Mother Shoots Girl; Both Found Dead on Freeway : Tragedy: She lies down on the Garden Grove beside her handicapped daughter and they are run over.

A woman shot her 4-year-old, handicapped daughter in the head, then lay down with her on the Garden Grove Freeway where they were struck by a car and later found dead, police said Tuesday.

Family members said Stacy Phuong Phan, 32, of Garden Grove blamed herself for the birth defects that caused her child to be mentally and physically impaired. She had spoken of suicide in recent months, but her warnings apparently were ignored, police said.

“We are handling it strictly as a murder-suicide,” Sgt. Douglas Morrill said. “There was no note, but over the past three months she had told family members that she was contemplating suicide and that she was going to take her daughter with her. . . . That night (Monday), she said she was going to commit suicide, but nobody took her seriously.”

The mother and child were dead at 11:48 p.m. when authorities arrived at the scene.

It wasn’t known if the girl, Dianna, died when she was shot with a .22-caliber gun or hit by a car. An autopsy was pending, the Orange County coroner’s office said.

Experts in the care of mentally and physically handicapped children said that taking care of the youngsters’ needs is a full-time and often stressful job.

Recently, the strain had mounted and could be seen on his wife’s face, Phan’s husband, David Da Phan, 41, said.

“Two weeks ago, my wife hugged me in bed, cried and said: ‘If anything happened to mommy and baby, who would care for baba (daddy)?’ ” Phan recalled. “I said: ‘Mommy is talking nonsense. Baba has no one here. If mommy wants to go, then take baba with you.’ ”

But the husband and family members said they thought her comments were a sense of foreboding rather than a cry for help.

“My wife used to say that if anything ever happened to her later, she must bring our child with her. We were sad all the time about our daughter, but we’d say things just to say them. I never thought she’d ever do this,” Phan said in Vietnamese on Tuesday.

The Phans lived with her parents and two sisters, who gathered at home Tuesday. Phan sobbed continually beside a picture of his wife and daughter beaming from a 1988 photograph atop a television set.

The Phans had been boat people who escaped Communist Vietnam, he in 1975 and she in 1978. The couple met in Utah, married and left the cold weather there for Southern California a year later.

He found work as a cable operator and she as a teller at a savings and loan. Then she became pregnant, and it had seemed that their dreams were coming true.

But the birth brought hardship and doubts.

Phan said his wife had always been sad and plagued by guilt that Dianna was born brain-damaged. Their daughter, though beautiful, could not walk or talk. And a month ago, Dianna lost her sight.

On Monday night, David Phan awoke at about 11 p.m. and alerted other members of the family when he could not find his wife and daughter. He then called police.

“She must have sneaked out the back door,” said her mother, 64-year-old San Thi Dinh. “If she had used the front door, we would have heard.”

Police believe that she drove to nearby Westhaven Park. She apparently shot her daughter at the park, then drove 6 miles to the freeway and parked about 150 feet west of the Springdale Street overpass.

“The car was parked near the bodies and the woman’s keys, purse and weapon were inside the car,” Morrill said. The engine was still hot when the California Highway Patrol discovered the bodies. They believe that a car had struck them moments earlier.

Morrill said the driver, who didn’t stop, may not have realized what had happened.

Police, who were called to the park by city maintenance crews, found a pool of blood and .22-caliber shells near a fountain.

“We went there, and judging from the evidence, we put two and two together. Her home is just down the street,” Morrill said.

David Phan and members of his wife’s family said they could not understand why Stacy, whom they described as a “kind, affectionate and caring” person, had chosen the way she and her daughter died. They all agreed that she loved Dianna very much.

Her relatives said that they knew of no religious or cultural reason for the way she chose to die. Stacy was not religious and did not regularly attend Buddhist temples, they said. She had even tried Christianity for a brief time in Utah.

The young mother had worked as a teller at Home Savings of America in Garden Grove since 1984. Her elder sister, Phuong Lam, said she was much loved by her co-workers.

Family members said they did recall alarming comments Monday by Stacy Phan.

“Yesterday (Monday) afternoon, she said she had a feeling she will die early,” said Phuong Chi Lam, Stacy’s other sister. “I said: ‘You shouldn’t die like that. Your soul will not be free. You will not be able to be born again.’ She then reminded me to bring her picture (her soul) to the temple to pray for her.”

“I still had thought she was just saying things in jest,” Lam said.

Phan said he will ask a Buddhist monk to bless the freeway area where his wife and daughter were found dead in the hope of gaining peace for their souls.

Her mother said that Stacy was a dutiful daughter to the end of her life. “Just yesterday, she reminded her sisters to take me to my doctor’s appointment today,” Dinh said. “Last night, she was telling me to go to bed early. She took care of everything for her mother and father.”

Phan said that he felt abandoned.

“My wife had instructed me to always care for my father- and mother-in-law no matter what else I do,” he said. “I don’t know where my future lies now. I had no one else except my wife and daughter.”

Police are asking for the public’s help, or anyone with information about the hit-and-run accident on the Garden Grove Freeway to call (714) 741-5800.

Mother-Daughter Tragedy

A Garden Grove woman shot her 4-year-old daughter at Westhaven Park, then drove her to the Garden Grove Freeway where, police said, Stacy Phan put the girl on the freeway and lay down beside her in the slow lane. They were struck by a car, and both mother and daughter were dead when police arrived.

Source: Garden Grove Police Department