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.
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