Posted on 01/12/2008 11:07:23 AM PST by jdm
The body of one of four children allegedly thrown from a coastal bridge by their father was recovered Saturday, Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran announced.
At a press conference this morning, Cochran said, "The inevitable nightmare that we had feared has now been confirmed."
A search of waterways around Dauphin Island for the children - ranging in age from a few months to 3 years - began Tuesday.
The father, Lam Luong, has been charged with capital murder in the deaths.
According to CBS affiliate WKRG, the body of an infant was found this morning by a duck hunter about five miles west of the bridge, in a marshy area called Pointe aux Pines, near Bayou La Batre, home of the Luong family.
A forensics team is on the scene.
Search crews entered the water about 7 o'clock this morning, concentrating on the area around the center of the Dauphin Island bridge where sonar picked up something of interest late Friday afternoon on the bottom of Mobile Bay.
Law enforcement says sonar showed images of what they believed to be three children. Strong currents prevented police divers from reaching that location until returning today.
Earlier this week, a district attorney said the father had confessed to investigators that he had thrown the children off the bridge after an argument with his wife. But the father later recanted and claimed two Asian women took the children Monday and never returned them.
Yesterday, a witness reported seeing four children in their father's vehicle on the bridge from which investigators say he tossed them, and another witness later saw the father leave the area without the children, a sheriff said Friday.
Sheriff Cochran said the witness accounts contradict Luong's claim that he was coerced by authorities into saying he threw them from the bridge Monday morning.
If convicted, he could be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.
Agreed he is a sick bastard, but if the MOM did this the media and probably the jury would be sympathetic.
Interesting double standard.
but the mom didn’t do it. Let’s not spin this into a woman vs man thing. Fact is this father did this horrible crime,not the mom so leave her out of it. this father dumped his kids like garbage and deserves to be treated the same as he did his children.
What double standard? The mom is a 23 year old with 4 children. The dad is a cocaine addict who once tried to swap these same kids for drugs. She’s gullible and stupid and he deserves death.
It’d be nice if he was given the same treatment he gave his kids...Just make sure his legs were freshly broken so he couldn’t tread water...
The dad is VN, but appears kinda BLACK...anybody understand this...?
A gullible and stupid mother does indeed costs lives.
Recently a friend of my son was murdered by her mothers boyfriend. The mother had spent the night smoking crack with the man while the daughter was sent to babysit for the boyfriends daughter.(the boyfriend was married as well.)
He sexually assaulted and brutally murdered this lovely girl who was a wonderful human being despite her upbringing.
Our community is outraged that the mother put her daughter into this risky position selfishly. The murderer is now behind bars...and I have a hard time finding little sympathy for this mother.
He looks just about the right age to be the offspring of an American soldier and a Vietnamese woman.
I am so sick of these pukes out there.
Let’s just line them up and get rid of them
Where’s that CELEBRATE DIVERSITY poster another freeper posted on the Boy Scout Christmas Tree robbery suspects....seems we need it here, too....
Hang him.
From that bridge.
A short drop—nine inches or so—so he goes s l o w l y.
I understand the point -but I think what the second poster (who is who I was responding to) was saying was that if the situation was reversed gender-wise that the media would be treating the perpetrator in a different manner.
Did you ever doubt it? The guy confessed; he only changed his story after he got a lawyer that probably told him that he would probably get the death penalty.
Let’s just line them up and get rid of them
I agree! Now all we have to do is decide on the dividing line between "these pukes" and all the rest of us.
I guess the language barrier misunderstood-confession defense is out. Thank goodness the bodies were found so soon. The poor mother, at least she knows. Prayers.
If convicted, he could be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.
This happened in SOUTH Alabama, not Minnesota, California, or New Jersey.
I think his odds of life in prison are in serious doubt.
I don’t know his age, but perhaps the son of a black GI and a Vietnamese woman?
susie
What a horrid story!
susie
You got that right.
Right
Its been a hard reality for the kids here on so many levels.
But a lesson too: if we keep allowing bad behavior and keep giving aid and misplaced understanding to certain people and hold no one accountable for their actions, in the name of being charitable...this is one of the results.
So much for his claim that the children were still alive.
the father is half black-half VN; the mother is half white-half VN.....my sister-in-law knows this nut case from gambling in Biloxi....that seems to be the entertainment of choice for orientals....sorry if that sounds racists but everything I’ve read says the same thing.....and from what the local media is saying, the mother has been in a fetal position without speaking or eating since this happened....this is not a man or woman situation - this is a sick SOB who intentionally threw his kids off a bridge to their death because the mother wouldn’t give him any $ to go out and buy drugs.....this truly breaks my heart!
He deserves to fry.
oh it’s going to be much worse then frying when he’s over at Holman Prison in Baldwin Co. this SOB is going to wish he were dead....it’s now on the tv that it was the infant that was found....
There have been soooo many horrid horrid stories about children these last few years. This is only the latest. Then there’s that animal in D. C. who killed her 4 little girls and left them to rot in the house for months.
I think it’s time for a presidential candidate to discuss this...openly. There has to be a better system of child welfare and something more than the Sex Offenders List. As I write this I know there are little children living in drug and vermin infested homes.
This is something government CAN do. Right now it does it badly. I’d like to see child welfare agents and city officials criminally liable for a system that fails to follow up on warning signs about these kids. Heightened penalties for the perps. Whatever. I’ve long thought we ought to have a big island somewhere that can be home for relpeat offenders. Let them eat each other.
According to Sheriff Cochran, sonar has found the other three bodies but they’ve not been able to get to them.....this truly breaks my heart.
Why will $$, court and time be wasted on this?
He said he did it, bodies are being found. Case closed.
He should have been taken down to that same water and HELD UNDER until dead, then his worthless, evil, corpse should have been taken to the local landfill where garbage belongs.
Evil is real, and it doesn’t deserve ‘due process’.
Me too. I’m only one state away from you, but no matter where you live some people are just evil, rotten human beings.
According to Sheriff Cochran, the search is over for today but will begin again in the morning....they hope to have recovered the other three children no later than Monday. As Sam said, this has truly torn up the community.....Mobile is not that big and of course Dalphin Island is even smaller so this is effecting everyone....even the girl that does my nails knew these people and she said there was no doubt in her mind that this nutcase was a druggie....
My mom just called and told me. News said they would have and interview with the mother at 6pm.
I really don’t know what else to say(well I do, but those words would get me banned). Whatever punishment is coming will be richly deserved.
Saturday, 2:45 p.m. (Jan 12)- Kieu Phan, the mother of the 4 kids talks to News 5. She tells us she wishes Luong had killed her and she wants justice for her children.
Saturday, 1:30 p.m. (Jan 12)- Family tells News 5 that Luong called from jail and told them he wanted to be more famous than 9/11 hijackers. He also asked for cigarettes and told them he wasn't afraid of the electric chair.
more at www.wkrg.com link top left of page
Sunday, 11:35 a.m. (January 13)
- Search Crews annouce they have found a second body near Barton Bay, 5 miles West of Point Aux Pins where first body was found.
I heard the news conference. Hopefully they will find them all.
Sunday, 3:22 p.m. (January 13)
- Family confirms body recovered today was 3 year old Ryan Phan
- Mother passed out upon hearing the news today
they’ve found the second child.....I just hope they find all of them....
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