- 17 hours ago
An attacker beats an elderly Vietnamese couple to death and stuffs them inside their closet. Detectives uncover bizarre evidence that points to a sinister plot of unpaid debt, a bad luck curse, and deadly betrayal.
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00:05They've been beaten, not with fists, but with something else.
00:12It was a horrible way to die.
00:16Look at me. Look at me. Who did this to the other couple?
00:20I didn't want to be killed, didn't think about killing nobody.
00:24I don't know who did it. It wasn't me, though.
00:26We weren't gonna back down.
00:28There's something more to this.
00:31There was something going on there.
00:34Someone put them up to this.
00:36There's no doubt she would do this again.
00:39She needed to be stopped.
00:40What happens if they don't pay you?
00:42They have to pay me.
00:44She's a mastermind of this process.
00:47Do not with us.
00:50Y'all scared me too, mama. I want you.
00:54They touch the nerve, and they know it.
01:02I spent my career closing murder cases.
01:07But I'm not the only one who answered the call.
01:11It takes a rare breed to solve the unsolvable.
01:16To catch a ruthless killer.
01:19To find justice for the dead.
01:23That's what it takes to be an American detective.
01:56The End
01:58Ready.
02:03So I got dispatched to a welfare check saying I can't get a hold of my mom and dad.
02:10When I got to the scene, an entire family was out there saying, please help, please help.
02:18The family had said that they tried the door and it was locked, so I made the decision to go
02:25in through the window.
02:28It's dark in there.
02:30I grabbed my flashlight and I'm calling out Arlington police and there was no answer.
02:39There's no one in the immediate living room.
02:41There's no one in the little kitchenette area.
02:45The only thing that I haven't checked is a bedroom.
02:48I open the door and I see the bloody handprint, which led me to know that there was something in
03:01the closet that I didn't want to see.
03:06There was no preparing myself for what was in that closet.
03:18Just a bloody massacre.
03:22Death is always ugly.
03:24Violent death is even more ugly.
03:27It is profoundly evil.
03:34My name is Byron Stewart.
03:36I'm a detective with the Arlington Police Department.
03:39My major was in journalism, interviewing interrogation, learning the art of the investigation.
03:46It's very important to handle high challenging cases.
03:51It was June 10th, 2012.
03:55I was at home.
03:56I was on call.
03:58And so, therefore, I had to respond.
04:04At the crime scene, Stewart is informed by the uniformed officer what she has discovered in this apartment.
04:12I was initially told that there was a couple found.
04:15These were elderly victims.
04:17Blown in and then hung leave.
04:22And Stewart goes inside to look at the bodies.
04:29Right away, I could see that the apartment was in disarray.
04:33There were CDs thrown about.
04:35Furniture was thrown about.
04:37But the amount of ransacking was just so random here and there that I had my reservations.
04:47Entering the bedroom area, it was a horrible scene.
04:51The victims are covered in massive amounts of duct tape.
04:56I could see that the duct tape was wrapped around their face, around their ankles, heavy duct tape around their
05:03hands.
05:04They were pretty much helpless.
05:06I haven't seen that level of violence.
05:10This case was something that stayed with me for a long time.
05:15That's the thing that's going to my mind.
05:16How horrible was it for them?
05:19There appears to be blunt force trauma to the heads of both victims.
05:23They've been beaten, not with fists, but with something else.
05:28They were fighting for their lives and ultimately succumbed to their injuries.
05:33Then they discovered that these killers have apparently spent time in this place.
05:39I noticed that there was a table and it had a plate on it.
05:43And on that plate appeared to be a marijuana cigarette.
05:46And these pills that were crushed, what's actually happening?
05:50It just didn't look right.
05:52There's something more to this.
05:55One thing that we saw was a beer bottle that had a bandana around the bottle of the neck.
06:00That didn't make any sense.
06:02Then I had to look at the demographics of the victims.
06:05And they did not look to be the type of persons that would be smoking marijuana or drinking beer.
06:11It could be the suspects who stayed there while these victims were dying.
06:17Could that be why they were shoved in a closet?
06:20Of course.
06:21Why look at this dead person while we're trying to have a good time?
06:27Once I walked through the crime scene, I came back outside and the family was there.
06:32I did ask that they come back to the station so I can take an official statement from them.
06:39So Stuart used to speak to the family member who called 911.
06:44His name is Chow Tran.
06:45And the dead people are the parents of his wife.
06:50Chow's wife didn't speak that much English.
06:53And so Chow Tran quickly became the spokesperson for the family.
06:58They had already been told that their parents and loved ones were deceased.
07:03But they did not know the details.
07:07Chow is your first name, right?
07:09Yes.
07:10And Chow, the way this works is, you know, we have to figure out who would do this, you know,
07:16and why they would do this.
07:18The most important person in a homicide scene is the victim.
07:23Tell me about the victim.
07:26He said they stayed to themselves.
07:28They were very family oriented and that they just did not partake in anything that would warrant that.
07:35Any known enemies or anything like that?
07:38I don't think my mom would have any, you know.
07:40Oh, yeah.
07:46I met them in the Vietnamese community.
07:50They're very nice people.
07:52Everybody loved them.
07:54They would not hurt a little fly.
07:57Long and whole.
07:59Came here, they worked hard.
08:01They immigrated here from Vietnam in order to make a better life for themselves.
08:07They established a sewing and garment business in Arlington, Texas.
08:12They hire Chow Tran, because he's a relative, to be the general manager.
08:18My mom's the owner of the shop and I go to the company.
08:21I get work.
08:22They built this business up, and by all accounts, they were, you know, the American drink.
08:30Chow told me that they did specialize sewing for costumes and things of that nature that you would see in
08:36amusement parks.
08:38Chow Tran goes on to report that they were able to achieve a contract with the Disney Corporation, and it's
08:45going along just fine.
08:502007-2008 comes around, and there is a world recession.
08:55Disney cancels their contract, and now this family is all of a sudden in deep trouble.
09:03Did they work yesterday at the shop?
09:04No, no.
09:05The shop was closed?
09:06It was closed for a whole week, and it's so slow.
09:08Okay.
09:09This was an old-school Vietnamese family.
09:14You or I might say, okay, we need to go and talk to a financial planner.
09:18For them, it was like, okay, we need to go talk to somebody to figure out how to get this
09:23curse taken off our family and our business.
09:27He truly meant a curse in the spiritual sense of it, and he was looking for ways to try to
09:33lift this curse.
09:37There's a community that believes that that exists and that that can happen.
09:42They even enlisted the aid of a spiritual advisor, but it didn't help.
09:49During my conversation with Chow Tran, I tried to get as much information before the offense took place.
09:57So Stewart asked the standard question of Chow Tran, when's the last time you saw your parents-in-law?
10:04Well, last night.
10:07Chow Tran said that it was his birthday, and so the victims were at Chow Tran's house before this offense
10:15took place, and they had dinner to celebrate that.
10:19We eat, and, you know, we sit together, and we play cards until it's 10 o'clock.
10:24When they came over, everybody was happy.
10:26Oh, everybody's happy, and we're joking around.
10:29The story he told was this was just a normal night where we're getting together and having food, and then
10:37they went home.
10:37Do you understand why you have to look at family members first, and to see if anybody has some type
10:43of motive within the family?
10:45Mm-hmm.
10:46Okay.
10:46So no one would have a reason to want to harm them in your family at all.
10:51What's the problem?
10:52You mean kill them?
10:53Yeah, kill them.
10:53Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
10:55There was nothing that indicated that there was any kind of foul play from the family at all.
11:02After I talked to Chow, I attended the autopsy to try to get some type of cause of death.
11:09They informed him they did not find identifiable fingerprints, but with that much duct tape, it is unknown what lies
11:16beneath it.
11:18I looked at both victims, and I could see they had blunt force trauma to the head, but according to
11:24the doctors, it's not the type of blows that would kill them.
11:27What did cause death was asphyxia.
11:32Thirty-five feet of duct tape had been used.
11:37That's an enormous amount of duct tape.
11:40It was a horrible way to die, to be trying to gasp for air, and you couldn't get it because
11:46this duct tape is blocking your airway.
11:51Then that got me thinking about the crime scene.
11:54One thing that we saw was a beer bottle that had a bandana around the neck.
11:59I was familiar with the blue bandana and thought, well, maybe it's the gang member or something like that who
12:05left this.
12:06There are gang activities where a calling card is left.
12:10The beer bottles are wrapped in light blue racks.
12:14A calling card of the gang.
12:17There's an array of different gang, different cultures of gangs, Vietnamese gangs too as well.
12:23Gang members can do anything.
12:24Anything is unpredictable.
12:28Could a Vietnamese street gang engage in violent death?
12:32Oh, without doubt, they can certainly do that.
12:36Do not with us or this is going to happen to you, only maybe even worse.
12:47After the Nguyen's were found brutally murdered, Detective Stewart has to wonder, is this a street gang seeking a street
12:58cred?
12:59This bandana was a light blue type color.
13:04And we did have a gang unit at the police department at the time, so they did give us a
13:10possible gang affiliated with that type of color.
13:19So gangs certainly are involved in home invasion, robberies, burglaries, breaking into people's homes.
13:28I mean, they're not above any of that.
13:36In Vietnam, there are gangs dating back thousands of years.
13:40But the modern Vietnamese gangs are just as violent.
13:46In this area, Arlington, during the 80s and early 90s, were the worst play for the Vietnamese gang store.
13:56There is a gang problem.
14:00If it was a Vietnamese gang, they would probably know the culture of storing cash in a house and not
14:06having cash in banks.
14:10Majority of the Vietnamese people don't trust the bank, because banking system, Vietnam before the world, you put the money
14:17in there, if something happens, you have no money.
14:20That's why they come in here.
14:22They keep the cash in the house.
14:33Byron was determined that he was going to solve this case.
14:38So he's going to have to talk to gang members.
14:42What he needs is concrete physical evidence that would tie someone to this crime scene.
14:48That's when Stewart gets a break from the crime lab.
14:54They informed him they did not find identifiable fingerprints, but they found something even better.
15:00Whoever rolled the marijuana cigarette licked the paper so it would seal and left DNA behind.
15:08The first thing they would do with the sample would be to run it through a database and see if
15:13it hits anybody.
15:15In this particular case here, we did not get a DNA profile back on the person.
15:20It was disappointing.
15:23The fact that the DNA profile is not attached to a name isn't that meaningful.
15:29Maybe he's never been arrested before.
15:35We had no choice but to contact known gang members that we knew in the area, so we started talking
15:43to them.
15:44Some of them were uncooperative, didn't want to talk to us.
15:47Took a lot of convincing.
15:49Some gang members, they speak good English, but they play like I'm dumb.
15:54I don't know the language.
15:56They don't want to talk.
15:59Some of these known gang members, they gave their DNA as a way of, you can check me, I have
16:04nothing to hide.
16:06We swabbed a lot of people.
16:09So all those samples were ran and each one of them came back negative.
16:19I think Byron had already sensed that the scene was staged.
16:24Those victims had no ties to any type of anything gang related.
16:31That bandana was meant to lead us to gang members or to start interviewing gang members, and it worked.
16:38We did.
16:40So then the question is, why would someone do that?
16:45This is violent and very nasty.
16:48It is profoundly evil.
16:50So Stuart is wondering where he's going to go next when he gets a phone call from an insurance company
16:55who want to know what he knows about the death of these people.
17:00The insurance company needs confirmation that the death actually occurred, the manner of the death, was it a suicide, was
17:07it a homicide?
17:08Insurance companies are very thorough.
17:10They're not going to pay anybody, and they don't have to.
17:14So Stuart asked the insurance person, who's the beneficiary of the payout?
17:20They told me that Charlotte Tran was a beneficiary.
17:23The insurance policy totaled around $1.8 million.
17:28This did catch my attention because of the amount of money.
17:34$1.8 million is change your life money.
17:38Now that gives Stuart 1.8 million reasons to have a conversation with Mr. Tran.
17:49It's apparent to Stuart that there are a number of things Chow Tran never told him why in heaven's name
17:55would Nguyen's have a policy worth $1.8 million?
17:59So he needs to speak to Tran and see what's going on with him.
18:08When Byron asked him about having life insurance taken out on the victims, I believe the explanation that was given
18:16was it was for the benefit of the business.
18:19Chow assured me that the insurance policy was on the family because if something were to happen to the primary
18:25owners, which in this case it did, then they could carry on with the business.
18:32This explanation is perfectly reasonable.
18:35These people have built this business from the ground up.
18:38To them, it is their legacy for their family, and they want to protect it.
18:43Having insurance in and of itself is not a concern of mine, so that proved again to be a dead
18:49end.
18:54Over the next few months, progress in a case comes to a stop.
18:58All leads have been exhausted.
19:01And we kept waiting for a possible DNA profile.
19:04We just don't have the person that it belongs to.
19:07I truly wanted closure with this case.
19:09It was personal.
19:11Yeah, it bothered him.
19:13No one wishes for the case to go cold.
19:15He did everything that he could.
19:17He was determined that he was going to solve this case.
19:23I kept pictures of both victims on my desk as a reminder.
19:28I would get other cases, but this case still was that important for me that we got closure.
19:34We maintained contact with Chow and his family.
19:37We gave them updates.
19:39The insurance company had paid off on the policies.
19:43Something's got to give.
19:50Nearly three years after the Nuans were found murdered and stuffed in a closet, Stuart gets a phone call.
19:58I remember getting a call from one of my supervisors who said, hey, we got a DNA hit.
20:06And so I probably said some choice words as far as, are you sure you're reading what you have?
20:13And that person assured me it was from a cigarette from a 2012 case.
20:20That was the break that he was looking for.
20:22We were back on track as if it happened yesterday.
20:26Stuart inquires as to who this person is.
20:29It matches the DNA.
20:30He is a young man named Willie Guillory.
20:35He was arrested for stealing a horse, which in Texas is a felony.
20:40And it's such a crazy way for the case to break, right?
20:43You know, the kid steals a horse and his DNA goes in the system.
20:47And Stuart has him transported by the PD in Houston, 250 miles to the city of Arlington.
20:56All right, Willie.
20:58Willie was placed into an interview room.
21:00And I'm watching him, and he's really relaxed at the time.
21:05Can you explain to me what's going on first?
21:08Sure.
21:08Sure.
21:09I'm the detective here in Arlington.
21:11Can I make sure I have some of your information first?
21:14I just kind of got a feel for who he was.
21:17And then I go into explaining our offense and what happened in 2012.
21:22We were working on a homicide that occurred back in 2012.
21:26We're questioning you about it, Willie, because we believe that you are part of this offense.
21:31Do you understand what I'm saying?
21:32So tell us what happened.
21:33Uh, I really do not know what happened, because I have never been an Arlington at all.
21:38And his body language has changed.
21:40He's not as relaxed as he once was when we initially started talking.
21:44And I know I'm on the right track.
21:47I'm telling you, your DNA was at the scene of this elderly couple back in 2012.
21:53Now, let's try to figure out.
21:54I don't know why y'all keep playing me.
21:56I was 16.
21:56Well, let's figure out first how your DNA got there.
22:00I would never commit a murder, never will.
22:02I don't believe in killing people.
22:04I really don't believe in doing any of that.
22:08He's very, very uncomfortable at this point.
22:10And he starts to get emotional.
22:13Look at me, Willie.
22:17You need to feel comfortable telling us who did this offense.
22:22I don't know who did it.
22:23It wasn't me, though.
22:25It's putting a lot of experience on me.
22:33They touch the nerve, and they know it.
22:35And they are on him like a new suit.
22:40Y'all are scaring me?
22:44He starts asking for his mother.
22:46He becomes almost a 15-year-old Willie now, but he's a grown man.
22:52He's a grown man.
22:55Papa, I want you.
23:07I need you to get up, man.
23:08Come on.
23:10Those were real emotions of a person who's been caught.
23:19I'm here with your man, okay?
23:22I'm not going anywhere.
23:23With Willie's demeanor and how he was acting,
23:27there's just no way in the world that I thought Willie,
23:30by himself, carried this out.
23:33These bodies have been shoved into a closet.
23:37When someone is fighting for their life,
23:40one person alone is unlikely to be able to overcome that.
23:43There's more than one suspect in this event.
23:47There has to be.
23:53The patience of Byron to get to this point,
23:56look, we know you didn't do this by yourself.
23:58Tell us who else was involved with this.
24:01And I think that's what gave Willie an out eventually.
24:05During the course of talking to Willie,
24:07he does mention the name Bobby Guillory,
24:09which he says is his uncle.
24:11Willie says he's afraid of Uncle Bobby.
24:14He eventually says that Bobby was the ringleader of this offense
24:19that started a domino effect of everything.
24:23Tell me more about Uncle Bobby, Willie.
24:26You seem to know a lot about him.
24:34DNA places Willie Guillory at the crime scene,
24:37and he places his Uncle Bobby there, too.
24:40It's enough to get a warrant to drag Bobby Guillory
24:43into an interrogation room.
24:47I'd probably rehearse that whole interview in my head
24:50for two hours.
24:51You know, I anticipated the first hour he was gonna deny.
24:55The second hour would be me confronting him with facts.
25:01Okay, Bobby.
25:02Now, of course, I need to explain to you
25:03everything that's going on, right?
25:05Yes.
25:05You still want to talk to me?
25:07Talk to me.
25:08Okay.
25:09Where we are right now, how we stand right now, is this.
25:14Willie has been arrested, and he's been charged
25:16with capital murder.
25:18I hit Bobby with,
25:20are you gonna truly let him take the whole rap for this?
25:23I don't look at you as a monster.
25:25I look at you as a person who,
25:27I believe you want to make amends.
25:30You're just scared.
25:31At this point, he looked, in my opinion,
25:34like a defeated man.
25:36Now, I'm just asking you, Bobby,
25:38what's going through your mind as far as
25:39on Willie's behalf?
25:44I knew that he was ready to tell the truth.
25:46I just wanted Willie to come with me
25:49so we could find this money fast and go.
25:53So Bobby says he heard the Nguyen family
25:56kept a lot of cash at home.
25:57You heard from who?
25:59And all of a sudden, the Nguyen's come home.
26:02It was dark, and we started fighting,
26:06testing and stuff like that.
26:08Mm-hmm.
26:09And the next thing you know, these people are dead.
26:12That does not equate to wrapping 35 feet of duct tape
26:16around their heads until they suffocate.
26:19So what was the purpose behind the duct tape then,
26:22in your opinion?
26:22Just to stop them from falling.
26:25It was clear what Bobby was telling Stuart
26:28was not everything.
26:30He still understood that he needed
26:32to downplay his role in this.
26:35He drove from Houston to the Arlington area
26:38to commit this offense.
26:40Where's the connection?
26:41Something's going on here.
26:43Someone put them up to this.
26:46I believe there are other people involved.
26:48You have to decide, just like Willie had to decide,
26:51how much defense you're trying to do for them.
26:54Who benefited from these people?
26:56Definitely.
26:57He had to make a decision whether or not
26:58he wanted to tell the truth,
26:59and that was not happening at that time.
27:02Bobby refuses to name any additional players.
27:07So Stuart turns his attention back to Willie.
27:16Who are they, Willie?
27:17Who did this to the devil?
27:19I just heard about it.
27:20It was of other people.
27:23Willie started opening up.
27:24He had come to the point where he knew we had him.
27:31Finally, he admits that they were doing it
27:33on behalf of a woman.
27:35What woman would that be?
27:38I know it's hard, but let's just tell us.
27:44Do you have a sheet of paper in the bed?
27:54That's all I know about it.
28:05He gave up this lady named Daphne.
28:08That doesn't mean anything to me at the time.
28:10I don't think he knew all the intricate details of Daphne.
28:14So we came back to interview Bobby.
28:19Okay, so Willie and I have talked very extensively
28:22on everything, okay?
28:25But I do know that Daphne started this process.
28:29That's when he was like, you know what?
28:31If I'm going down, everybody's going down with me.
28:35Well, Bobby, explain to me from the beginning
28:37how Daphne approached you
28:39and how the situation happened.
28:42They knew her because she would go there
28:44to do her business for whatever business
28:46she was doing with the lady.
28:48Mm-hmm.
28:48You know, the witchcraft or whatever,
28:51or whatever they do.
28:52Mm-hmm.
28:53Yeah.
28:53And they owed her a lot of money.
28:55Okay.
28:57Daphne said she wanted them dead
28:58because they owed her a lot of money,
29:00and she promised to pay them
29:01if they would kill them.
29:04You got there.
29:05Did you use the key to get in?
29:07Yeah.
29:08Who gave you guys a key to that apartment?
29:11Daphne.
29:12Well, then one would have to say,
29:13how did Daphne get the keys?
29:17From here.
29:18Mm-hmm.
29:19Did she mention his name?
29:21He says, there's a Vietnamese guy
29:23that worked with them or something.
29:27Chow Tran is the son-in-law.
29:29He didn't want to give Daphne that key.
29:31He did?
29:33That's how she got it.
29:35And that was this complete and utter shock.
29:39He lied to me,
29:40and that he broke that level of trust
29:43that we established in the beginning
29:45of me thinking that he and his family
29:49were victims in this.
29:51So no one would have a reason
29:53to want to harm them in your family at all?
29:56You mean killing them?
29:56Yeah, killing them in your family.
29:57Oh, no, no, no, no.
29:58Well, no.
29:59That, my boy, is very interesting.
30:08Bobby and Willie Guillory
30:10tell a very interesting story.
30:12A Vietnamese spiritual advisor
30:14named Daphne Wright
30:16asked them to kill Nuance.
30:18With the assistance and help
30:20of the son-in-law, Chow Tran.
30:23Here's a man that we stopped by his house
30:26on a number of occasions,
30:27assured him that we were still working on this case.
30:30Now we learned that he had possible involvement in this.
30:37And I did make the decision to go by the home of Daphne Wright,
30:41but we also got a search warrant for her home.
30:44And we wanted to collect any evidence
30:46that we felt was relevant to the case.
30:49One of the things Detective Stewart needs to prove
30:52is that Daphne Wright and Chow Tran actually know each other.
30:56A portion of her home was an office
30:58for her clients to come and meet her.
31:01There was something going on there that we wouldn't normally see
31:05in a person's house unless they're casting spills.
31:10So we go in there and she have all these ledgers,
31:13all these names, how much money they owed her,
31:17how much money was given if they still owed her.
31:21Daphne's spiritual gift was being a priestess
31:24to the point where she can remove curses from your business.
31:27She kept books and records of all of her dealings
31:31with every person that she came in contact with.
31:35Everything is right down to the details.
31:38It was an elaborate scheme that she had going on.
31:43And then they see it.
31:47There is a record of Chow Tran and his picture in her records.
31:53I really wanted the opportunity to talk to Daphne
31:56to learn more about her ability to remove curses.
32:01But I also wanted to learn more about Chow
32:04and how this all came to be and what her role was in it.
32:09Let me just ask you this.
32:11Just to clarify what we talked about, you do know Chow Tran?
32:14When we first moved in here, that's when he contacted me.
32:17Okay.
32:17For his business, people come to me because they need help.
32:21She's giving us this talk about how she can remove a hex
32:25and how she can grow your business if your business is not doing well.
32:30But if you are superstitious, you believe it to be true
32:34that the Daphne rights of the world are the only ones
32:38who can speak to the duties and influence the outcome of your life.
32:43She's the one that benefited out throughout this whole process.
32:47Money is her motivating factor.
32:49She charges enormous amounts of money for this.
32:52$10, $20, $30,000 a session.
32:56That got me thinking about the conversation I had with Chow.
33:00And Chow saying that we felt our business was cursed.
33:04Did he pay you?
33:05He has to pay me.
33:06Okay.
33:07Okay.
33:07What happens if they don't pay you?
33:10Well, I can't even tell what's going to happen.
33:13Mm-hmm.
33:14Mm-hmm.
33:15But usually, it's not going to be a nice thing to happen.
33:19Mm-hmm.
33:20I don't have to do anything to them.
33:22Things just happen on its own.
33:24She told Byron, if people owe me money, I'm going to get my money one way or another.
33:29Give me money, because I like money.
33:32And you're a dumb shit, so I'm going to take yours first, because you're just too easy.
33:43We eventually made the decision to get an arrest form for Daphne.
33:48She was taken to jail at that time.
33:51And I attempted to interview her.
33:55Appreciate it.
33:56Let me have a seat.
34:02Daphne, Detective Stewart, do you remember me?
34:04Yes.
34:06Daphne Wright might appear to you to be just some suburban soccer mom.
34:13But when you look beyond the surface, she had her own little racket going on.
34:18And if you didn't pay, you knew something bad was going to happen to you.
34:23You can tell she was very angry at the time.
34:26She was defiant.
34:29I'd like to know what's going on, because the last time when you came down to see me,
34:33I didn't even know what is really going on back then.
34:37I explained to her what the nature of the arrest was for.
34:43If I have to make any statements or anything, I'd like to have my lawyer present before I do anything.
34:49So now the spiritual advisor needs a legal advisor.
34:52Don't move me, ma'am.
34:57You're going to be engaged.
34:57Now he hopes to talk to Chow Tran, see if he can break him.
35:01We were going to confront him about everything that we had learned thus far.
35:05But instead, I got a call from an attorney.
35:08And then I knew where we were heading at that point.
35:12So now they're out of business.
35:15They're not going to get a statement, and they need one.
35:20Daphne Wright is the mastermind of this process,
35:24the architect of the entire crime.
35:26The case against Daphne was going to be, you know,
35:31a very difficult case to prove.
35:33It's a completely circumstantial case.
35:36And the risks were high that Daphne could walk.
35:39And so the thought was,
35:42maybe if we subpoenaed Chow Tran and brought him in,
35:47then maybe we could somehow get him on the stand.
35:51In order to have Chow Tran testify against Daphne,
35:55we had to give him immunity.
35:57It was a very hard decision.
36:00There's no doubt in our mind that she would do this again.
36:05She needed to be stopped,
36:06and if we had to use Chow for that matter,
36:11it's a lesser of two evils.
36:14I spent a lot of hours at the police station with Stewart,
36:18calling over evidence and strategizing,
36:21all the way up to the start of Daphne's trial.
36:27During the trial,
36:28Chow Tran says,
36:30over the course of a few years,
36:32the family had racked up a debt of $280,000.
36:36And so Chow had to come up with some kind of way to pay this money.
36:41Chow Tran has a marvelous idea.
36:43What about the life insurance?
36:46Chow knew that there was an insurance policy that they had been paying on for years.
36:54Both Chow and Wright determined that if they were dead,
36:59the insurance could pay the debt.
37:05So now who are we going to get to commit the crime?
37:08Because Daphne wasn't going to do it.
37:10So she knew this guy Bobby.
37:14And what kind of situation is Bobby in?
37:16He's in the same situation that Chow's in.
37:19Financial problems.
37:21She thought if she dangled $10,000 in front of him,
37:25he would do anything she wanted.
37:26So Bobby Guillory accepts the assignment,
37:29but he doesn't think he can handle two people.
37:31So he contacts his dim-witted nephew,
37:34and Willie's dumb enough to go along.
37:42Chow told Daphne the apartment would be empty until 10 p.m.
37:48and gave her the key.
37:58The night of the murder,
37:59Chow Tran lured his father-in-law, Nguyen,
38:02over to his house to celebrate his birthday.
38:06All part of the plan to give the Guillory's time to enter the apartment.
38:10In that time frame,
38:12you have Willie and Bobby who just sits in this apartment.
38:16They were getting ready to attack him,
38:18and that's exactly what they did.
38:22And when the Nguyen's came home,
38:25the Guillory's were ready,
38:27and the attack occurred.
38:35And then they tape across their face and their mouth and eyes
38:39to the point where they couldn't breathe.
38:42They had to die because insurance won't pay to living people.
38:48Willie and Bobby start staging their apartment
38:51to look like it's been ransacked.
38:53They staged the scene to make it look like it was a gang,
38:58a home invasion gone bad.
39:01They might have gotten away with it
39:02until Willie made a fatal mistake.
39:06Willie couldn't get the paper to stay together,
39:09so he licked it and transferred his DNA onto that cigarette.
39:13Had he not licked that cigarette,
39:15we would have never known who did this.
39:23The link that Chow Tran had gone,
39:25he knows that he needs his in-laws
39:28to come over to the house at a certain time,
39:30and he needs them to leave at a certain time.
39:32I often think,
39:34what is Chow thinking
39:35when he sees his in-laws leave the house,
39:38when he knows he's looking at them for the last time?
39:46I was on pins and needles with Daphne's trial.
39:49We just didn't know which way it was going to go.
39:51Didn't know how Chow's testimony was going to go.
39:54At the end of the day,
39:56we convict Daphne Wright of capital murder.
39:59That sentence is automatic, life without parole.
40:02Willie and Bobby were both charged with capital murder.
40:06Willie, we made him an offer.
40:08Willie got 13 years on murder,
40:12and then Bobby got life without the possibility of parole.
40:18Chow's not getting any charges
40:20based on the evidence that we had.
40:22It still sits with me today
40:24as I'm sitting in this chair
40:26thinking about the fact that Chow got away with murder.
40:30And that sort of sticks in my craw,
40:33and it probably always will.
40:36I can only imagine when it comes to Chow,
40:38the amount of guilt that has to be bestowed onto him.
40:44He has to live with that every day.
40:48This case shows the sheer lunacy
40:51of superstition and conspiracy.
40:54If people believe in falsehoods,
40:58it's them grievously hurt,
41:00and in some cases, even dead.
41:02It's unfortunate.
41:04It is the way of the world,
41:06but it is unfortunate.
41:10On the next American detective...
41:13Who's in the body?
41:14Oh, no!
41:15Who murdered a woman,
41:16found an old Boysville juvenile detention center?
41:19You know who the killer is.
41:21Oh, trust me, we have proof.
41:23Something's not right about this.
41:24This is where your mind is.
41:26You can't put your finger on it yet,
41:28but you know it's not right.
41:30Good night.
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