Hunt Continues for 2 in Killing of Store Clerk

Friends and family buried Alan Nguyen on Thursday while homicide detectives continued their hunt for two men who fatally beat the 48-year-old father of nine at his family’s Lawndale liquor store on Christmas Day.

Exhausted from working 16 hours, Nguyen was napping on a makeshift cot behind the counter when two men burst into Wit’s Liquor store about 2:40 p.m., said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Joe Purcell.

Nguyen remained asleep during the ordeal as his 21-year-old daughter, Samantha, who was minding the store, handed over a bag of cash, Purcell said. As the robbers prepared to leave, one of them noticed Nguyen asleep and bludgeoned him to death with a pistol, Purcell said.

A security store video shows the men leaving the bag of cash behind and taking two boxes of cigars as they left, he said. Investigators have recovered fingerprints of one robber from a soda can left in the store.

The killing has left friends and city officials horrified.

“I was sick when I heard. I couldn’t believe it,” said Joe Nichols, who worked part time at Nguyen’s store. “He was very nice. Always nice to the customers. A loving father.”

Twelve years ago, Nguyen bundled up his family in Vietnam and fled to the United States in search of a better life, Nichols said. With nine children ranging from 5 to 24 years old, Nguyen regularly worked 12-hour days and six days a week at the store, which his eldest son had owned for nine months.

More than a dozen bouquets of flowers and burning candles stood in front of the store’s locked doors Thursday. “God will bring evil men to justice,” read one card.

“[I] can’t visualize any human being doing that to another human being,” said Lawndale City Councilman Larry Rudolph. “It boggles the mind. They already had what they wanted.”

During a special session Tuesday night, the City Council approved a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Nguyen’s killers. On Wednesday, hundreds of people attended services for Nguyen at a Lawndale mortuary. He was buried Thursday at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Detectives urged anyone who has information about the identity or whereabouts of the robbers to call detectives at (323) 890-5500.