Dad Who Threw Kids Off Bridge: Execute Me

Father Unexpectedly Pleads Guilty, Asks Alabama Judge For The Death Penalty

(CBS/AP)  A man accused of tossing his four young children to their deaths from a coastal Alabama bridge unexpectedly pleaded guilty Thursday and told a state judge he wants to be put to death.

Lam Luong, 38, a Vietnamese refugee, entered the plea before Circuit Judge Charles Graddick at a hearing on a change of venue motion. Luong made the plea in a letter he wrote and gave to the judge.

His court-appointed translator Tam Vo reads the letter, which read as follows, according to CBS affiliate WKRG in Mobile:

"Dear Judge, My name is Lam Luong. I am plead guilty for that I have done that was the matter of killing my four children. From the day they die, I'm no longer want to live but I don't know how to die. Just please grant my wish. I hereby request the death penalty as soon as possible. That is my request. Lam Luong."

Luong was in court for a change of venue hearing. His attorneys argued that his story got so much media attention that their client could not get a fair trial in Mobile County. (Contacted by Luong's lawyers, WKRG said it ran 440 stories about Luong's case between January 2008 and January 2009.)

Under Alabama law, capital murder defendants must be tried before a jury even if they plead guilty. Luong's trial starts Monday, but will not be moved. The jury will not be sequestered, WKRG reports.

Luong's plea will now be used as evidence by the state.

Luong, who speaks Vietnamese, communicated with Graddick through an interpreter. Court-appointed defense attorneys have opposed his desire to plead guilty, which he had expressed previously.

"It came as a complete surprise. We didn't have any idea that something like that would happen," Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson Jr. said, adding that prosecutors had been prepared to argue against changing the venue.

Defense attorneys did not return phone messages for comment.

Although the defendant has admitted guilt, the jury will make a recommendation of either death or life in prison without parole. The judge is not bound by the recommendation.

Prosecutors claim Luong argued with his common-law wife, Kieu Ngoc Phan, 23, before he drove the family van to the top of the two-lane bridge on Jan. 7, 2008 and tossed the children into the cold Mississippi Sound 80 feet below.

The bodies of the four children - Hannah Luong, 2, Ryan Phan, 3, Lindsey Luong, 1, and Danny Luong, 4 months - were recovered from waters off the coasts of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana during a search that involved hundreds of volunteers in aircraft, boats and on foot.

Luong came to the U.S. from Vietnam when he was 14. The family was living near the fishing village of Bayou La Batre at the time of the deaths.

Kam Phengsisomboun, who has served as spokesman for the family of the mother, said they had no comment. But he told The Associated Press in an interview last week that the death penalty "would be too easy" for Luong.

"Let him suffer in prison for what he did to the kids," he said.

Tyson has said he would recommend a death sentence if Luong is convicted.

U.S. immigration records indicate that Luong, the son of a Vietnamese woman and a U.S. serviceman, gained legal permanent residence status as a refugee, but never became a U.S. citizen.

Luong, a shrimp industry worker who had been arrested on cocaine possession charges in 1997 and 2000, moved his family to Hinesville, Ga., after Hurricane Katrina flooded the family's home in 2005. The family had returned to the bayou, moving into the home of the wife's mother, only a month before the bridge deaths.

Luong initially reported the children missing, saying he had given them to his girlfriend, living in a hotel In Gulfport, Miss., and that she failed to return them. Prosecutors said he later broke down and confessed when the story didn't add up, but Luong said he was harassed into making a false confession.

In a capital murder trial that follows a guilty plea, the prosecution presents its case for the jury, usually with little involvement by the defense. Capital murder convictions are automatically appealed for higher court review.

[GODSnLIBERALS]

the question here is "DO WE HAVE THE BALLS TO GRANT HIM HIS WISH"

[erb0087]

"...the Brits had no problem with beating the *&%# out of them and were very harsh in their treatment of them."

They only do that to Iraqis who poke fun at their white skinny legs and rotten teeth.

[erb0087]

You ought to start dating those big handsome Scandinavian men.

Response to:

"The British men that I met all had white skinny legs and [rotten] teeth."
Posted by leeanna59 at 2:20 PM : Mar 6, 2009

[toolmangler-2009]

Sorry I am not usually judgmental.. but this guy does not deserve the death penalty he deserves to live out the rest of his days in a cell with 8 photos... 4 of his children alive and 4 of them as they pulled the lifeless bodies out of the river.
Posted by MammaCT at 3:43 PM : Mar 6, 2009




100% agreement

[hetup-2009]

Not before the lawyers, court employees, jailers get paid. You gotta be tried and found guilty and that takes money to grease the people in the system of what we call justice. I say let him go and save a buck. He doesn't have any more kids to throw overboard and suicide is illegal.

[MammaCT]

Sorry I am not usually judgmental.. but this guy does not deserve the death penalty he deserves to live out the rest of his days in a cell with 8 photos... 4 of his children alive and 4 of them as they pulled the lifeless bodies out of the river.

[stupidrules3]

It's often conduct during war that shows us which countries are barbaric and primitive. I think publicly renouncing the Geneva Conventions, routinely torturing innocent suspects and putting people in cages for years without trial are all pretty good indications! It's not so much about what individual soldiers do, it's about what a government tells or allows them to do.
Posted by hower4 at 8:22 AM : Mar 6, 2009

The soldiers I know that have been to Iraq told me that the Iraqis would much rather be caught by the Americans than the Brits because the Brits had no problem with beating the *&%# out of them and were very harsh in their treatment of them.
As to your sweeping generalizations of Americans, I so not think you have the complete knowledge of this country that you think you have. You are just as guilty of making assumptions as the people you are accusing on this blog. The view that you have is very narrow compared to the reality.

[mdalerwill]

it also is not a difficult existence for these men. They are fed, have clothes on their backs and a roof over their heads.
Posted by hopscotch23 at 2:24 PM : Mar 6, 2009

But there is a pecking order in prisons depending on your crime. You murdered your wife? Robbed a bank? Killed someone in a drive-by shooting? Sold drugs on the corder? No problem. Enjoy the weight machines and the basketball hoop. You molested little children? Wellllll, that's a little different. That is the point at which the convicts become despensers of retribution.

[mdalerwill]

The British men that I met all had white skinny legs and rotton teeth.
Posted by leeanna59 at 2:20 PM : Mar 6, 2009

Ah, but we already determined we know different people. ;)
The Brit I married didn't have skinny legs, perhaps because he spent so much time climbing up and down the Welsh mountainside. Welshman seem to climb at least as well as goats. He did have a chipped tooth that it took a bit of cajoling to get him to fix, mostly because the British dental system is horrific. One of the things they definitely DON'T do better than we do. Once he got a taste of what American dentistry is like, no problem.

[hopscotch23]

OK, just to make you happy. You want to know why I think the fool murdered his kids? Becuase he got into an argument with his common-law wife and wanted to hurt her in the worst possible way he could think of. That was the reason behind his actions. It is no different than a man getting so angry with his wife that he ends up murdering her in a fit of rage. Later he realizes what he did and is overwhelmned with guilt and wants to die. Not everyone who commits a horrendous crime is mentally unstable. You can't pyscho-analyze ( forgive me if that is spelled wrong, please.) their actions and come up with a way to make sense out of it all. It is simply something they did on an anger-induced whim and later lived to regret. That is REALITY. You want to try and decipher his actions because you think it may be useful? It is my opinion, with which you are certainly free to and most certainly will disagree with, that you are overthinking what drove this man to do what he did. As for granting him his wish--it matters nothing to me if he is executed. He obviously has come to the point where he has fully realized what his actions did and in a way he is already dead in spirit. He was given a life sentence (I believe he was tho I may be mistaken on that) and though he feels remorse there is payment to be made. If all it took to get out of prison was being overwhelmned by guilt and wanting to die then a lot of folks would be crying give me death. The system may not be perfect but it is what we have to work with at the moment and it isn't any worse than that of other nations. My brother is a corrections officer in a state pen in California and according to him while it is not a resort, as many think, it also is not a difficult existence for these men. They are fed, have clothes on their backs and a roof over their heads. It may not be the type of food they want, the type of clothing they prefer, or lodgings they where they feel at home but for as long as they are incarcerated these things are guaranteed to them. Not to mention they have medical care they don't have to pay for. These things many people, in nations all over the world, do not have.