A decade after a Modesto family was killed inside its business, jury reaches verdict
More than a decade after a couple and their adult daughter were gunned down inside their Yosemite Boulevard business, a jury has returned a verdict in the case.
On the afternoon of Jan. 25, 2011, Vanh and Phouvieng Thammavongsa and their daughter, Nanci Thammavongsa, were each shot in the head at V and V Oriental Market, a store the couple had operated for 15 years. Vanh died at the scene and Phouvieng and her daughter died not long after at hospitals.
Three Modesto teenagers were arrested and charged with their murders: Oloth “Dicky” Phommahaxay, Sophon Ting and Chris Douangkham, who at the time were 18, 15 and 16, respectively.
The prosecution said the teens cased the business before the murders, watching it from inside a nearby furniture store, then entered the store with a .22 caliber rifle with a pistol grip concealed in Phommahaxay’s pants.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Marlisa Ferreira argued that Douangkham was the primary shooter. She pointed to statements he made to Ting while in the interrogation room at the Modesto Police Department when detectives had left the room and he didn’t know he was being recorded.
He’d talked to Ting about how Phommahaxay kept missing all the shots and said, “Did you see me lay her out with one hit? I laid that b---- out with one hit.”
When all three victims lay dying on the floor, the suspects took cash and merchandise before fleeing.
Following their arrest, Douangkham was found to have particles consistent with gunshot residue on his hand.
The focus at the monthlong trial was on Douangkham because he was the only defendant to go to trial.
Ting originally was charged as an adult, but changes in the law since his arrest made it illegal to prosecute anyone under the age of 16 as an adult. He was found guilty of all three murders and robbery in juvenile court. Juvenile offenders under the age of 16 can be incarcerated only up to age 25 or for a period of two years if they are sentenced close to or after age 25. Ting, who is now 26, is expected to be released next month.
Douangkham also briefly went to a juvenile court because of similar changes in the law that required a judge to determine if a juvenile of any age should be prosecuted as an adult.
The law changes regarding juveniles was one of the reasons the case was stalled for so many years. Ferreira was also tied up for four years prosecuting the murder case against the late defense attorney Frank Carson.
Just before the case went to trial at the end of July, Phommahaxay entered a plea agreement. He pleaded guilty to three counts of voluntary manslaughter and robbery and admitted to an enhancement for using a gun. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Douangkham also asked for at least one plea agreement, but the prosecution declined, so he went to trial and testified in his defense.
When he got on the stand, his attorney Stephen Foley told him to look at the jury and tell them if he killed anyone.
“No, I did not kill nobody. I did not shoot nobody that day. I never fired a firearm that day,” Douangkham answered.
He testified that he got into the car with Phommahaxay on that day thinking they were going to a birthday party in Ceres but they instead drove to the market. It wasn’t until they were in a parking lot outside of the business that Douangkham showed him and Ting the gun and said they were “going to do a lick,” meaning a robbery.
“I told him I didn’t want to do it because it was hot already,” Douangkham testified, meaning they’d seen probation officers and Modesto police officers driving in the area.
Douangkham testified that he and Phommahaxay got into an argument at the furniture store about it and he told him he didn’t want anything to do with the robbery. Douangkham said he refused to take the gun but he still went into the store with Phommahaxay and Ting.
The Thammavongsas knew Douangkham and his family. Vanh Thammavongsa asked him how his mother was when they walked into the store. When he went to the back of the store, Phouvieng Thammavongsa asked how he was doing.
On cross examination, Ferreira asked him if he ever tried to warn them, ever tried to call police, ever tried to help any of them get away. Douangkham answered no to all the questions.
Douangkham testified that he went into the back to get some oysters and had asked Phouvieng Thammavongsa where they were when the shooting started.
“She tried to grab me and I pushed her … I think she tried to use me as a shield,” he said.
He said he slapped her in the face, which is what he was referring to 10 years and seven months ago in the interrogation room when he said he “laid her out with one hit.”
He said he didn’t tell detectives any of this at the time and lied to them at least 20 times because he was afraid of Phommahaxay and of the police.
The attorneys gave their closing arguments Tuesday.
Foley said that while Douangkham lied to detectives, he maintained from the very beginning that he never shot anyone. He said Phommahaxay lied and said he wasn’t going to shoot anyone. When the shooting started, he feared for his life, Douangkham said.
Ferreira said even if the jury believed that Douangkham never fired the gun, he still was a principal player by aiding and abetting in the murders and doing nothing to stop them. That made him a “major participant with reckless indifference to human life” and guilty of first-degree murder, she said.
“He might want you to think today ‘No, no, no, no I was never a part of this. I just hung out in the store while three people were murdered in front of me because I wanted to buy oysters,’” Ferreira said. “Ladies and gentlemen, that is about the most unreasonable story ever.”
“They cased (the business), ambushed them; they did everything in order to gain an advantage over that poor family in the store,” she said.
The jury agreed. After about one day of deliberations, they found Douangkham guilty of three counts of first-degree murder, robbery and burglary on Sept. 8. They also found true special circumstances that he was lying in wait, he committed multiple murders and he did so during the commission of a felony. All of the special circumstances mean he faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Douangkham watched the court clerk with a blank expression as the verdict was read.
His next court date is scheduled for Sept. 22, when Ferreira is expected to make a decision about whether to pursue the gang charges against Douangkham.
John Goold, a spokesman for the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office, said at the request of the defense, the gang charges were separated from the murder case “to avoid any chance a jury would be influenced ... towards guilt when finding out it’s a gang crime.”
The criminal complaint at the time of their arrest alleges Phommahaxay, 18, Ting and Douangkham were part of an Asian gang called the CWA Crips, also known as Crips With Attitude.
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
