Woman Dies After Son’s Rampage

An Anaheim Hills woman died late Wednesday night, hours after her son had shot her and his younger brother, set the house on fire and then killed himself.

Sieu H. Vang, 47, died at 11:15 p.m. at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana’s Trauma Unit, according to the Orange County coroner’s office.

On Thursday, the charred interior of the Vang house was a quiet, eerie reminder of how suddenly the clear afternoon day on Hanlon Way had turned deadly.

A small pile of freshly folded laundry rested on the edge of a couch.

A purse sat on the kitchen counter next to a set of car keys, and bloodstains remained on the floor where Sieu Vang and her distraught son had fallen.

Patrick Vang, 27, opened fire during a family argument, police said.

Monique Nguyen, a next-door neighbor, recalled brief conversations with Patrick Vang in recent years.

“He hardly ever talked,” she said. Nguyen also said Sieu Vang used to work as a clothing designer.

After shooting his mother and 24-year-old brother, Patrick Vang attempted to raze the house by setting a piece of furniture on fire, Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez said Thursday.

As flames engulfed the downstairs living room and kitchen of the two-story home, Vang stood near the front door and turned the gun on himself.

His 21-year-old sister, Angela, had jumped to safety from a second-floor window upon hearing the first shots.

Neighbors flooded police and fire dispatchers with 911 calls. The first, which police received at 1:41 p.m., reported screams from inside the Vang house.

With firefighters waiting up the block, the Anaheim police’s rapid response unit surrounded the house with assault rifles drawn. They found Sieu Vang unconscious on the outside patio. A passersby had spotted the flames, kicked in a door and dragged her out.

After police secured the area, firefighters quickly brought the blaze under control and attended tothe wounded Vang brother. He was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where Martinez said he was being treated for “life-threatening” injuries.

Police would not release his full name.

Late Wednesday night, the Anaheim police bomb squad was dispatched to the house after receiving calls about a suspicious object in the backyard.

No explosive device was found.

Martinez declined to comment on the cause of the dispute and said it remained unclear why Patrick Vang had set the fire.

The house was in foreclosure and had been sold the morning of the crime, authorities said.

“We don’t know if he was trying to cover his tracks or just burn everything to the ground,” he said.