Missouri Man Pleads Innocent in 1989 Murder

A Missouri man sentenced to a life term in his home state pleaded innocent today to charges that he raped and murdered a young Fountain Valley mother in 1989.

Timothy Lee DePriest, 31, who is being held in Orange County Jail, will return to court Feb. 3, when a Municipal Court judge will decide if there is enough evidence to try him on rape and murder charges in the death of Hong Thi Nguyen.

DePriest was sentenced to life plus 57 years in a Missouri prison for sexually assaulting a woman in her home and shooting and nearly killing a police officer.

The attacks occurred less than two weeks after Nguyen, 26, was found dead in a Garden Grove alley on Dec. 17, 1989. Police said she had been shot in the head and that her underwear was found next to her body.

Authorities allege DePriest returned to Missouri two days after Nguyen’s slaying. He drove her car and used her credit card to buy $600 in clothing.

DePriest’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender William Kelley, called the decision by Orange County prosecutors to extradite his client and seek capital punishment in California “idiotic” because of the costs involved.

Kelley said it would cost the state of California between $3 million and $5 million to prosecute DePriest, adding that the defense had offered a settlement that would have sent DePriest back to Missouri. DePriest “could spend his life in the state of Missouri at the state of Missouri’s cost, and if he did get paroled, he’d parole directly to California state prison and serve the remainder of his natural life, which wouldn’t be much,” Kelley said.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans said that not prosecuting DePriest would be “idiotic,” adding that it would amount to rewarding the defendant for allegedly fleeing one state and “trying to kill a policeman in another.”

Said Evans: “If there ever was a defendant that was suited for the death penalty, it is DePriest. After he raped and killed this victim, he drove to Missouri where he burglarized a house with the intent of committing a rape inside. And after he completed that crime, when the police tried to apprehend him, he shot and nearly mortally wounded a police officer.”

Evans said DePriest had served time in a California prison for rape.

“We don’t know if there’s never going to be a possibility that he’s going to get out over there,” Evans said. “There’s no such thing in our experience as a total life term.”

City News Service contributed to this report.