An appellate court in the southern province of Dong Nai on Nov 23 sentenced a 26-year-old local man to death for murdering and robbing a girl and a pregnant woman last year.
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| Nguyen Thien Kim (M) who killed a 15-year-old girl and a pregnant woman last year |
An appellate court in the southern province of Dong Nai on Nov 23 sentenced a 26-year-old local man to death for murdering and robbing a girl and a pregnant woman last year.
Nguyen Thien Kim, hailing from the provincial capital Bien Hoa City, had appealed to the court for leniency but it said his crime was too serious for any such.
Kim confessed he had killed Chau Kim Phuc, the 16-year-old girl from the city, with an electric wire on July 7, 2010.
An acquaintance of Phuc’s family, Kim said to the girl – when she was home alone – that her father had asked him to make some installation on her laptop, and told her to take him to the equipment upstairs.
He strangled Phuc with the wire when she was turning on the computer in her father’s bedroom.
The man then fled in a taxi after taking away the laptop, a camera, some jewelry, and over VND7 million (US$336).
He hid them all at his home except for the jewelry which he had sold at VND13 million ($625).
The killer also admitted, under constant questioning by local police who had visualized a link between this case and another two months earlier, to murdering 26-year-old Vo Thi Hong Thanh in retaliation against her husband who had badmouthed him.
On May 16 last year, Thanh came to Kim’s house to say prayers with his father, a Protestant pastor, as usual.
Knowing the woman was six months pregnant, Kim enticed her into his room for a book on pregnancy.
He throttled Thanh with another electric wire when she was following him into the room.
Kim took her cellphone and jewelry worth VND25 million ($1,200) prior to wrapping the body in a blanket and locking it up in his room.
The murderer threw it into a deserted well in the backyard in the evening.
He then neutralized the smell from the body by pouring detergent down the well once in two days.
