A Knife Honed by Hate?

The family of 17-year-old Kenneth Chiu, who was stabbed to death this week outside his Laguna Hills home, said they fear racism may have been behind the attack.

Christopher and Minnie Chiu, Kenneth’s parents, recalled numerous instances in the 10 years they have lived in the 27000 block of Woodbluff Road, a hilly neighborhood with mountain views. Several times, eggs were thrown at their house, said the Chius, both born in Taiwan. Once blue paint was splashed along the side. Six months ago, a racial slur directed at Chinese people was scratched onto Christopher Chiu’s Lexus SUV.

Late Sunday, the worst happened. Kenneth had just returned after driving his new girlfriend home from dinner at the Chius’ house. He was at a side entrance when he was attacked. Christopher Chiu said he heard screaming outside and on a hunch dialed his son’s cell phone. He heard the ringing just outside the door.

Kenneth lay mortally wounded on a walkway “in so much blood,” Minnie Chiu said. The youth had been stabbed at least four times.

“The doctor told me even if he had been right there, he couldn’t have saved my son. Too much had been done,” Christopher Chiu said.

Christopher Chiu, a partner in a group that owns hotels, said the infuriating thing about suspicions of racism is that so little can be proved. “Personally, I feel like there is racial discrimination in this community,” he said, referring to the vandalism to his car. “I know deeply in my heart this was a hate crime.”

Police said Tuesday they are investigating that possibility.

Prosecutors filed a complaint charging the Chius’ next-door neighbor, Christopher Charles Hearn, 20, with murder. Investigators said Kenneth Chiu told them just before he died that Hearn was his assailant. Officers arrested Hearn on his family’s front porch shortly after the attack.

Hearn, who is being held without bail at Orange County Jail in Santa Ana, also faces special-circumstance charges of lying in wait and murder based on ethnicity, either of which would make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted, said Tori Richards, spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors allege that Hearn waited for Kenneth Chiu to return home, then attacked him with a large knife that police later found at the scene. Hearn is set to be arraigned today at Orange County Superior Court’s South Justice Center in Laguna Hills.

Tuesday afternoon on Woodbluff Road, neighbors talked quietly about other incidents.

Said one: “We always knew something bad was going to happen. We just never thought it would be something this bad.”