Vietnamese Helped Lead Police to Boys Arrested in Slaying

Santa Ana police thanked the Orange County Vietnamese community Tuesday for providing critical information that contributed to arrests of two young suspects in the murder of a mother of 14.

In the days after Huyen Thi Hoang was shot to death during her nightly prayer ritual, investigators had said the chances of capturing her slayers were remote at best.

Vietnamese residents “called us asking how they could help, and we called them,” Santa Ana Police Sgt. Collie Provence said. “And it worked. Without the cooperation of the Vietnamese people of Orange County, we wouldn’t have been able to get the information we got.”

Two Santa Ana boys, 12 and 14 years old, remained in custody at Orange County Juvenile Hall on suspicion of murder, robbery and burglary in the May 5 slaying of Hoang, 46.

Law enforcement sources said investigators have identified three remaining suspects and warrants “were being secured” Tuesday. Their names were not released. The authorities characterized the pair in custody as “accessories” to the slaying.

Police said the slaying was so vicious that it prompted the traditionally reticent refugee community to work with law enforcement officers and on their own to locate the band of suspects.

‘Considered It . . . Shameful’

“They considered it very shameful,” said Lt. Mike Mitchell.

By late Tuesday, Trung Ngo, 59, said that he still had not heard from police regarding the suspects in his wife’s slaying but that he had read the newspaper and watched television news.

“I didn’t hear anything. But I think it’s not right because it’s too young. They (the intruders were) much older, at least 16 to 20,” Ngo said. “I care about my family but this happen and already done, and I don’t want it to happen to another family. I hope they got the right ones. I hope so.”

Hoang was in her bedroom when five men forced their way into her house on South Huron Drive. Four of the intruders held Hoang’s husband and 12 of her children at gunpoint, demanding money, while a fifth began walking down the hallway and checking bedrooms. He shot Hoang once in the upper body, and she died at the scene. The intruders were in the home less than five minutes.

The shooting had left Santa Ana police investigators stymied. In the hours that followed the shooting, they had little to go on other than reports from a neighbor that he had seen a dark green Datsun whose occupants seemed to be casing the housing tract in the late afternoon on four occasions before the shooting, reports that led nowhere, police said.

Arrested Friday

On Friday, the suspects were arrested at their homes and taken to Juvenile Hall. Sources said the two youths appeared Monday before Juvenile Court Referee Betty J. Farrell for a detention hearing and were ordered to remain in custody pending a June 19 trial date.

The same sources said the county public defender’s office was providing legal representation for the suspects, but that agency would not discuss the matter.

At a press conference Tuesday, Police Department representatives, who would not comment about the case Monday, criticized the media for publicizing the arrests and said the investigation may be jeopardized by the other suspects’ knowledge that two have been apprehended.

“It’s just a very sensitive case,” Mitchell said tersely.

At the press meeting, police provided only sketchy details about the specific organizations or individuals in the Vietnamese community who helped investigators and how.

Newspapers Urged Cooperation

Provence and Mitchell said that Vietnamese-language newspapers in Orange County also ran several stories asking readers to cooperate with law enforcement officers to help solve the slaying.

“It’s a real inroad,” Mitchell said of the cooperation of the large refugee population, which historically has been distrustful of law enforcement officers--in part because they are not familiar with American due process of law and bail procedures that allow suspects to be released pending prosecution.

“We see it as a turning point in them getting to know us better and trusting us,” Provence said.

Times staff writer Bill Billiter contributed to this story.