Balakrishnan killed his wife

A family was killed in a house fire in HCM City on March 25.

Three people are killed in a house fire on March 25

At 3.30 am on March 25, a fire suddenly broke out in the house in Alleyway 123 in Ward 4, District 8. The neighbours noticed the fire and tried to help extinguish the fire but it was ineffective. The district firefighters arrived quickly and put out the fire.

They later discovered the bodies of a man, his wife and their 3-year-old daughter in the house.

According to the neighbours, the couple and their daughter moved to this neighbourhood only two years ago.

At 11 pm on the same day, the police in District 8 announced that they had collaborated with related agencies to expand the investigation.

A court in the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang on Thursday condemned a 36-year-old man to life in prison for killing his own daughter in 2019.

According to the indictment, Bui Van Hoi, hailing from the northern province of Thai Binh, was granted custody of his daughter, 10-year-old B.T.U.N., after divorcing his wife in February 2018.

Hoi and N. relocated to Da Nang, where he sent the girl to a temple to live there due to his busy work, in the same year.

Later that year, Hoi married South Korean L.J.Y. and asked the temple administrators to allow him to take N. out for staying with him at a hotel.

One time when N. disobeyed Hoi, he slapped the daughter so strongly that she hit the wall and got her forehead bruised.

On the afternoon of February 1, 2019, Hoi yelled at N. as she spilled milk on the bed.

As N. argued back, in his anger, Hoi sat on her lap and used his hands to strangle her.

After a while, Hoi let go of his hands and gave N. 30-40 minutes of artificial respiration, but she did not regain consciousness.

Thinking that N. was dead, the man planned to get rid of her body.

He bought two sacks and rolls of plastic rope and called Y., but the South Korean woman did not answer his call.

When Y. called back late on the evening of the same day, Hoi told her the entire incident and asked the woman to give him money to pay for the hotel room where he and N. were staying and to buy a suitcase to put the girl’s body into it.

But Y. did not believe Hoi, thinking that the man was scamming her.

At around 10:00 pm on the same night, Hoi placed N.’s body in a backpack and carried it to the local Thuan Phuoc Bridge.

On the way, he stopped by a vacant land lot to collect two rocks and put them in the backpack.

Hoi waited until midnight, when the bridge was empty of commuters, and threw the backpack with N.’s body in it into the Han River.

On February 25, Hoi went to the police to confess.

Up to date, N.’s body has not been found.

At Thursday’s court, Hoi admitted his criminal act, saying that he felt extremely regretful and guilty and was willing to receive all forms of punishment for his crime.

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Neighbors said they saw flames in the four-story house on Nguyen Thi Dinh Street in the city’s Thu Duc City at around 1 a.m. and immediately started banging on the door and shouting to wake the occupants.

The fire spread quickly and engulfed the entire house within a few minutes, eyewitnesses said.

Luc Chan Tam, 54, the owner of the house who was sleeping outside, tried to save his family members, suffering burns in the process, but in vain.

“The victims were desperately screaming for help, but due to the heat of the fire, many people could not come close to the door to save them,” said Hoai, a neighbor.

Fifty firefighters, four fire trucks and many ambulances were dispatched for rescue efforts. Firefighters broke open the door and found the bodies of Tam’s wife, daughter-in-law, two children aged 25 and 27, and two grandchildren, one of them aged just one.

It is not known yet if they were burned to death or died of asphyxiation.

Police are investigating the cause of the fire.

Colonel Huynh Quang Tam, head of the HCMC Fire Prevention Police Department, said, “Five motorbikes parked at the entrance prevented the victims from escaping.”

Ho Chi Minh City reported 290 fires last year in which 12 people died.

Pham Van Dung, 46, is being investigated for murder and rape.

He had confessed to the murder at the police station, officers told the press Monday afternoon but have yet to announce whether he had also admitted to the sexual assault of the girl after autopsy results revealed she had been raped and strangled to death.

The suspect lives near the victim’s house in Long Tam Ward of Ba Ria Town.

Before the incident occurred Saturday night, Dung had attended a party in the neighborhood but had left early.

Finding the girl amiss, her family had rushed out to look for her, only to find her lying naked and motionless in a deserted plot around 300 meters from home.

Her family took the girl to a local hopsital, where she was found dead.

On Sunday, Dung and his wife visited the victim’s house to burn incense at her funeral.

An elder sister of the victim told police she had seen Dung enticing her younger sibling to accompany him using sweets on Saturday night, Phap Luat TPHCM reported.

In recent years, the sexual abuse of children has risen at an alarming rate in Vietnam.

Five children were raped or physically abused daily in Vietnam between 2015 and the first half of 2019, according to Ministry of Public Security.

Many cases of abuse occur in places considered safe such as homes and schools, with abusers typically known to victims, including fathers and teachers.