Defendant in 2019 Huntington Beach homicide owed $60,000 in gambling debts to his alleged victim

A former criminal justice student accused in a shooting in Huntington Beach that left a man dead three years ago owed about $60,000 in gambling debt to the victim, according to evidence and testimony presented in court Thursday.

Dennis Tri Gia Dang faces one count of murder in connection with the killing of Fountain Valley resident Linh Ho. Ho was 48 when he was found lying wounded in the parking lot of a strip mall at the corner of Warner Avenue and Magnolia Street on Oct. 20, 2019, and later died at a hospital.

The victim ran a sports gambling operation and Dang worked as a middleman for him, said 34-year-old Midway City resident Casey Ngo, a longtime friend of the defendant who took the stand on Thursday, during the second day of the murder trial.

Ngo had been arrested as a suspect in the case but later provided a statement to investigators and has not been charged in Ho’s homicide.

Dang was attending UC Irvine at the time. In a recorded statement played in court, he said he was managing the bets of several gamblers who owed money to Ho. The victim held the defendant responsible for those debts, which totaled about $60,000, Ngo said.

Dang became noticeably distraught in the two weeks leading up to the shooting and was asking friends for loans, Ngo testified. The morning before the killing, the defendant received a text instructing him to pay by Sunday, according to the defendant’s recorded statement. It included the phrase “... or else you can’t blame me for what happens to you,” the witness, roughly translating from Vietnamese, recalled.

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Janine Madera noted there were no explicit threats of violence in any of the messages Dang received about the debt and Ho was a friend of Dang’s father.

“I couldn’t imagine Dennis doing anything to him [Ho] and him doing anything to Dennis because they had a good relationship with each other,” Ngo said Thursday.

Dang asked Ngo to accompany him that October Sunday to a meeting with Ho at Pho Lovers, a Vietnamese restaurant near the scene of the shooting. He was supposed to pay off the debts but only had about $2,000 at the time, the defendant said in his recorded statement.

According to the testimony, Dang changed clothes at his home and collected a black bag containing the money he planned to give Ho, and then drove with Ngo to the meeting location. They parked the defendant’s white Toyota Camry in the back lot of the shopping center.

The defendant was seen in footage recorded by multiple surveillance cameras getting into Ho’s silver Cadillac Escalade at about 12:10 p.m. Over the next 60 seconds, a bright flash is seen from the interior of the SUV before Dang exits the SUV and bolts toward his car.

While this was taking place, Ngo had moved to the driver seat of the Camry and had fallen asleep. He was awakened by the gunshot, then saw Dang running toward him. The defendant told his friend to “just go” and changed clothes again in the car as they drove to Ngo’s home.

Following the shooting, Dang told Ngo that Ho “was tripping on me, and I shot him,” the witness said.

“I remember telling him he’s an idiot,” Ngo added.

As the defendant and witness fled the scene of the shooting, Ho was seen stumbling out of his Escalade moments before collapsing onto a patch of grass in the parking lot in footage shown in court Thursday. Several members of the victim’s family who were present as the video was played left the room in tears before it ended.

A single bullet casing was found wedged into the passenger seat of the Escalade, and a round was found behind a punctured interior panel near the driver-side door, Corrie Stark, a forensic investigator with the Orange County Crime Lab, said during testimony. However, no firearm was found in the vehicle or during a search of the suspect’s home, Huntington Beach Police Detective Jason Burton said from the stand Thursday.

The defendant’s state of mind at the time of the shooting may be a key factor in deciding the outcome of this case, Judge Richard King told attorneys during a brief break in proceedings on Thursday. Madera repeatedly noted that Dang never stated that he feared for his physical safety, and Ngo said he appeared “worried,” “distraught” and “not all there” that morning but not fearful. However, defense attorney Ricardo A. Nicol argued that the defendant’s actions showed that he was “obviously scared,” even if he never explicitly said so.

Dang’s trial resumes Tuesday at 2 p.m. in Department C45 of the Superior Courthouse in Santa Ana. It is expected to conclude by either the end of next week or the beginning of the following week.

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