Still Shaken

It's been about two weeks since a grisly murder happened in the Lansing area.  A recently awarded doctoral student in chemical engineering was found decapitated in his car; the killer(s) nor any known motives have been released to the public.  My friend Dave used to occasionally hang out with him, which makes it hit a little closer to home.  This gruesome act has made this very grey and cold industrial town seem even more gloomy, and I didn't think that was possible. 

Comments

[Dave]

It's been running through my mind since I heard about his death. How could somebody commit such a vile, grisly act on another human being? It's not as if knowing the motivations make it anymore understandable, but atleast it tells us why and gives a little bit of closure. Phoung was one of the nicest, smartest, and funniest guys I've ever known. We played golf, tennis, and halo 2 together over a span of 5 years. Then, a week ago, I got a call from my friend Hua telling me he had been decapited. Not only that the killer drove his body to his parents house and took the head. There really is no way to understand this. I guess I take some consolation in the fact that his parents didn't stumble on his body themselves.

I guess they're making progress in finding the killer but like you said they aren't saying much. Decapitation is such a gruesome and humiliating way to die.

[Bryant]

It's brutality we will never fathom. Imagine losing a young son to natural causes; the pain of that would never cease in your lifetime--not for a parent. Now imagine having to reconcile the fact your son was tortured and dismembered. It's incomprehensible. And if I were the father, I'd want a quick exit out of this world.

[tristero]

First I heard of this. Gruesome indeed. If only the fellow had been a missing white girl, Nancy Grace et al. may have given it some airtime.

I'm no expert of the criminal mind, but that sounds very much like a crime of intensity committed by someone Phoung might have known. Academic competitor perhaps? The anniversary of the Gang Lu killings just passed us if memory server...

[Bryant]

Gang Lu....now that was something else. For those who don't know what Tristero and I are referring to, read this:

The Gang Lu Murders

[dave]

I didn't know Phoung well enough to know if he had any enemies but it's extremely hard to believe he did. He was almost the epitome of happy-go-lucky.

hey bryant, what kind of effect is this having in the east lansing community? all i have to go on is lsj.com which isn't much. I'm not seeing all that much outrage or sympathy for that matter. it's sad to look at this as a race issue but it's kind of hard not to. I can't imagine people being so ambivilant to a white ph.d grad being murdered in such a horrible way. i would expect atleast a little reaction from the community.

anyways, i appreciate you posting about this B. it's really fucking with my mind quite a bit.

[Bryant Manning]

Honestly, the EL community seems a little apathetic. I'm not going to throw the race card out there, but what else can explain it? The Rose Larner killing was everywhere when that happened; well, enough for me to remember 13 years later. The Phoung killing has made the papers like two or three times. Nobody seems to be talking about it either.

I'll tell you one thing. If the victim had been the star quarterback for Okemos or the like, it'd be national news. But it's surprising that someone so young and educated and with such a bright future is being neglected like this. It's not like Phoung came from trash and sold heroin or something.

[Shawn]

I personally think part of the reason that so little was reported is that they don't want to ruin whatever leads that they have. I'm not buying the race issue in this case. You may recall that part of the problem with the Larner case was that there was so much outrage at the Lansing State Journal by people in the community who were angry about the graphic details being reported. Hard as it is to believe this, 13 years ago that was a lot more shocking than it is now. The outrage resulted in more headlines and then her mother consented to having the story made into a TV movie, making it known nationally. You also have to remember that the case didn't explode in notoriety for three years (after the case had been solved and the papers were reporting the sordid details of what had happened). I knew many people who knew Rose and in those three years between her disappearance and the case being solved, no one heard anything about her. If there comes a point when the Phoung case has been solved and the papers don't report the outcome in the same way, than go ahead with the race card. But save it till then, otherwise you reveal yourself to be incredibly naive to the way the media works and you are overlooking some very important facts and details of what is involved. There is no point in mindless speculation in news outside of editorials and if you recall, there were people involved in the Larner case who got in a lot of trouble for talking before the case was resolved. I was saddened to hear about this case and I'm sorry for your loss but blindly pointing fingers at the media and calling them racist is BS. Grow up.

[a]

yuck this is all gross.sorry 4 all the losses too.

[Seeker of Truth]

I haven't been back to Lansing for quite some time, and I see that this posting is rather old, but I wanted to say that sometimes it is better that things remain quiet. I am a friend of John Kehoe (the man convicted in the Rose Larner killing). It was a horrible crime and for a while I guess I didn't really believe it had happened; I couldn't believe someone could do something so horrific. I do, however know that it wasn't John. He isn't that type of person, but Billy is. They convicted John on Billy's testimony alone. I understand that the case had gone for a long time without being solved, but I think it is best that the right person be convicted rather than given a year in prison only to be out again to do lord knows what to another girl. I think the pressure from the media and the community was what made it so important for them to just convict anyone quickly. I think that if they take their time in reviewing the evidence in that Phoung killing and keep it away from the media, hopefully they can find the truth a lot easier