EDMONTON – The man responsible for Edmonton’s worst mass murder had repeatedly threatened to kill his estranged wife and her family, and also had a lengthy criminal record and a gambling problem, documents show.
On Monday, 53-year-old Phu Lam shot and killed eight people, including two children, and then killed himself in a Fort Saskatchewan restaurant.
Police have not provided the name of the suspect in this week’s mass murder, but sources confirmed to the Journal that the gunman is Lam.
The 2012 testimony of Lam’s wife Tien Truong, 35, paints a portrait of domestic violence and repeated threats of harm.
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Truong applied for an emergency protection order, saying Lam had threatened to kill his entire family, but couldn’t find a weapon.
“He actually planned this two weeks ago to actually kill off her whole family and he was going to look for a gun but no one would sell it to him,” Truong told the courts through a translator. “And he’s just been keeping on threatening, saying that he’d kill her, her whole family and everyone that she’s associated with.”
The testimony came after Truong’s sister called police, saying she worried about her older sister’s life. Police came to the north end home at 18024 83 Street on Nov. 3, 2012, when Truong provided a statement. Lam was later charged with seven counts of threats causing death, as well as assault and sexual assault. Those charges were stayed the next month.
The application for an EPO discloses other details of their fractured relationship. The couple was 18 years apart, and had met in Vietnam in 2000. Truong owned a coffee shop that Lam visited. They married six months later.
Lam had come to Canada in 1979. He sponsored Truong, who arrived in 2003. Her parents and sister came six years later.
Truong testified the relationship soured shortly after she came to Canada, with him taking away her phones and limiting her contact with friends. She testified he had physically abused her, choking her on at least two occasions.
She told the court that he said he would give her the phone, then kill her on the spot so the cops could come to pick up her body.
Bankruptcy documents show Lam had more than a dozen credit cards, racking up over $100,000 in debt before he filed for bankruptcy in February 2013. He attended a gambling recovery program, which he completed last May. Lam’s assets included a 1989 Toyota Camry and a single dollar.
The couple’s financial problems affected Truong in other ways. She was sued for over $25,000 by the Royal Bank in September 2013 after she took out a $25,000 line of credit, then couldn’t meet payments. On Nov. 24 2014, her wages at Top-co were ordered garnished to recover $27,764 she still owed.
Lam worked as a machine operator with Alta Steel, a scrap-based mini-mill operation in Edmonton.
Lam’s criminal record includes a 90-day stint in jail in 2001, after he was convicted of possession of a prohibited weapon and production of a controlled substance. He was also given probation for two years.
He was also convicted of communicating with a prostitute twice in 2001 and was fined a total of $750.
Court records also show he was convicted of theft under $5,000 in 1987. Two years later, he was convicted of common assault and was fined $200.
The handgun used in all of the deaths was registered in B.C. in 1997, but was stolen in Surrey in 2006.
Source:: National Post
