Opinion ID: 2827119
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: May 6, 1995, murder of Tuan Pham

Text: On May 6, 1995, Tuan Pham, a member of the Cheap Boys, was murdered at the corner of Brookhurst Street and Westminster Boulevard in Garden Grove. Shortly before 9 p.m. that evening, Robert Wayne Murray and his girlfriend were on their way to dinner. He stopped his van for a red light in the left turn lane on Brookhurst at the intersection with Westminster. Pham, who was driving the car behind him, got out of the vehicle, spun around, got back in the car and backed up quickly, almost colliding with another car. Pham got out of the car again, holding a gun, and approached a white Honda in the lane next to Murray‘s van. Defendant sometimes drove a white Honda. As Pham approached the Honda, Murray saw that the driver of the Honda was holding a gun to his chest. As Pham approached the Honda, the driver of the Honda reached out and fired three shots at him. A passenger in the Honda also opened fire, and Pham fired back. A person standing to the rear of the Honda fired a shotgun at the Honda. As Murray drove away, going the wrong way on Brookhurst Street and driving over the curb into a parking lot, he heard multiple shots and then a blast from a shotgun. As many as 12 shots had been fired. Murray later found two bullet holes in his van. When the shooting stopped, the white Honda drove slowly from the intersection, swerving from side to side. The rear window had been shot out. Pham lay dead in the intersection; he had been shot twice in the back and once in the head. Police found a ―pistol grip shotgun‖ and a handgun ―stashed inside of some of the bushes‖ nearby. Murray later picked out defendant‘s photograph from a photo lineup as someone who looked ―close‖ to the driver of the white Honda, but Murray said he 8 could not ―make any identification.‖ Murray testified at trial that he did not think he would recognize the driver of the white Honda if he saw him again.