Trial in Cold Case Retaliatory Murder Begins Today for Fountain Valley Man

Opening statements are expected to begin Thursday morning in the trial of four members of a Vietnamese criminal street gang that murdered one of its own more than 17 years ago.

The cold case involves Anthony Paul Johnson, Jr., 35, of Westminster, Giang Thuy Nguyen, 36, of Fountain Valley, Tam Hung Nguyen, 36, of Riverside, and Truc Ngoc Tran, 34, of Santa Ana. Each defendant is charged with one felony count of murder and one felony count of conspiracy to commit murder, with the possibility of additional sentencing for alleged murder by lying in wait and committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal street gang.

The trial begins at 9:00 a.m. in Department C-43 of the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.

The execution-style murder of Viet Nguyen by a fellow gang associate on Feb. 25, 1995, came as retaliation for Nguyen abandoning them while committing a home invasion robbery one day earlier.

On the morning of Feb. 24, 1995, Johnson, Giang Nguyen and Viet Nguyen allegedly committed a masked home invasion robbery in Huntington Beach at the home of a high school classmate of Viet Nguyen. During the robbery, Viet Nguyen fled the scene and left his fellow gang members because he believed the victim in the residence may have recognized him. The robbery was not prosecuted and it remained unsolved for several years before the statute of limitations ran out.

That evening, Johnson, Giang Nguyen, Tam Nguyen, and Tran are accused of meeting at a house in Midway City and conspiring to murder Viet Nguyen to prevent him from implicating Johnson and Giang Nguyen in the robbery if he were to be identified by the victim and arrested.

The next morning, Johnson and Giang Nguyen are accused of convincing Viet Nguyen to take Tam Nguyen with him in his van under the pretense of buying drugs. While Viet Nguyen was driving, Tam Nguyen, who was riding in the back seat, is accused of claiming to feel ill while on the northbound California State Route 73 in Costa Mesa. When Viet Nguyen pulled the van over to the shoulder, Tam Nguyen is accused of pulling out a semi-automatic firearm and shooting the victim in the back of the head.

Tran, who is accused of following the van in a separate car, then pulled behind the van on the shoulder of the freeway so Tam Nguyen could flee from the crime scene. The four co-defendants are accused of later meeting at a motel in Anaheim to collaborate false alibis in order to hide their involvement in Viet Nguyen’s murder.

To avoid retribution from their gang for murdering a gang associate, the defendants are accused of lying to other members of their gang by falsely stating that Viet Nguyen had been killed by a drug dealer in Costa Mesa. The case went cold until 2006, when the Costa Mesa Police Department began re-investigating with assistance from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

In addition to the two felony counts, three of the defendants face additional sentencing enhancements: Johnson for murder to avoid arrest, Giang Nguyen for murder to avoid arrest and crime-bail-crime, and Tam Nguyen for the personal discharge of a firearm.

If convicted, all four defendants face a sentence of life in state prison without the possibility of parole.