Police Puzzle Over Motive in 4 O.C. Slayings

The murder of a pregnant Vietnamese woman, her two young children and a 30-year-old friend on Wednesday has mystified neighbors, horrified the local Vietnamese community and so far puzzled police, who say they lack both a motive and a suspect.

“We don’t have enough information that will send us in any one direction,” Costa Mesa Police Capt. Thomas Lazar said Thursday, adding that the killings do not appear to be the work of gangs or robbers. “We have not ruled out murder or murder-suicide.”

Hanh Thi Duong, 25; her son, Thang Quoc Nguyen, 7, and her daughter, Lan Ngoc Nguyen, 4, were found Wednesday evening on the floor of their two-bedroom Baker Street apartment, dead of gunshot wounds, authorities said. The fourth victim, also Vietnamese, was identified late Thursday as Oanh Van Le, 30, of Westminster.

Police responded to a call Wednesday evening from a man, thought to be a friend of the family, who had arrived to help the family move. Getting no answer to his shouts, the man peered in a broken window and saw only the woman’s legs as she lay on the floor of the apartment, located in an ethnically diverse section of town.

Police were on the scene at 7:34 p.m. and entered the apartment briefly, determining that the victims were dead. After cordoning off the area for hours Wednesday night while waiting for a search warrant to investigate the crime scene, police re-entered shortly before dawn Thursday, authorities said.

Inside, police found no evidence of a struggle. Nothing had apparently been taken, and the apartment, though mostly bare of furniture, was not in disarray. Without any sign of forced entry, police believe that Duong or Le may have known the assailant--if the deaths were not the result of a murder-suicide.

“There was nothing to show that there was a struggle,” Lazar said. “Normally, you would see ransacking.”

The bodies of the two children were discovered on the floor of their empty bedroom, the beds already removed. The two adults were in the living room.

Neighbors said the 30-year-old Le was living with the family, but police said he is not the children’s father. Costa Mesa Police Lt. Tom Warnack described Le as a friend of the other victims.

The children’s father, police believe, is either dead or in Vietnam. “We don’t believe him to be in the area,” Lazar said.

Police would not say how many times the victims were shot, whether the murder weapon had been found, how the assailant had entered the apartment or other details of the crime.

The bodies of the victims were removed at 11 a.m. Thursday and taken to the coroner’s office, where autopsies were performed. No results were released immediately.

Neighbors were not able to provide many details about the family, saying only that the young mother had arrived from Vietnam within the past few years, spoke little English and kept mostly to herself.

Christine Tilley, who lives in the same apartment complex, said she had had little contact with Duong because of her limited English. Tilley, who said that she thought Duong was married, had noticed her neighbor’s swelling waistline--Duong was in the first trimester of her pregnancy, police said. Tilley also said she was aware that the family was moving.

“She was sitting on the lawn one day with her kids and I walked up and said, ‘Hi,’ ” Tilley said, adding that she had wished Duong and her family well in their new home but did not know where they planned to go.

Although the mother was not well-known by many of her neighbors, 7-year-old Thang--a spirited young boy born in Vietnam whose school photo shows him in a Batman shirt--was settling into Killybrooke Elementary School and making friends. After overcoming language problems last year, Thang was quickly learning English and doing better in school, according to his teacher.

“I just feel so horrible,” said Thang’s teacher, who asked not to be named. “He was such a sweet little boy, very cooperative, a nice little student.”

Because all four victims were Vietnamese, early speculation focused on whether the crimes were an example of “home-invasion” robberies, in which bandits typically break into homes in Asian neighborhoods, tie up, and often beat or threaten their victims.

Neighbors said there had been several such robberies in the area recently, as well as other break-ins, street crimes and car thefts. But the fact that nothing appeared missing from the apartment and that no struggle appears to have occurred squelched the home-invasion theory, police said.

That brought little comfort to those who live in the community, however, as many fretted over what they say is a recent escalation in area crime. Those crimes, some neighbors said, frightened them out of taking action when they heard a commotion--pounding on walls and running footsteps--in and around the apartment late Wednesday afternoon.

The murders stunned the local Vietnamese community, and local leaders groped for a theory that could explain the brutal killings.

“Most of the people think it’s either love or money,” said Mai Cong, chairman of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., a social service agency. “But one thing that no one has any explanation for is why they killed two children. That puzzles everyone.

“I don’t remember any similar case where they shoot the whole family,” Cong said.

Nghi Duong, a Costa Mesa resident who is not related to the mother, agreed.

“How could such a shocking tragedy happen to a family like that?” Nghi Duong asked. “The killer should be sent back to Vietnam.”

Times staff writers James M. Gomez and Eric Lichtblau contributed to this report.