Father Who Laughed Over His Own Children’s Deaths
Authorities searched along the coastal waters Wednesday for the bodies of Hannah Luong, two, Lindsey Luong, one and Danny Luong, four months - and three-year-old Ryan Phan, Kieu Phan, 23 - the mother of all 4 children - who she had with another man.
Lam Luong is accused of throwing the 4 young children from an Alabama bridge on January 7, 2008 after an argument with his wife.
Phan had burst into tears, as coloured photographs of her children were flashed on a screen for jurors. Prosecutors have said they will seek a death sentence if Luong is convicted.
Phan told jurors at Lam Luong’s capital murder trial in the US state of Alabama, that: ”He kept laughing.”
Luong sat motionless as a woman identified each of his children by their name.
Phan testified in Vietnamese then interpreted by a translator, saying that Luong at first told her he had left the children with a woman in Bayou La Batre. By around 7pm they hadn’t returned, Phan then went to the police and began a frantic house- to-house search.
According to her testimony, days later after they had taken Luong into custody, Luong had officers bring Phan to his jail cell to tell her: ”They are all dead”.
Prosecutors claim Luong, had drove the family van to the top of Alabama’s two-lane Dauphin Island bridge and tossed the children into the Mississippi Sound, some 24m below.
Officials said most of the 4 children suffered head or neck injuries in addition to choking due to drowning. They said only the youngest, Hanna, died from drowning alone.
Luong had then admitted to the killings. Bayou La Batre Police Captain Darryl Wilson, then quoted that Luong said: ”he wanted to see the look on her (his wife’s) face when he told her about the deaths.”
Wilson had then said Luong had initially led the police on a search for the children in Mississippi, only to lead him to the top of the bridge.
The four tiny bodies were recovered from waters off the Gulf coast during a search, each of them being founded separately, which involved hundreds of volunteers in boats, aircraft and searches along the shoreline on foot.
Phan testified that her and her husband’s had become rocky after relocating, she commented that he had a girlfriend and began using crack cocaine. The family had moved back after Luong was fired from a restaurant job.
Luong came to the US as a refugee from Vietnam at 14. Immigration records indicate that he gained legal permanent residence status as a refugee, but never became a US citizen.
