Father Suspected in Fire Fatal to Him, 4 Children

The badly burned bodies of a father and his four young children were found huddled together in a bedroom of their home early Monday, killed in an apparent murder-suicide, authorities said.

No suspects were being sought and authorities declined to speculate on who might have set the fire, although sources said the investigation was centering on the possibility of murder-suicide. Police interviewed the mother of the children Monday and said she was grief-stricken.

“All we know is that it was a domestic dispute and that the mother and father had been at odds for a while,” said a law enforcement official who declined to be identified. “What drives people to this rage, God only knows.”

The blaze at 1:50 a.m. Monday was confined to one bedroom in the ranch-style home where the body of a man identified by relatives as 37-year-old Duc Dang Luong was found, along with his son and three daughters. All five are believed to have died of smoke inhalation, authorities said.

Relatives and neighbors said that Luong and his 35-year-old wife, Hang Le Thi Tran, had separated about a week ago and that she had taken the children with her. But neighbors reported seeing the children, who ranged in age from 3 to 10, back at the house with their father last weekend.

Luong was distraught about the breakup of his marriage, which apparently resulted from his wife’s determination to seek a job, said Quyen Luong, brother of the dead man. But the brother said Duc Luong was a devout Catholic who loved his wife and children and could never hurt them.

“Duc called me four or five times (on Sunday) asking what he should do, that his family was breaking up and his wife was divorcing him,” said an ashen-faced Quyen Luong, who learned of his younger brother’s death when he arrived at the home on West Rainbow Avenue Monday morning.

“I told him that we will take care of things as they happen and not to worry,” Quyen Luong, 44, said. “We told him to come over, have dinner then go to church. But he never came over.”

The fire was reported by a passerby who saw flames and knocked at the next-door neighbor’s home to telephone the Fire Department.

After extinguishing the blaze, which was confined to a bedroom next to the garage, firefighters found the father’s body huddled over two of the children on the floor at foot of a bed. The bodies of two other children were found beside the bed.

The children were identified by relatives as Lynda, 10; Diana, 8; David, 6, and Joanna, 3.

“Firemen saw some bodies inside a room and thought it suspicious that they were confined to one room, so they called us,” Anaheim Police Sgt. Mike Hidalgo said. “We don’t really know what this is yet.”

Hidalgo said authorities had not determined the cause of the fire, but he added, “There was no indication of a burglary or robbery in the house.”

At the moment, Hidalgo said, police “are not looking at anybody as a suspect.”

Father Joseph Son Nguyen of St. Boniface Catholic Church in Anaheim, who was summoned by Anaheim police to console Hang Tran and her family at the police station, said the mother was in shock.

“She cried a lot; she couldn’t coherently tell me anything,” the priest said. “I told her to just cry, that it was OK to cry.”

Nguyen said Hang Tran and her relatives told him they did not know what had happened, and they still could not believe that the four young children and their father were dead.

“There was so much confusion (at the station), so much pain,” the priest said. “All I could do was pray with them. . . . They’re heartbroken.”

Throughout the morning, shocked and curious neighbors gathered across the street from the four-bedroom home where the Luongs had lived since 1986.

Next door, 8-year-old Minar Kim, who was Diana Luong’s best friend, said she saw Duc Luong driving his children away Sunday afternoon, then saw his blue Mustang return to the house about 11 p.m.

“I waved to Diana in the car (Sunday) but I did not get to talk to her,” Minar said Monday as she stood with her mother on her doorstep.

While the Luong parents were friendly, if distant, their children had forged close friendships with other youngsters on their block and with schoolmates at Melbourne A. Gauer Elementary School.

The eldest, Lynda, had earned a reputation as an outstanding student who spent most of her free time reading books.

“She’s really the smart one, she was always reading a book,” said Sammy Jaramillo, 8, a playmate of Lynda’s 6-year-old brother, David. “Diana was also bright.”

The Luong children were scheduled to return to their year-round school Wednesday after a three-week summer break.

“David and I used to play on the swings together during recess at school,” Sammy said. “He was in the first grade. We would play chase the girls and we would try to get all the girls, tagging them.”

Quyen Luong said his brother, a machinist, came to the United States in 1975, among the first large wave of refugees after the end of the Vietnam War. He said Duc Luong met Hang Tran in South Carolina and moved to Orange County, where the couple was married in 1978.

Two weeks ago, Duc Luong called his brother to say that he and his wife had been arguing because she wanted to go back to school and get a job. The couple met with Quyen Luong and Hang’s father, Phan Tran, to discuss their problems.

“After 14 years of marriage with four children, I had assumed they were happy with each other. They had little problems just like ordinary couples, but nothing out of the ordinary,” the brother said.

But Hang Tran left the house suddenly last week and moved in with her father.

“Whatever the situation was, I don’t think they solved it,” Quyen Luong said. “Duc called me five or six times (Sunday) and told me his wife wanted a divorce. . . . I remember Duc saying: ‘I’m so sad. She’s made up her mind to leave me. . . .’

“He asked me for advice. . . . I told him regardless of his and Hang’s problems, he has to control himself for the sake of the young children. I told him I couldn’t tell him what to do in terms of letting Hang go back to school--that was their personal business and I didn’t want to meddle.”

Quyen Luong struggled with news of the violent deaths and his memories of his brother as a kind, caring father.

“The only speculation I can come up with as to what happened . . . is that Duc loved her obsessively and thought the family life should be patterned like that of a traditional Vietnamese family,” Quyen Luong said. “That means the husband works and the wife stays home. I guess, and I don’t really know, that the problem (arose) when she wanted to do otherwise.”

Times staff writers Kevin Johnson, Kristina Lindgren and David Reyes contributed to this story.