Thursday, Mar. 19, 2009

NC family’s murders tied to opium smuggling ring

Friends and neighbors reeling from the murders of four family members in a quiet North Carolina subdivision were stunned Wednesday to learn the deaths were connected to an opium smuggling ring involving the husband and father of the victims.

Details of the drug operation emerged early Wednesday after Utah authorities tried to stop a man and a woman wanted in the killings. The couple’s car crashed, and deputies found them inside, dead of gunshot wounds.

Catawba County Sheriff’s Maj. Coy Reid said the two, Chiew Chan Saevang, 38, and his girlfriend, Yer Yang, 40, were part of a smuggling operation involving the victims’ father and husband, Brian Tzeo. They said Saevang went to the Tzeo home last Thursday to steal a recently arrived shipment of opium and then killed Tzeo’s wife, Lisa Phan, 40, and children, Melanie Saephan, 22, Pauline Chao, 18, and Cody Tzeo, 4.

Reid wouldn’t say whether they planned to charge Tzeo or if they’ll let him go to California to bury his family.

“It would be premature to comment on that,” said North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation Agent David Call. He said they would conduct more interviews and then present their evidence to the district attorney.

In the usually quiet subdivision, neighbors had been speculating that the killings might be a case of domestic violence, perhaps by a friend of one of the family members. So the news of the opium operation came as a shock. “I was totally blown away,” said Elsa Crim, who lives across the street from the Tzeo home.

Reid said Tzeo smuggled opium from Thailand through the mail and that a member of his family – he wouldn’t say who – processed the raw substance. Then Yer Yang, of Long View, N.C., would pick up the drug and take it to Wisconsin, where Saevang sold it. Saevang had moved from Catawba County to Wisconsin in December.

Reid said Tzeo admitted his role in the drug operation. “The father admitted his participation and involvement with the drugs,” Reid said.

A collection of tips, including one that resulted from a television segment on the case on “America’s Most Wanted” Saturday, led authorities to the couple, they said.

A friend of Tzeo, Seng Saetern, said Tzeo stayed at Saetern’s Taylorsville, N.C., home Tuesday night and told Saetern that he wasn’t involved in the opium trade. “He tells me he’s really confused,“ Saetern said. “He (doesn’t) know anything about that.”

Tzeo attended a visitation at a Catawba County funeral home Wednesday but wasn’t available for interviews.

The Catawba County Sheriff’s Office issued a nationwide alert early Wednesday morning for a car registered to Saevang. Less than 10 minutes later, as Saevang and Yang were driving through Utah on their way to California, authorities tried to stop them.

It wasn’t the first time Saevang had been in trouble with the law. He served 46 months in federal prison on opium-trafficking charges brought in 2004 by police in Hickory, where he lived at the time.

But Tzeo apparently had no criminal history, which for some made Wednesday’s allegations all the more shocking.

“This is exactly like something in a mafia movie,” said Tong Yang, a leader in Catawba County’s Hmong community. Though Tzeo is Mien, another Laotian minority group, Tong Yang said the Hmong and Mien are close because both helped American forces in Vietnam, and many immigrated to the United States as refugees from Communist persecution.

“It is really unreal,” Tong Yang said. “I just don’t understand. Why would someone do something that would jeopardize his family?”

Catawba County authorities say they haven’t seen a widespread opium trade in the area. Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins said the case involving Saevang in 2004 and a second opium case in 2001 involved the shipment of opium to the county from elsewhere and sales outside the area.

Charlotte Realtor and Laos native Suzy Chanthaboury, who attended the viewing for the family on Thursday, said opium has been a part of the culture in Laos and Thailand for generations and continues in the United States.

Chanthaboury said she’s involved in the Laotian community and serves as a translator when needed. She said the opium trade is commonly known of, though not widespread, among the Laotian community in the United States, and is mostly a hidden activity.

Hundreds of visitors paid their respects at the viewing, where flower-laden coffins with the three adults were open, and Cody’s coffin was closed. Visitors sat quietly watching images of the family flash on a video screen or walked by a board filled with family photos. Many shook hands with Tzeo and other family members who were seated.

Family friend Khalfani Coulter, 23, said his brother, Martel, 21, was Melanie Saephan’s boyfriend and was sitting with her father during visitation.

“He’s doing OK today, but he was bad last week,” Coulter said of the father. “He blamed himself,” Coulter said. “He thought he should have been there the day (the murders) happened.”

Coulter said Melanie Saephan had never mentioned anything about drug activities to his brother.

“I’m pretty sure she didn’t know anything,” he said. “If it’s true, they were keeping it secret.”

After a weeklong investigation that exhausted and disturbed veteran law enforcement officers, Reid said investigators are relieved they tracked down the man believed to be the killer but disappointed most of the principles in the case are dead.

“There were a lot of questions we would’ve liked to ask,” he said.

At a news conference Wednesday, Reid and Sheriff David Huffman grew emotional as they talked about the toll of the investigation and the murders.

“This is a crime that got to everybody emotionally,” Huffman said. “Everybody we talked with when we were over there keeps mentioning the small child. He still had his hand in the cereal bowl.”

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