 Times While He Slept and the Intruder Got In Through a Third Floor Balcony
A man was asleep next to his wife inside their Queens apartment. It was 2 in the morning. He had no reason to think that night would be his last.
On May 22, 2022, a stranger climbed into their home through a third-floor balcony on 57th Road in Flushing, New York. What followed was one of the most brutal home invasions Queens has seen in years. Four years later, the man responsible finally stood in front of a judge.
He Did Not Come Through the Door
Yang Zhang did not pick a lock or force a ground-floor window.
He climbed the exterior of a residential building in the middle of the night, jumping from balcony to balcony until he reached the third floor. That is the entry point that shocked everyone who read the police report.
The night before this murder, Zhang had already broken into a separate apartment on Haight Street in Flushing using the exact same method.
No one was home that time. He had done it before, in the same neighborhood, using the same route. This was a pattern.
What Happened Inside That Apartment
Yat Ming Wong, 41, was asleep beside his wife when Zhang entered.
Wong woke up and confronted the intruder. A struggle broke out, and that fight gave his wife the seconds she needed to flee and escape unharmed.
Zhang grabbed a pair of scissors and stabbed Wong in the head, neck, arms, and legs. More than 100 times. Over 100 distinct stab and slash wounds.
Officers from the 109th Precinct arrived after a 911 call and found Wong unresponsive. EMS pronounced him dead at the scene. Zhang was found in the backyard, resisted arrest, and had to be Tased. He later told police he entered looking for drugs.
Investigators believed he was under the influence during the attack. The two men had never met. True Crime News confirmed the Queens DA called it “a brutal and unprovoked act of violence.”
Four Years, One Guilty Plea, One Sentence
Zhang was charged with second-degree murder, first-degree burglary, and criminal possession of a weapon after his 2022 arrest.
He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on May 13, 2026. On June 3, 2026, Queens Supreme Court Justice Ira Margulis sentenced him to 18 years to life. He originally faced up to 25 years to life if convicted at trial.
Queens DA Melinda Katz said Zhang “broke into the home of a married couple in the middle of the night and terrorized them,” calling the killing completely senseless.
This kind of violence does not begin with a dispute or a shared history. It begins with a stranger deciding your home is accessible.
The triple stabbing that killed a grandmother, a young mother, and a two-week-old baby inside their California home carries that same weight, where nothing the victims did put them in that position.
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Why This Matters
Burglaries in the U.S. dropped 64 percent between 2005 and 2024, falling from over 2.1 million incidents to fewer than 780,000, a historic low according to FBI data via SafeHome.org. But numbers going down does not mean risk disappears.
The Zhang case is a reminder that the most dangerous home invasions involve someone intoxicated, unknown to the victim, and completely unchecked inside a space where another person had every right to feel safe.
More than 100 stab wounds is not a burglary that escalated. That is something else entirely.
Families do not always get to choose what threatens their home. Sometimes the danger climbs in from a balcony at 2 a.m.
It is the same quiet truth behind cases like the 27 bollards installed at the Vancouver home where Danielle Abrahams was killed by a drunk driver, where an entire community had to fight to make one home safer after an unthinkable loss.
And like the Iowa family who lost 8 dogs and their entire home in a fire, the place that is supposed to be the safest is sometimes where the loss hits hardest.
Wong confronted Zhang and bought his wife those seconds. That decision likely saved her life.
Key Takeaways
- Wong, 41, was stabbed more than 100 times with scissors in his Flushing apartment on May 22, 2022
- Zhang entered by jumping balcony to balcony on the building exterior at 2 a.m.
- He had burglarized another Flushing apartment the night before using the same method
- He told police he was looking for drugs and is believed to have been under the influence
- Wong and Zhang had never met; the DA called the attack random and unprovoked
- Wong’s wife escaped unharmed after he confronted the intruder
- Zhang was sentenced June 3, 2026 to 18 years to life after pleading guilty to second-degree murder
What do you think about the 18-year sentence? Does it fit what happened, or does stabbing a sleeping stranger more than 100 times in his own home call for something heavier? Drop your take in the comments.
Wrapping Up
Wong went to sleep in his own apartment. His wife survived. It took four years and a guilty plea for accountability to arrive.
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. All details are sourced from publicly available court records and published news reports at the time of writing.
