A Young Life Extinguished : 150 Mourn Vietnamese Leader Slain at Tustin High School

They came to pay homage to a faithful friend, a brother, a son, and one who had symbolized a shining hope for an emigre community.

Thien Minh Ly, 24, murdered this week on a high school tennis court, had been all that, his friends and family said at a candlelight vigil Friday night honoring his memory.

About 150 people formed a large circle around a makeshift altar, placed at the spot where Ly’s body was found on the Tustin High School campus. They placed white candles on and around the altar so that the light, according to Vietnamese Buddhist beliefs, would guide his spirit to nirvana.

“His loss is the loss of what is good in our community,” said Tinh Tran, a representative of the Vietnamese Youth Assn. “A future has been lost, a star that would have shined on our community, in our homeland, has fallen.”

A school custodian found Ly, still wearing in-line skates, early Monday. He had been stabbed repeatedly, and police said he died sometime between midnight and 7:45 a.m.

The investigation is continuing, but police said they have leads and an arrest is imminent. Ly probably knew his attacker, police said, because there were no sign that he was surprised or tried to defend himself.

Ly had been an honors student at Tustin High before he graduated from UCLA with a degree in biology and English. Last year at Georgetown University he received his master’s degree in science, specializing in physiology and biophysics. He loved poetry, literature and writing. He wanted to be a doctor, or go into international diplomacy. He wanted to one day help rebuild his homeland, his friends said.

“Thien wanted to have the best education, he wanted to be a dutiful son, he wanted responsibility, he wanted to be all that is good so that one day he could repay his debt to his parents and to his country,” said Thich Minh Tri, a monk at the Bat Nha Temple in Garden Grove. “If he had abdicated his responsibility as a son, as a friend, as a symbol of the Vietnamese community, then all these people would not have been here tonight.”

While at UCLA, Ly had been president of the Vietnamese Student Assn. Most of the young people at the vigil recalled him as a leader who was involved in community activities and immersed in issues relating to Vietnam.

In 1994, Ly returned to Vietnam for the first time since his family left in 1982. There, instead of spending the money his parents gave him for the trip, he donated it to a school. He gathered a group of 20 Vietnamese children together and taught them how to swim, friends said. He talked about returning one day to work to improve the law system in the country.

“He was a very caring, thoughtful and passionate individual who wanted to better our community,” said Diane Nguyen, 24, who knew Ly from UCLA.

Peter Vo, the current president of the Vietnamese Student Assn., added, “He felt it was his responsibility to be a role model. I just wished that he had [been able] to continue to do so, so that others would have followed in his footsteps.”

At the beginning of the vigil, Ly’s parents, brother and sister stood in the background and held each other’s arms to steady themselves, and gazed at all the people who had shown up.

“They love him,” said his father, “as he loved them.”