Ngoc Phan and three of her children, from left: Lindsey Luong, Ryan Phan and Hannah Luong.
Posted on 01/09/2008 7:55:39 PM PST by chasio649
Amid heavy fog, Mobile County Sheriff's Office officials called off their search this afternoon for four dead children reportedly tossed off the Dauphin Island bridge.
After sonar cameras spotted something submerged under the bridge, divers explored the area but did not find any bodies, officials said. Authorities plan to resume their search at dawn.
The massive search involved 50 to 70 people from several agencies, nine vessels and a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter. Sheriff's Capt. Paul Stewart said cadaver dogs on boats alerted handlers to an area of the water, prompting the Sheriff's Office to deploy the sonar cameras.
The Sheriff's Office began its operation around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday after an Irvington man told authorities that he threw his four young children over the bridge amid a dispute with his wife
Makes me hope there is a special kind of hell awaiting this guy.
Oh my God.
Perhaps THIS level of crime rises to the death penalty?
The father, Lam Luong, 37, of Irvington, Ala., was charged with four counts of capital murder Tuesday night after officials said he told investigators that he threw his children off the Dauphin Island Bridge, a three-mile span that rises 80 feet over the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to connect Mobile, Ala., and Dauphin Island.
“It was just sickening,” said John Joyner, chief of police in Bayou La Batre, Ala., who said he was present when Mr. Luong confessed.
“Apparently, in his statement, his motive had something to do with an argument he was having with his wife and in-laws,” Chief Joyner said.
On Monday, Mr. Luong, a Vietnamese immigrant who has been working in Bayou La Batre as a shrimper, and his wife, Ngoc Phan, 23, contacted the police to report that their children were missing, Chief Joyner said.
Mr. Luong initially said that a baby sitter had not returned the children and could not be found, but when that story did not check out the police reinterviewed Mr. Luong. He eventually admitted to throwing 4-month-old Danny Luong, 1-year-old Lindsey Luong, 2-year-old Hannah Luong, and 3-year-old Ryan Phan off the bridge, the police said.
Kam Phengsisomboun, Mr. Luong’s brother-in-law, told The Associated Press that the couple had argued Sunday night and again Monday, when Mr. Luong left home with two of the children, later coming back for the other two.
I read about this earlier elsewhere. Why do we seem to have so much of these horrible incidents? Are there precedents from the past? I can’t imagine either and those poor children, how they must have felt at their betrayal by a trusted parent, their last thoughts, pain and fear, just sickening. This one was apparently motivated by revenge so I don’t quite equate it with Andrea Yates, for example. But it may be more similar than I think.
Ngoc Phan and three of her children, from left: Lindsey Luong, Ryan Phan and Hannah Luong.
Missing and presumed dead were four-month-old Danny Luong; one-year-old Lindsey Luong; two-year-old Hannah Luong; and three-year-old Ryan Phan. Phan is not the man’s biological child, but Luong raised him from infancy, authorities said.
The couple lived with Phan’s mother at Bayou La Batre, a fishing village with a large Southeast Asian community. Phan’s brother-in-law Kam Phengsisomboun, who is from Thailand, said the couple moved back to the area from Hinesville, Georgia only a couple of weeks ago.
The family initially feared the children had been traded to support a drug habit, Phengsisomboun said. Luong had a crack cocaine habit and had spent an insurance settlement from an automobile accident rapidly, he said, and authorities confirmed Luong had a history of drug offences.
Sad picture. They all look sad, esp the boy.
Luong had a crack cocaine habit
Drugged out loser that some young woman had 4 kids in under 4 years with. Those poor kids. Pick wisely women.
Lam Luong was a bayou shrimper. His common law wife Nancy Phan was a nail technician.
Together, they were raising 4 young children; 4-year old Ryan Phan, 2-year old Hannah Luong, 1-year old Lindsey Luong and a 4-month old boy named Danny Luong.
The children’s uncle, Kam Phengsisomboun, says that Danny had finally come home from the hospital. “He have a heart problem. He just came home two days before he took em.”
Nancy Phan was working at Fancy Nails in Tillman’s Corner on Monday when co-workers say Lam Luong came in demanding money but didn’t get any.
Her brother-in-law says it was a power struggle that spilled into work. “He said just remember you will get what you deserve. He just wanted to show her, prove to her, that he is the man of the house “
The brother also believes that Luong’s previous drug problem crept back into their lives. “When he come in, he wants the money. Give him the money. He go whenever he want. He leave whenever he want “
Hours after the reported argument, the couple showed up at the Bayou La Batre Police Department.
Detective Scott Riva says Luong showed little emotion when explaining that his kids were missing. “He explained to us that he had given the children to a relative or someone close to the family and just didn’t come back”
For hours, Bayou police searched for the four kids until Luong reportedly confessed that he drove the children to the top of the Dauphin Island bridge and tossed them in the water.
The children’s mother is now in seclusion. The kids were her everything. “If she lose these kids she’s not gonna be able to live. I don’t want her to commit suicide or stuff like that. We need her to testify against him.”
Police don’t believe the mother had anything to do with the disappearance of her children.
It is reported locally that the mother is in the hospital and will not drink or eat...she is suicidal....this is all so bad...i don’t live far at all from all this.
Wow. My country 'tis of thee.
Lam Luong, 37, is charged with four counts of capital murder.
I hope they were too young to really get what was happening. He really shouldn’t wake to see another day.
They need to throw this lowlife off the bridge until he is “missing”. No matter how many throws it takes.
I love the Dauphin Island area.
We used to attend the sailboat races. We even competed a couple of times.
What the heck did this woman expect? She shacked up with a crackhead and proceeded to squirt out baby after baby. She’s almost certainly pregnant with the next one.
And frankly, what do WE expect, when we let deadbeat drug addicts roam around loose with their reproductive systems intact?
Yikes, thanks for that info. I don’t know if all cokeheads/crackheads would do such a thing, but do know just how bad some of them can get and had to deal with it with as touching my own life pretty heavily. I was never personally even tempted to try street drugs, but as a smoker, I’m now an outcast. That I can comprehend the other side of it and quit smoking in public quite some time ago. Just threw that in to show I’m no angel.
I don’t know what she expected....you just can’t wrap your head around events like this and use any kind of reasoning....just not possible.
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