Man pleads guilty to co-worker's killing
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By CLARENCE MABIN and LORI PILGER / Lincoln Journal Star
Arop Daljang, upon being told that Venh Lam could not find him an Asian prostitute, suggested a sexual relationship with Lam’s 14-year-old daughter, sending Lam into a lethal rage, prosecutors would have contended at trial.
Prosecutors say Lam struck Daljang in the head repeatedly with a stick or baseball bat, killing the 41-year-old Sudanese immigrant inside Lam’s home in March, according to defense attorney Jerry Soucie, who represented Lam at a plea hearing Wednesday.
Lam, 41, pleaded guilty at the hearing to second-degree murder in Daljang’s death. He could receive between 20 years to life in prison at his sentencing Dec. 20 in Lancaster County District Court.
2007
Sept. 25: Maria Rosario Moreno, 38, was found dead in her apartment on South 10th Street. Police believe Moreno’s ex-boyfriend, Cesar Fermeli Penado, forced his way into the building and tried to strangle her before using a knife to cut her throat.
March 24: Jeremy Nguyen was beat up, then stabbed in the stomach after another man backed into Nguyen’s car in an alley off the 300 block of North 27th Street at about 9:30 p.m. He was pronounced dead at a hospital less than an hour later.
2006
Feb. 5: Andy Lubben, 19, was stabbed inside Shane Tilley’s University Place apartment. Tilley, high on cough suppressant medicine, followed him outside and stabbed him again.
July 27: Tori Stone, an 11-week-old girl, died after being taken to Children’s Hospital in Omaha. Her father, Peter M. Sinica Jr., was convicted earlier this month of intentional child abuse resulting in death. He faces 20 years to life in prison when he’s sentenced Dec. 6.
Aug. 4: Sharon DeSantiago, 34, was found dead in her apartment at 1344 D St. Her boyfriend, Gerald Soundsleeper, since has pleaded no contest to manslaughter.
Aug. 6: Doyle H. Bryant III, 28, of Omaha was shot in the chest as he rode in a car along 27th Street near Folkways Boulevard; he died of his injury. Police believe the shooting suspects may have chased the wrong car after a fight at a downtown club. Two men, O’Dari Wiley and Terrell Jones, have been charged in the case.
Nov. 13: Charles Lucas, 39, was found dead on the floor of his apartment at 1700 J St. at 7:44 p.m. He had a cut above his right eye, his left eye was bruised and swollen shut, and his throat showed signs of strangulation. Police have no suspects.
Lam’s wife, Hue T. Thach, 38, last week pleaded no contest to felony child abuse. She had been charged as an accomplice in Daljang’s death, but in a deal with prosecutors agreed to plead to the single child abuse count and to testify against Lam at his trial, scheduled to begin next Monday.
Prosecutors were unavailable for comment after the hearing Wednesday, but Soucie said the state would have presented evidence at the trial that Daljang had given Lam money to find Daljang an Asian prostitute.
The men were co-workers at GT Exhaust Systems in Airpark.
Soucie, an attorney with the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, said the state would have argued that Daljang went to Lam’s residence, 500 N. 23rd St., to get back his money when he suggested to Lam a sexual relationship with the girl.
Lam, infuriated by the suggestion, struck Daljang several times in the head, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors presented that version of events leading up to Daljang’s murder at the hearing Wednesday, Soucie said. Lam admitted to the scenario, known as the factual basis of a criminal charge.
Daljang’s body was found face down in Branched Oak Lake on March 21 by a man looking for fishing lures along the shoreline. Daljang was shoeless and he had been hogtied, investigators said. An autopsy showed he died of blunt force trauma to the head.
Lam had been charged with first-degree murder and use of a weapon to commit a felony. Prosecutors had also charged him with four counts of felony child abuse. All those charges went away with the plea Wednesday.
The child abuse charges against Lam and Thach arose from actions they took in disposing of Daljang’s body.
Investigators said a 15-year-old helped Lam carry a trash can with Daljang’s body inside from the backyard to Lam’s car. Thach, according to investigators, paid a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old for helping Lam dispose of the body at the lake. The 13-year-old helped Lam carry the can to the water’s edge, authorities said.
Afterward, Thach told the youths to “keep quiet and not tell their friends” because, she said, she “did not want them to get hurt or get into trouble,” according to court records.
Soucie said Wednesday that the youths did not know that a man’s body was in the can at the residence. He said one of the youths might have seen the hand or foot of Daljang at the lake, although that was uncertain.
Authorities have not publicly named specific youths in connection with actions in the hours after Daljang’s murder, but three of the children were related to Lam and Thach. A fourth child, a boy, was a neighborhood friend of one of the other youths.
The three children at the Lam home included a daughter and a son and another boy of whom Lam was the guardian.
Nebraska social services workers have filed documents to terminate the couple’s parental rights, and all three youths have been removed from the home.
According to court records, the state Department of Health and Human Services has asked the Lancaster County Juvenile Court to place the daughter and son in long-term care with an aunt and uncle in Omaha.
The children are with the Omaha family at present, according to one of the children’s temporary foster parents. The other youth is in foster care in Firth.
Reach Clarence Mabin at 473-7234 or cmabin@journalstar.com.
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