People v. Hajek and Vo

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase

On the morning of January 18, 1991, defendants gained access to the Wang residence, where they held various members of the family hostage for several hours.2 At some point, they killed Su Hung, the family’s 73-year-old grandmother, who was visiting from Taiwan. The attack on the Wang family was in retaliation for a minor altercation a few days earlier between the family’s teenage daughter, Ellen, defendant Hajek, and a girl named Lori Nguyen, who was a friend of both defendants. On the night before the attack, Hajek told another friend that he was going to the house of an unidentified girl who had threatened him. He said he planned to kill each member of her family while she watched and

For clarity, we refer to individual members of the Wang family by their first names and to the family’s father, Chi Ching Wang, as “Tony,” the name used at trial.

2 then kill her last. The next day, he and Vo went to the Wang residence, where the events transpired that led to the charges in this case.

1. Prosecution Evidence

a. The altercation between Hajek, Nguyen, and Ellen On January 14, 1991, between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m., Hajek and his friend, Lori Nguyen,…