3 Youths Held in Slayings of 5 in Family

Three teen-agers have been arrested on suspicion of killing five members of a Vietnamese family last month, San Bernardino Police said Wednesday.

One suspect is an 18-year-old San Bernardino man who may be connected to as many as seven other home invasion murders over the last two months in California and Washington state, authorities said.

The suspect, Samreth Pan, identified as a Cambodian national, belongs to a gang known as Tiny Rascal Gangsters that preys primarily upon Southeast Asians for quick cash, according to law enforcement authorities.

Pan pleaded not guilty Tuesday to the execution-style killings in San Bernardino. He was being held without bail after being arrested Friday in Signal Hill, when a police officer caught him allegedly trying to steal a bicycle and learned later that he was wanted by San Bernardino police.

Late Tuesday, San Bernardino police arrested the two remaining suspects in the five killings--a Vietnamese woman identified as Nungh Tran, 19, of San Bernardino and a 16-year-old boy whom they declined to further identify. Department spokeswoman Margaret Diamond said Wednesday that all three suspects belonged to an Asian gang “with a propensity for violent behavior.”

Before Pan’s arrest, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department was looking for him in connection with the shooting deaths of two Southeast Asian men in their apartment July 27, a department spokesman said.

Meanwhile, authorities in Spokane and Lynnwood, Wash., said unsolved home invasion killings in their cities in July bear striking similarities to the California slayings.

Although there was no evidence at this time linking Pan to the five Washington homicides, authorities noted that in each of the four cases--San Bernardino, Sacramento, Spokane and Lynnwood--robbers invaded the homes of people of Asian ethnicity and killed the victims, apparently in swift order.

“We heard he may have been in our area at the time, and he will be questioned about it,” said Trudy Dana, spokeswoman for the Lynnwood Police Department. “He may be totally unrelated to our case, but all our other leads have evaporated.”

Sharon Telles, spokeswoman for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, said Pan was sought by detectives there after another suspect, who gave a Portland, Ore., address, was arrested on suspicion of killing two Sacramento men July 27.

The suspect in the Sacramento jail, 22-year-old Run Chhuon, and Pan belong to the Tiny Rascal Gangsters, she said.

The first of the four possibly related cases occurred July 4 in the Seattle suburb of Lynnwood with the slayings of Suk An and his wife, Sung Sook An, both 42, and their 19-year-old son, Chang An. On July 10 in Spokane, a Hmong couple--Jonny Hagan Jr., 26, and his wife, Hong Nga Thi Pham, 23--were found shot to death inside their apartment.

On July 27 in Sacramento, two Hmong men--Letntip Luu, 74, and Heunt Luu, 47--were shot to death and a woman was injured.

The Aug. 10 home invasion robbery in San Bernardino left five dead--Henry Nguyen, 44, his wife, Trinh Yen Tran, 36, their daughter, Doan, 13, and two sons, Daniel, 11, and David, 10.