EDMONTON — What was it that made Phu Lam so angry that he killed eight people?
The Edmonton maintenance man had been accused two years ago of abusing his wife and lashing out when he realized their eight-year-old son wasn't his biological offspring. He shot them both Sunday, along with other members of his wife's family, including a three-year-old niece. Yet he spared two other children who had also been in the north-side home — his toddler daughter and an infant nephew.
Lam dropped the two kids off at a relative's home the next day, then visited with other family before driving to another house to kill one last target. When that person wasn't at home, he shot dead an innocent woman who happened to be there.
Police revealed the details Friday and said they are still working to piece together the complex case and explain what turned 53-year-old Lam into a cold-blooded killer. All they can say for now is that it involved domestic troubles.
Court documents show Thuy Tien Truong, 35, had tried to escape her marriage to Lam before.
He had emigrated from Vietnam in 1979 and was visiting his home country when he met Truong in a coffee shop in 2000. They married six months later and she came to Canada in 2003.
Truong said in a 2012 application for an emergency protection order that her husband became controlling shortly after she landed here. Lam changed her phone number because he didn't want her to have friends. He wanted to choose her clothes. He didn't want her to work, but she got a job anyway.
Then he hit her. Once, he choked her so hard she thought she was going to die, she said. He threatened to kill her if she called police.
Truong said in the document that she was so unhappy she had sex once with another man. Lam became suspicious and a DNA test proved that their son, Elvis, was not his.
Lam planned "to actually kill off her whole family and he was going to look for a gun, but no one would sell it to him," a court interpreter said while translating Truong's testimony during an emergency protection hearing.
"He asked his ex-wife if she could find him a gun ... but the ex-wife told him not to do it because he has two kids with his ex-wife too."
The protection order was granted. It was revoked two months later when Truong failed to show up at court. Criminal charges against Lam — assault, sexual assault and uttering threats — were stayed. Prosecutors have said she and other witnesses recanted their stories.
The couple eventually had another child, but other court documents filed when Lam declared bankruptcy indicate they separated as early as February 2013. Police said they were trying to determine if Lam and Truong were still living together. Lam was listed as the owner of the home and police said he probably had a key.
Acting deputy chief Mark Neufeld told reporters Friday that autopsies confirmed that all eight victims were shot to death, but he refused to give further details.
He said investigators have received valuable help from the Vietnamese community, but added they may never fully understand why Lam exploded to violently.
"We struggle to try to put some sense to something like this," Neufeld said.
"We will chase down everything we can to try to find out the reasons why, because I think it's important.
"But at the end of the day you try to import rational thought into an irrational act and, a lot of times, it just never comes."
