Slain Mother, Children Identified; Police Have No Suspect in Slayings

Police investigating the killing of a Vietnamese family of four identified three of the victims, a woman and her two children, but said today they had no suspect.

“We are conducting this as if it is a murder investigation, but we have not ruled out anything at this time, whether it is murder or murder-suicide,” Costa Mesa Police Capt. Tom Lazar said this afternoon.

Hanh Thi Duong, 25, her son, Thang Quoc Nguyen, 7, and her daughter, Lan Ngoc Nguyen, 4, died of gunshot wounds, authorities said. The fourth gunshot victim, also Vietnamese, was a 30-year-old man, but police were withholding his name until next of kin could be contacted.

Neighbors said the couple and the two children had been living in the two-bedroom, ground-floor apartment for about a year, but were in the process of moving out. They said the woman was friendly, but spoke little English and mostly kept to herself.

“People seem to be pretty shaken up here,” said Bob Crogan, a senior police officer with the Costa Mesa police department. “I can’t remember the last time we had a multiple murder.”

Crogan said Officer Jess Gilman arrived at the apartment complex, which sits on Baker Street at the edge of a residential neighborhood, at 7:34 p.m. Wednesday.

An adult Vietnamese man had come to the apartment to help the occupants move, Crogan said. He called police after noticing that a back window was broken and seeing a pair of legs on the floor inside.

“Officer Gilman looked through the window and could observe two legs on the floor,”

Crogran said. Upon entering, the officer found two adults in the living room and the children in the bedroom.

School officials said 7-year-old Thang had attended kindergarten at the nearby Killeybrook Elementary School and would have entered the first grade this fall.

“He was such a sweet little boy, very cooperative, a nice little student,” said the boy’s teacher, who declined to give her name. The teacher said the boy’s mother walked to school almost every day to pick him up, but her English was very limited.

“We really didn’t know anything about their home life,” she said.

Christine Tilley, who lived in the apartment facing Duong, said she had assumed that the couple were married and said she believed Duong was expecting a third child. Tilley also described Duong as a quiet woman whose only social contact seemed to be with her parents.

Other neighbors said they had heard pounding sounds Wednesday evening about an hour before police were called to the scene about 7:30 p.m..

“I heard pounding on the wall, they kept pounding,” said Miguel Henriquez, who lived next door. Henriquez said he went outside but saw nothing amiss in the apartment, except that the sliding glass door was open.

Police would not comment on the relationship between the victims except to say that the man was not related to the woman and children.