Viet woman faces death for double murder

A Vietnamese woman is found guilty and now faces the potential death penalty for the double murder of a fortune teller and her daughter.

After a month-long trial, it took the jury less than one full day of deliberation to find Tanya Nelson, whose Vietnamese name is Phuong Thao Nguyen, guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and also found true three allegations of special circumstances, which makes Nelson now eligible for the death penalty.

The case has many bizarre plot twists, and yet they somehow stay credible. Key pieces of evidence have what the prosecutor argued in her closing statement “a ring of truth to it,” and the jury apparently agreed.

On the strength of forensics and the testimony of her accomplice Phillipe Zamora — another Viet with a non-Vietnamese name — Nelson was convicted in the killing of Ha Smith and her daughter Anita Vo. It probably didn’t help that Nelson’s diary for the day of the murder had the words “Grave Sin” written in English.

The jury also answered yes to three of the special circumstances questions: Lying in wait, murder during commission of robbery, and multiple murder.

The penalty phase – where the jury will decide whether to recommend the death penalty – begins next Tuesday. (If the jury does not recommend, the judge cannot impose the death penalty. If the jury does recommend, by law the judge can still give life without parole, but that is very rare.)

In the photo above is Ha Smith’s sister Thanh Huong Ngo, who traveled from Missouri to attend every court session since the case was first filed several years ago. As she answered questions from the Bolsavik (working in his day job), she showed pictures of her niece (left) and her sister.

She also showed pictures of her father, who went from a vibrant elderly gentleman to a weak old man needing help to walk, just from before to after the murder.

Zamora is the center of the case against Nelson. Defense attorney Kenneth Reed made much of the fact that Zamora is a liar, still lying on the witness stand (probably true), who testified in an attempt to get out of the death penalty.

The defense in the guilt phase – an extremely tough job for sure – consists of implying that Zamora killed both. Evidence was interpreted to say that Zamora killed both victims, and Nelson only profited from it. A crime, yes, but murder, no. Following closing argument, Reed argued to the Bolsavik, “He pleaded guilty to two counts of murder!” – which is something more like a spin because there are a million ways to be guilty of murder without being the person killing them.

The evidence presented at trial seems to tell this story:

Nelson (pictured below) used own a business in Orange County. She had an affair with her husband’s brother Loi Nguyen, and on Smith’s advice as her fortune teller, Nelson moved with her children and Nguyen to North Carolina where she opened a similar business.

Things, however, did not go well. The business failed, and the affair went sour.

Nelson went back to Smith and asked for a spell (bùa) that would revive Nguyen’s love for her.

But Smith told Nelson it could not be done. That Nelson and Nguyen were not destined to be together and no amount of spell could help them.

(Outside of court, Smith’s sister told Nguoi Viet’s reporter that all of Smith’s spells were made by her ex-husband living in Vietnam and the sister knew of the message, from the ex-husband, saying that Nelson’s case couldn’t be helped.)

Desperate, Nelson hatched a plan to rob Smith – known for wearing expensive jewelry.

She got hold of Zamora, whose wife is a friend of Nelson’s. Nelson manipulated Zamora into doing her bidding.

Now, how Nelson controlled Zamora was a little strange and a point of contention from the defense.

The prosecution argued that Zamora was a closet gay man, and Nelson had promised that if Zamora did what she told, she would introduce him to other gay men. She did introduce Zamora to a gay friend at a dinner in Little Saigon, but the two did not hook up. Nelson still managed, according to the prosecution’s theory, to keep controlling Zamora and getting him to kill Smith.

That was part of the reasonable doubt that the defense tried to plant. How could a 50-year-old adult man be “turned gay” (according to Zamora’s testimony) by Nelson? How could a grown man, getting nothing in return, be so manipulated as to kill another human being?

However she did it, Nelson got Zamora to come with her to Orange County. He tried to get a session with Smith, but couldn’t. They went to dinner with Nelson’s gay friend, and nothing happened.

The next day, Nelson and Zamora both went to see Smith. They went in and spoke. At some point, Vo came home. Then the dog needed to be let out.

Smith and Zamora then went out to walk the dog. While the two were outside, they heard Vo scream and both ran in, when they saw Nelson repeatedly stabbing Vo with a kitchen knife.

Smith screamed and ran to help, but Zamora grabbed her, and smashed her with a champagne bottle. As Zamora stated, Nelson then yelled to Zamora to “Kill her! Don’t let her scream!”

Zamora took another kitchen knife and stabbed Smith. Smith, however, also got another knife and stabbed him back until Zamora stabbed Smith to death.

The champagne bottle was subject to some exchanges between Zamora and the defense. Zamora, who had admitted to a lot of killing, insisted that he only hit Smith once on the shoulder with the champagne bottle. The medical examiner, however, concluded that Smith had been hit multiple times with a blunt object, including several hits to the head and side of the ear.

The defense tried to exploit this point to show how much of a liar Zamora is. On this particular piece of evidence, however, things backfired. On the stand, after a several questions by the defense, Zamora shrugged and said, “If I didn’t hit her, she (Nelson) probably did it.” On closing, the prosecutor seized on this point and pointed out that the ripped up ear probably had earrings on — earrings that Nelson unsuccessfully tried to sell to a jeweler in the Asian Village Mall (Phước Lộc Thọ).

Nelson went on wild shopping sprees in California and in the South, buying things with the victims’ credit and ATM cards, making numerous phone calls to the customer service lines at credit card and cell phone companies to switch the cardholders’ address to her own rented mail box.

She bought airline tickets for her entire family to travel to Orange County, using Smith’s name for herself and Vo’s name for her daughter. What she did not know was that Westminster PD already found her and one of them was on the plane.

Once here, Nelson went shopping at South Coast Plaza, tailed by Westminster PD. When she went back to the motel where she had registered under her own name, cops came in and arrested her. Among the loot found in the motel room was a set of brand-name luxury luggage that had belonged to the dead victims.

The case was originally assigned to DDA Kevin Haskins. During the hearing on a motion in limine, it was revealed that Mr. Haskins was opposed to the death penalty, so the case was re-assigned to DDA Sonia Balleste.