A man who is charged with murder and arson in connection with his wife’s death at their San Marino home was ordered Tuesday to remain jailed without bail.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sean D. Coen rejected a request by Yoon “Kevin” Lai’s new attorney, Alan Jackson, to change his client’s no-bail status and to return it to $2.25 million — the same bond amount on which the defendant had been free until the prosecution added two new special circumstance allegations at the end of a hearing in January.
Lai, 62, is charged with the Jan. 6, 2025, death of his 56-year-old wife, Irene Gaw-Lai, a doctor with whom he had twin teenage sons.
In arguing for bail to be set again at $2.25 million, the defense attorney told the judge, “He’s going to stay with his family and he’s going to fight these false charges.”
Jackson contended that there was no evidence that a divorce for the couple was inevitable or that their marriage was beyond reconciliation.
Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott countered that the divorce was still pending at the time of the woman’s death and that she had never withdrawn the petition.
“This was an ambush, plain and simple,” he said, noting that Gaw-Lai was killed while she was alone in the home and that the defendant knew her routine and “exploited it.”
Lai — whom the defense attorney described as a stroke victim who walks with a cane — was ordered to be taken into custody without bail Jan. 13 after the prosecution added the special circumstance allegations of murder for financial gain and murder while lying in wait.
He had been free on a $2.25 million bond posted less than a week after his first court appearance.
At Lai’s first court appearance last year, Assistant Head Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian told a judge authorities are alleging that Lai beat his wife to death and then tried to cover it up by setting the house on fire.
The prosecutor said the two had experienced “some marital discord,” telling the judge that cellular site data and surveillance video suggests the defendant was at the home shortly before the blaze.
Lai’s then-attorney, James Tedford, countered that the county medical examiner’s office has listed the woman’s cause of death as “undetermined.”
Tedford said then that there were electrical issues at the home, saying that “more than likely we have an electrical fire.”
In testimony during the hearing, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s arson investigator who reviewed the evidence testified that “someone intentionally set this fire” and noted that was also the conclusion of the original investigator, who was among three people killed in an unrelated explosion last year.
Tedford asked the judge to dismiss the charges, saying he did not believe they had been proven. He argued that he didn’t think the testimony was sufficient to “rule out an electrical fire.”
Bott countered that Lai’s wife had filed for divorce in 2024 and the defendant was aware of what a divorce would cost him financially, with the prosecutor calling it a “financially motivated murder” by the “only person who could have started” two fires that were confined to the den in the family’s home.
Jocelyn Gaw testified that her younger sister had filed twice for divorce and had accused her husband of having an affair, and had not withdrawn her divorce petition despite her husband agreeing to revoke a prenuptial agreement that was one of the conditions if the two were to reconcile. She said she is now the guardian of the couple’s two sons.
The couple’s next-door neighbor, Caroline “Connie” Chappell Morris, testified that she initially observed what she thought was steam and later determined was a small stream of brown smoke coming from a portion of the house after she returned from the park, where she had been walking with a friend.
She said she saw Lai “peering out the door” and heard him ask, “What’s going on?”
“I say to him, `Your house is on fire’ and pointed to the back,” she testified.
She said Lai questioned where his wife was since her car was still there and she was supposed to pick up their sons, telling the judge that he eventually said he had to leave and pick them up while his wife was still missing. She said he subsequently returned without his sons, who showed up later.
In a statement released shortly after the case was filed, District Attorney Nathan Hochman said, “The violent death of Dr. Irene Gaw-Lai is heartbreaking and deeply disturbing. She was not only a respected physician and business leader, but a mother who deserved safety and dignity in her home. We will not rest until the person responsible for this senseless tragedy is held fully accountable.”
Lai is due back in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom May 6 for a pretrial hearing.