Prosecution Claims Lam Planned to Kill Professor

Minh Van Lam called a girlfriend from Cal State Fullerton professor Edward Lee Cooperman’s office to make an afternoon movie date on Oct. 13, 1984, because he knew he was going to kill the professor and wanted an alibi, the prosecutor claimed in his closing arguments Monday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mel Jensen also told jurors that a suicide scene in that movie, “Purple Rain,” gave Lam the idea to return to the 48-year-old professor’s office and plant the gun in his hand to make the police think Cooperman had killed himself.

‘Light Bulbs Going Off’

When the suicide scene came on the movie screen, Jensen contended, “You could just see the light bulbs going off in his (Lam’s) mind.”

Lam, a 21-year-old former physics student of Cooperman, is on trial in Orange County Superior Court on murder charges in the professor’s fatal shooting at his campus office. Jurors are scheduled to begin deliberations Wednesday.

The trial has gained international attention because Cooperman was known for his scientific and humanitarian aid to postwar Vietnam. His family and friends believe he was the victim of a right-wing political assassination, and that Lam is only the trigger man.

Lam admitted to police, in both a videotape and a tape-recorded interview, that he shot the professor, but he said it was an accident. Lam said the .25-caliber pistol went off when Cooperman grabbed his arm to show him how to aim it.

Helped Him to Floor

Lam told police he had borrowed the gun from Cooperman and took it back to the office at the professor’s request. After the shooting, he said he helped the professor to the floor, then panicked and left the office without calling for help.

He then went to see “Purple Rain” with 15-year-old Helen Bai of Cerritos. He said he then returned to Cooperman’s office because he felt guilty, and planted the gun in Cooperman’s hand before calling campus police.

Jensen argued to the jurors that because of that scenario, Lam was guilty of first-degree murder “and nothing less.” It was the first time since Lam’s arrest that Jensen has said he would seek a first-degree murder conviction instead of second-degree or manslaughter findings.

Lam’s attorney, Alan May, countered that Jensen has failed to show even a hint of motive.

“Where’s the beef?” May argued. “Why would he (Lam) kill a man who has befriended him and given him money?”

Cooperman’s canceled checks show he had given Lam money on several occasions, including $400 for a motorcycle. Other students have said that Lam and Cooperman were very close.

The defense argues that Cooperman’s activities triggered his death, but not the way the professor’s friends believe. May said Cooperman’s fear of assassination led him into a situation where he would handle a loaded pistol with a student.

Began to Buy Guns

Cooperman began to buy guns in the several months before his death after receiving death threats, according to testimony. It might have been that fear of assassination, May suggested to the jury, that led him to tell Lam to bring a gun to the office that day so they could practice with it.

May has drawn bitter criticism from Cooperman’s family and friends because of some of the theories he has discussed with the news media. May at one time said he thought Cooperman may have committed suicide (using Lam as an instrument). May has also said that Cooperman may have embezzled money from his own foundation, may have sent high-tech equipment to Vietnam illegally, and even may have had a homosexual interest in some of his young Asian male students.

But Jensen has also drawn criticism from the Cooperman side. The professor’s colleagues and friends say the district attorney’s office has failed to vigorously pursue the political assassination theory.

Jensen, in fact, offered no theories to the jury for the slaying.

Jury Can Consider It

Under California law, the prosecutor does not have to show a motive. But a jury is allowed to consider the absence of motive as favorable to the defense.

Jensen, however, argued that showing a motive was not essential.

“Murderers don’t always tell you why they killed somebody,” Jensen said.

Jensen argued that Lam’s videotaped description of the shooting as an “accident” is undermined by the physical evidence found in Cooperman’s office. Blood on opposite walls, the floor, the professor’s desk, a telephone and a file cabinet indicates that the professor was shot behind the desk, then struggled for his life, Jensen said.

Pathologist Richard I. Fukimoto testified that Cooperman was shot in the left side of the neck, at a slightly downward angle, with the bullet traveling to the right, and that he was conscious no more than 10 to 30 seconds after the shooting. Fukimoto also said that blood from such a wound probably would have spurted out nearly two feet.

Lam claims he and Cooperman were facing each other in chairs on the north side of the office when the shooting occurred.

Jensen pointed out to the jury that there was no blood found on Lam’s shirt, pants, or on the green chair on which he was sitting, and there was no blood between the two chairs.

Cites Videotape

May, however, claims that the videotape reenactment shows that his client is telling the truth. There is no blood between the chairs or on Lam’s clothes, May claims, because Cooperman fell to the left instead of forward.

There is no blood on the green chair, May said, because it was an orange chair, found in a corner, instead of the green one, that Lam was sitting in the day Cooperman died. May claims Lam grabbed the green chair to use in the demonstration but did not mean to convey that it was the actual chair on which he was sitting when the shooting occurred.

May also told the jurors that expert testimony showed that Lam’s version is not inconsistent with the blood stains all over the back part of the office.

May has theorized to jurors that Cooperman got up from the floor after Lam left and tried to make it to the telephone, leaving the blood all over the room.

In his rebuttal to May, Jensen said Lam’s version is a lie because Cooperman would not have had enough time to get up from where Lam laid him down, then leave the trail of blood.

Jensen also cautioned the jury not to believe Lam’s story just because it has been played to them on television. (The jurors have seen the 25-minute tape three times so far.)

Jensen reminded jurors that this is an age where most people watch enormous amounts of television. “Don’t fall into the trap of believing it just because it’s on TV,” he stressed.

Jensen asked jurors to think about the professor’s fear of assassination and evidence submitted that he took a safety course in how to handle a firearm.

Would someone so worried about his life put a loaded pistol into the hand of a student, with the safety off and the hammer pulled, and then grab the student’s arm and pull it up to his neck? Jensen asked.

“That doesn’t make one whit of sense,” he said. “This was a cold, calculated murder. Can you imagine anything more cold than placing the gun in the hand of someone who had been a father figure to you?”

May, in his final statement, suggested that if Lam’s accident version were not true, he would not have returned to Cooperman’s office after the movie.

“Assassins,” May said, “don’t come back and call the police.”