Fiat’s Owner Feared Victim of Fatal Car Fire

Authorities have released the name of a San Fernando Valley man believed to have been killed in last month’s burning of a sports car near Hattiesburg, Miss.

“We’ve traced the car to when the title changed in 1985,” Hattiesburg investigator Raymond Howell said of the 1980 Fiat X-19. “It was sold to Van Tho Nguyen whose address at that time was Tarzana.”

Howell said Los Angeles authorities have been unable to locate Nguyen or a current Tarzana address for him.

Deer hunters found the burned-out car, containing charred bones and teeth, near Hattiesburg, a south-central Mississippi college town, on Dec. 26. Howell said the vehicle identification number plates had been drilled off, but investigators discovered a second identification number on the vehicle. Working through importers, they were able to get the vehicle identification number from the factory in Italy.

The car had been sold in 1980 in Studio City to a woman who sold it to Nguyen in 1985, Howell said. At the time Nguyen took title to the car, it had California license plate 1KUB495. Howell said the tag expires in August.

He said Nguyen is Vietnamese, born on Feb. 28, 1955, is 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs about 100 pounds.

“According to a person he listed as a reference on a job application, he walked with a limp,” Howell said. He said the man hasn’t seen Nguyen in about two years. He said Nguyen may have worked in the electronics industry.

Hattiesburg forensic dentist Michael West, who examined the teeth and jaw bones, said the victim had extensive dental work.

Investigators are working with the U.S. Border Patrol and officers in Biloxi, Miss., where there is a sizable Vietnamese community.