Bio

Hung Thanh Le was born on December 17, 1966. He was a Vietnamese refugee who later came to the United States. Court records state that Le met Hai Hong Nguyen in a refugee camp in Thailand during the mid-1980s. The two men became friends, and both later immigrated to the United States. Nguyen settled in Oklahoma City, where he and his wife, Thuy Tiffany Nguyen, owned and operated a beauty salon. Le settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked as a machinist.

According to Le, he and Nguyen had once discussed opening a machine shop together in Oklahoma City. Le claimed that on July 4, 1992, he visited Nguyen in Oklahoma City and gave the Nguyens $10,000 as startup money for that business. He later claimed that after his family arrived in the United States in September 1992, he wanted the money returned. This claim became part of his later explanation for the conflict, but Thuy Nguyen denied that Le had loaned them money.

In November 1992, Le returned to Oklahoma City. During the week of November 2, he briefly stopped at the Nguyens’ home and said he was returning to Cleveland after getting a job in Texas. On November 9, he returned again, and the Nguyens allowed him to stay with them. Le claimed he had lost his wallet, and Nguyen gave him money.

On November 11, 1992, Le went to the Nguyens’ beauty salon with the couple. He borrowed their car, returned to their house, removed their stereo, and mailed it to himself in Ohio. When the Nguyens came home that evening, they noticed the stereo was missing. There were no signs of forced entry. Le denied knowing what had happened to it and claimed one of his own bags was also missing.

By the next morning, the friendship between Le and Nguyen had turned into a violent confrontation. Court records later showed that Le intended to rob the Nguyens and admitted he had first attacked Nguyen with a metal bar.

Murder Story

On November 12, 1992, Hai Hong Nguyen was inside his Oklahoma City home with his wife, Thuy Tiffany Nguyen. According to court records, Thuy was called from bed by her husband’s words, “Honey, Hung kill me.” When she ran into the living room, she found Nguyen covered in blood. Le had struck him in the head with an 18-inch metal bar from a weightlifting set.

Nguyen was still conscious after the first blow. Thuy called 911, then saw her husband try to pick up the metal bar. She stopped him after telling him that police had been called. At that point, Le returned from the kitchen holding a 13-inch knife and a 7-inch meat cleaver. Le moved toward Nguyen with the weapons. When Thuy tried to intervene, she suffered knife wounds to her head and hands. She pleaded with Le to stop. During the attack, Le told her he would kill her too because she had called police.

Nguyen asked Le why he was attacking them. Le claimed that someone had hired him to kill the Nguyens for $20,000. He then told Thuy to write him a check for that amount, but she said they did not have that much money. Le stabbed Nguyen in the chest. When Nguyen fell across the coffee table and couch, Le used the meat cleaver to hack at the back of Nguyen’s neck. Thuy managed to escape through the front door and reached paramedics who had arrived outside but were waiting for police before entering the home.

While paramedics treated Thuy’s wounds, Le collected Nguyen’s wallet, keys, and other property. He then left the house in the Nguyens’ car. One paramedic later testified that he saw Le driving away while looking over the scene. Police and medical workers entered the house and found Nguyen still alive but gravely injured. He had multiple stab wounds to his chest, neck, head, abdomen, and arms. He went into hypovolemic shock and cardiac arrest before reaching the hospital and later died.

After leaving the house, Le drove toward Dallas, stopped near a ditch to wash blood from his body, and returned to Oklahoma City. He then went to the Nguyens’ bank. Using Nguyen’s identity and safety deposit box key, he opened their safe deposit box and took $36,000 in cash and two diamond rings. He left the Nguyens’ car at the bank, where investigators later found blood and his fingerprints.

Le was arrested the next day. He admitted striking and stabbing Nguyen, but claimed he did not intend to kill him. He said he wanted to knock Nguyen unconscious so he could steal the safety deposit box key. He also claimed that he grabbed the knives because he feared for his life after Nguyen picked up the metal bar. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the argument that the evidence supported heat-of-passion manslaughter or self-defense instructions, noting that Le was the original aggressor and that he left the room, armed himself with the knife and cleaver, returned, and attacked again.

The State of Oklahoma charged Le with first-degree murder with malice aforethought, robbery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery with intent to kill, grand larceny, and larceny of a motor vehicle. In September 1995, a jury found him guilty on all five counts. The jury sentenced him to death for first-degree murder and imposed prison terms for the non-capital crimes.

Le appealed his conviction and sentence. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the judgment in 1997 and rejected his claims about lesser-included offense instructions, self-defense, prosecutorial misconduct, and other trial issues. He later filed federal habeas claims, but the Tenth Circuit affirmed the denial of relief in 2002.

Le’s execution was originally scheduled for January 6, 2004. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 4–0 to recommend clemency, but Governor Brad Henry rejected the recommendation. A later February 26, 2004 execution date was delayed shortly before it was to occur after the Vietnamese government requested more time to review the case.

Hung Thanh Le was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester on March 23, 2004. Amnesty International reported that he was executed at about 6 p.m. local time and that his final statement included an apology and a wish that hatred be replaced with love.