Twin Had ‘Recipe’ for Murder, Jurors Told as Trial Opens

Jeen Young Han concocted a “recipe” for murder with two teenagers to kill her identical twin sister, Deputy Dist. Atty. Bruce Moore said Thursday.

“She wants [her] dead and it’s unequivocal,” the prosecutor told the jury during opening remarks in Orange County Superior Court.

Jeen Han, 23, is on trial on conspiracy to commit murder, burglary and false imprisonment charges. The prosecution says she enlisted her co-defendants, Archie Bryant, 17, and John Sayarth, 16, to help her kill her sister, with whom she was feuding.

But defense attorneys told the jury the three suspects barely knew one another and never hatched a murder plot. They said the defendants went to Sunny Han’s apartment in Irvine to retrieve some of Jeen Han’s belongings, which Sunny had refused to return.

“There was no agreement to do anything other than to find a way to get into that house so [Jeen] Han could get her belongings back,” said Deputy Public Defender Roger Alexander, Jeen Han’s attorney.

Alexander conceded that his client had many times made such statements as “I wish my sister was dead” and “Who wants to help me kill my sister?”

But he said it was merely “a venting of anger.”