MOBILE, Alabama, March 19, 2009
Dad Who Threw Kids From Bridge Convicted
Jury Finds Ala. Man Guilty Of Murder For Throwing Four Children, Three His Own, From 80-Foot-High Structure
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This Jan. 8, 2007 file photograph released by the Mobile County Sheriff's Office in Mobile, Ala., shows Lam Luong, 37, of Irvington, Ala. (AP PHOTO)
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Lam Luong, the 38-year-old defendant who emigrated from Vietnam as a teenager, presented no defense witnesses during the week's proceedings and declined to speak at his trial in Mobile.
Prosecutors charged that Luong threw the four children - ages 4 months to 3 years - from the top of an 80-foot-high span of a Gulf coast bridge on Jan. 7, 2008, after an argument with his common-law wife, Kieu Phan. Three of the children were his and the fourth was his wife's with another man.
Luong was convicted of five counts of capital murder, one for each victim and one additionally because the victims were children. Following the convictions, the jury is scheduled to return Friday to recommend either death or life without parole in the penalty phase. The judge is not required to abide by the jury's recommendation.
Luong, a part-time shrimper, acknowledged killing the children in one statement while in custody, according to authorities. But officials said he later recanted to police, reverting to his initial story that an Asian woman named Kim had taken the children.
He also entered a guilty plea at a hearing before the trial and said he wanted to die, but later retracted that plea.
Luong stood accused of throwing Hannah Luong, 2, Ryan Phan, 3, Lindsey Luong, 1, and Danny Luong, 4 months, into the Mississippi Sound. The four tiny bodies were recovered from waters off the Gulf coast last year after a search involving hundreds of volunteers using boats, aircraft and scouring the shoreline on foot.
Defense attorney Greg Hughes said Thursday that the defendant was on drugs at the time and urged the jury to return a reduced charge of manslaughter.
In his closing arguments, District Attorney John Tyson urged jurors to convict Luong of capital murder. He said the defendant was not intoxicated at the time and committed a "vengeful, spiteful crime" against his family.
The jury began deliberations just before noon, capping days of testimony.
Phan, 23, told jurors Monday that her common-law husband laughed when he told her that the children - while still reported missing - would never be found.
"He kept laughing," she said, bursting into tears when color photographs of the children were flashed on a screen.
Phan, whose testimony in Vietnamese was interpreted by a translator, said Luong at first told her he had left the children with a woman.
Days later, when his story came under scrutiny and he was taken into custody, Luong had officers bring Phan to his jail cell to tell her: "They are all dead," according to her testimony.
"No way that we can find the children," she said he told her. "He kept laughing." She fell to her knees and cried, police testified.
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These children were murdered by their father. There is no excuse for this behavior. I firmly believe in an eye for an eye in cases like this against children, they are special and need to be protected. This is outright lunacy of the father. He needs the death penality, but it would be nice to see some fear put in his mind before he dies just like his children, but that won't happen, they will just give him a soothing letal injection. I feel the punishment should equal the crime. Maybe than we wouldn't have as many peple doing henious things to others if they knew their death would be so easy. Bring back the chair and fry these eveil people, seems when we had the chair most people were afraid to die this way and not as much crime. I know some people will say this is cruel and unusal punishment, but I feel if you want to cut down on crimes like this a painful lingering death might be a good deterent, might make a crimainal think twice.
I thought shoes were the in thing now.
Posted by LawyersGuns-n-Money at 1:43 PM : Mar 20, 2009
I hear you can get martyred for that.
Posted by rrozsa at 12:45 PM : Mar 20, 2009
Uh-oh, you were un-PC, huh? I resemble that remark. I must have struck a nerve with someone, because now that I look, all my posts for the last two days have been removed on each of the threads I've checked. Some of them were just running jokes with a few of the people I see all the time on this site. Some of them were serious comments or questions. I'm not sure why CBS is deleting posts that absolutely follow the Rules of Engagement.
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Don't take it personally! Some of mine have been removed lately too, although not by the "fascists". I don't see the politically incorrect opinion I submitted about the surgeons surgically correcting the injured jaw of the crocodile in Miami..... ;-)
Posted by cs4466 at 5:57 PM : Mar 19, 2009
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I understand where you're coming from. But I hope you understand, the vast majority of us Christians are not "Bible thumpers" or "country bumpkins". Just like any group, only the idiots, usually with no teeth and a big axe to grind, are seen in the media and (largely) on blogs. And a lot of those are poser trolls, not actually Christians.
Don't let a few hypocrytical idiots sway you to throw out the proverbial baby with the bath-water. Just keep an open mind. Many atheist scholars have finally come to know Christ -- check out C. S. Lewis, Malcom Muggeridge, only to name two.
And of course, you are entitled to your own beliefs.
Posted by rrozsa at 2:42 PM : Mar 19, 2009
Oh, there's lots of definitions. Do I believe there are forces I do not have the knowledge or experience - or perhaps even capacity - to understand? Sure. But I'm not a bumpkin that blames the "good" things on "God" and the "bad" things on the "devil". So I'm very careful about how i use the term "evil" as it is often just a crutch by the bumpkins used to push their religion or to express their personal fear of the unknown. Is the guy loathsome? Sure. Evil? If you would mean evil to be only "morally reprehensible" then I would certainly agree. If you mean "evil" as in "the devil made him do it", then I heartily disagree. Not that it isn't possible, I just see it as more superstition than objective deduction.
They should reinstate the electric chair for criminals like this guy. Lethal injection is too humane a punishment.
Posted by cs4466 at 2:25 PM : Mar 19, 2009
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Websters defines evil as "morally reprehensible". I think that fits this case. One definition does use the term "cosmic evil force". Do you not believe in cosmic forces? We may have differing opinions on that. Still, it's my opinion. I'm still entitled to one.
I'm sure the defense attorney had to say this to fulfill his obligation to provide a vigorous defense, but it just *had* to burn his throat.
- by otiswestfall March 19, 2009 3:37 PM EDT
- Ol Luke The **** didn't want to pay child support.
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