An 81-year-old man was sentenced Monday to 37 years to life in prison for fatally stabbing his 11-year-old stepdaughter and trying to kill his wife in their Garden Grove home.
Tanh Thien Tran was convicted in April of first-degree murder and attempted murder, with jurors also finding true sentencing enhancements for personal use of a deadly weapon, inflicting great bodily injury and attempted premeditated murder.
Tran was convicted of killing 11-year-old Anh Duong and attempting to kill his then-36-year-old wife, San Nguyen, on Aug. 29, 2018, at a home on Blossom Avenue.
Through a translator, Tran told Orange County Superior Court Judge Lewis Clapp that Duong’s death was “accidental. It was not intentional.”
He added, “I have never committed even the slightest crimes before this. I am truly remorseful… I am very remorseful.”
Clapp handed down the maximum punishment as requested by Deputy District Attorney Devin Campbell.
The prosecutor said in a sentencing brief that the girl “didn’t deserve to die. She didn’t deserve the pain and undeniable suffering she must have endured in those final 20-30 minutes of her life after the defendant stabbed her and then engaged police in a standoff, further delaying care and attention that she could have obtained otherwise.”
Campbell said San Nguyen also feared death that day.
“One can only imagine the survivor’s guilt that San must live with when her daughter was killed under such circumstances,” Campbell said. “The defendant deserves no mercy by this court.”
Jurors told attorneys last month they quickly reached a verdict on the attempted murder charge but spent more time deliberating between first- and second-degree murder in the girl’s death.
“A small Garden Grove community’s peace and tranquility of the morning light was shattered,” Campbell told jurors in his opening statement.
Neighbors came out of their homes after hearing San Nguyen’s “blood-curdling screams” of “Help me, he’s killing me,” Campbell said.
Tran, armed with a knife, initially kept officers at bay while making what prosecutors described as “superficial” cuts to himself. Anh Duong and her siblings, ages 6 and 3, were still inside the home at the time, Campbell said.
Officers eventually entered the residence, rescued the three children and attempted to revive the girl. She was taken to a hospital, where she was later pronounced dead, Campbell said.
The girl told officers, “My dad tried to kill me,” before losing consciousness, Campbell said.
“Those were her last words,” the prosecutor said.
Tran’s “anger percolated” for weeks, leading to the “tragic, needless death of an 11-year-old girl,” Campbell said.
Anh’s “offense” was “trying to come to her mother’s aid as the defendant was brutally stabbing her in a closet,” Campbell said.
Tran had been “mulling the idea of killing San Nguyen” for weeks, the prosecutor said.
The couple had a “nearly 40-year age difference,” Campbell said.
“The defendant came to believe she was cheating on him,” Campbell said. “His suspicions may have been well warranted.”
There were “flirtatious” messages on her phone with another man, Campbell said.
Tran searched his phone for information about GPS tracking devices and how to install them on a car, Campbell said. His online searches “got more sinister” when he tried to find out how to buy a gun, and if BB guns could be lethal.
San Nguyen “broke it to him” the night before the violent conflict that she was looking for a room to rent for him because she didn’t “want her kids living with him anymore,” Campbell said.
Tran, who was retired at the time, would look after the children while Nguyen went to work, Campbell said.
She was “putting on her scrubs” in their bedroom, preparing to go to work, when he confronted her with a BB gun that looked like a handgun, Campbell said.
He fired a “through-and-through shot” in her arm before repeatedly stabbing her, Campbell said.
“She’s crying out, pleading for her life,” in the bedroom closet, Campbell said. She attempted to get up, but the “floor was covered with blood” and was “too slippery” for her to gain traction.
Tran said he wanted to kill her and then take his own life, Campbell said. But he was interrupted by Nguyen’s daughter. Tran kept the girl out of the closet, but then changed his mind and pulled her in and “straddled her” while stabbing his wife, according to the prosecution.
San Nguyen managed to get away and run for freedom, but she looked back at her daughter who appeared lifeless, Campbell said. “She called out to her daughter and got no response.”
Anh had sustained a fatal stab wound to her life side.
“She literally gave her life trying to save her mother’s life,” Campbell said.
In a trial brief, Campbell said that when Nguyen was released from a hospital in September 2018, she returned home and found a journal her daughter had been keeping that alleged the defendant had been molesting her and that there was evidence Tran’s online search history on his phone included looking for “pornographic videos of 15-year-old girls.”