California Man Sentenced for Murder of 11-Year-Old Girl and Attempted Murder of Her Mother

An Orange County Superior Court jury found Tanh Thien Tran guilty of first-degree murder for killing 11-year-old Anh Duong and attempting to murder her mother, San Nguyen. In a Santa Ana courtroom, Judge Lewis W.

Clapp sentenced Tran, describing him as someone “unable to control his emotions.” The judge noted uncertainty whether Tran’s actions stemmed from medication he was taking at the time of the attack or from being worn down by life. “The whole thing was tragic,” Clapp said.

On the morning of August 7, 2018, San Nguyen screamed for help as she ran from their home in the 8900 block of Blossom Avenue in Garden Grove. Police quickly evacuated the mortally injured girl and her uninjured 3- and 6-year-old brothers.

The dying girl told first responders, “My dad tried to kill me,” after being stabbed in the left side of her abdomen. A prosecutor later told jurors that the girl “literally gave her life trying to save her mother’s life.”

Tran met Nguyen, nearly 40 years younger, while in Vietnam. They married in 2016, and Nguyen moved with her three children to Orange County to live with Tran.

Tran, receiving retirement benefits, stayed home to watch the children while Nguyen worked. Prosecutors said his anger “percolated, boiling up over time.” The night before the attack, Nguyen told Tran she did not plan to divorce him but wanted to find another place to live with the children.

The next morning, as Nguyen prepared for work, Tran shot her in the arm with a BB gun and forced her into a closet, where he repeatedly stabbed her. Hearing her mother’s cries, the 11-year-old came to her aid.

Tran grabbed the girl, threw her to the ground, and straddled her while continuing to stab her mother. At some point, the girl was stabbed.

Nguyen escaped the closet and fled the home. Before police arrested him, Tran slit his wrists, cut his neck, and poked a blade into his stomach, but all wounds were superficial.