A Suffolk Superior Court jury today rejected an Allston man’s claim that he was not criminally responsible for his estranged wife’s murder, convicting him of first-degree murder for Gin Hua Xu’s homicide in his Cambridge Street apartment nine years ago, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

Jurors convicted DA LIN HUANG (D.O.B. 3/16/63) after about three full days of deliberations, finding that he acted with extreme atrocity or cruelty when he stabbed the mother of his two children dozens of times in the head with a pair of electrician’s pliers, strangled her, and mutilated her remains.

“This was one of the most horrific crimes of domestic violence I can recall as a prosecutor,” Conley said. “The injuries inflicted upon Ms. Xu – both before and after her death – shock the conscience. Two children are effectively orphans now. And why? Because when Da Lin Huang could not control her in life, he decided to control and humiliate her in death.”

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Christine McEvoy scheduled sentencing for March 17.

First Assistant District Attorney Josh Wall proved during 10 days of trial that Huang murdered his wife after she obtained a separation agreement and, later, a divorce decree. Evidence showed that he planned the crime in advance: Xu told others she was going to visit her children at Huang’s apartment, but he had sent them to visit other relatives. When she arrived, he attacked her, killed her, and then attempted to overdose on painkillers – failing, the evidence showed, when relatives who couldn’t reach him called 911 on his behalf.

Huang was represented by attorney Larry Tipton. Catherine Yuan was the district attorney’s victim-witness advocate assigned to the case.