A Vietnamese man was convicted on Thursday of murdering four small children he threw from a 25m bridge on Alabama’s Gulf coast, a crime prosecutors described as a horrific “death ride” for youngsters who thought they were in caring hands.
Lam Luong, 38, who emigrated from Vietnam at 14, presented no defense witnesses at his trial this week.
A jury needed just 40 minutes to convict him of five counts of capital murder, one for each child and one extra because the case involves multiple victims. Capital murder is Alabama’s only charge that carries a potential death sentence.
Jurors are scheduled to return yesterday to recommend either death or life in prison without parole, though the judge is not required to abide by their recommendation.
Prosecutors told jurors Luong committed an “unimaginable crime” by casting the four children — ages four months to three years — from the highest point of the Dauphin Island bridge on Jan. 7 last year after an argument with his common-law wife, Kieu Phan. Three of the children were his with Phan, 23, and the fourth was his wife’s with another man.
Prosecution witnesses said they spotted Luong and the children in a van parked on the bridge that crosses the Mississippi Sound. One testified that he thought Luong was just tossing a bundle of garbage over the railing — only to learn later that bundle was the first child dropped into the water.
Assistant District Attorney Jo Beth Murphree, who led the prosecution, told jurors in closing arguments on Thursday that the children “did not know they were on a death ride that morning. They trusted him ... The father has betrayed his children.”
When parents kill their children, she said, “sometimes there is just evil. That’s what we have in this case.”
A tearful Phan declined to comment after the verdict as she left the courthouse escorted by relatives.
A part-time shrimper, Luong acknowledged killing the children in one statement while in custody, authorities said. But officials said he later recanted to police, reverting to his initial story that an Asian woman named Kim had taken the children.
He had entered a guilty plea at a hearing before the trial and said he wanted to die, but later retracted that plea.
Defense attorney Greg Hughes said Luong was intoxicated when he went to the bridge after a night of smoking crack cocaine and drinking alcohol.
The children’s’ mother testified on Monday that Luong had a girlfriend, used drugs and didn’t find a job when the family returned to the Alabama coast after temporarily relocating to Georgia after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast in 2005.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to