$20,000 reward for killer of Viet apartment manager

Police and family are offering a $20,000 reward in the murder of a Viet woman who owned and managed an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, according to local media.

Lyn Pham, 46, was stabbed to death in her own office at the Descanso Plaza Apartments, says CBS4 in Denver here.

The TV station quoted a resident who said he saw Pham after she was stabbed. “The expression on her face was horrible, like she died in pain,” Hernan Montez told CBS4.

The reward consists of $5,000 from the police and $15,000 from the family. Pham’s cousin Luan Pho told TheDenverChannel.com here that family and friends put up money for the reward because they want the killer caught.

“Not for revenge,” he said, “but to help protect the community. He’s a dangerous individual.”

Pham’s family from California flew in to attend funeral Mass. Even the man who sponsored her family when they first immigrated to the U.S., flew in from Missouri.

“I remember Lyn as the spunky one,” said Mike Boessen, a member of the church that sponsored Lyn’s family.

“There were a few Vietnam Vets in the town going, ‘Grrrrrr, bringing these Vietnamese people here,’ and three days later the whole town was in love with them,” Boessen said. “And to have this happen to a bright, beautiful girl hurts.”

The police said the reward is an incentive to get someone who knows something about the case to come forward.

Aurora is part of the greater Denver metropolitan area. The entire area has close to 14,000 Vietnamese, according to the 2000 census. There’s a Vietnamese Catholic church in Wheat Ridge, the Queen of Vietnamese Martyrs church, and that’s where Lyn Pham attended.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact Det. Craig Appel at (303) 739-6207.