Phu Lam: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

VN Express Edmonton

The VN Express restaurant in Fort Saskatchewan, where Phu Lam was found dead. (Facebook)

A man in Canada murdered eight people, including members of his own family, before committing suicide at a Vietnamese restaurant. The horrific killing spree occurred on the night of December 29 into the morning of December 30 in Edmonton. The man behind the worst mass killing in Edmonton-history has been named as 53-year-old Phu Lam.

Here’s what you need to know about Lam and Edmonton’s worst mass murder on record:


1. It Was a ‘Senseless Mass Murder’

 Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht

Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht. (Screengrab via the Edmonton Journal)

Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht told the media on December 30 that the incident was a “senseless mass murder.” In total, eight people were killed by Lam. Seven of those, including two children under age 10, were found dead in Lam’s home in northern Edmonton just after midnight on December 30.

Earlier, on December 29, a woman in her 30s was shot dead in a home in the southern part of the city. That woman has been named as Cyndi Duong. Police are investigating the connection between her and Lam. According to Duong’s Facebook page, she’s the mother of three children. She worked at Canadian energy delivery company named Enbridge as a team leader.

CBC reports that her home had been broken into.

One of the dead children is Lam’s, reports the Edmonton Journal. At 12:23 a.m., Edmonton police entered a house that’s co-owned by Lam, where they found the bodies of three middle-aged women, two middle-aged men, and two children, a boy and a girl. The boy is known locally as “Elvis,” reports the Journal. The manner of their deaths has not been made public. Those victims will not be officially named by cops until after all autopsies have been completed. Edmonton CTV reports that outside the home where the murders took place, a makeshift memorial has been made for the family. The Mayor of Edmonton, Don Iveson, paid his respects at the home on December 31.


2. Police Came to Lam’s House Earlier but Left Without Investigating

Police were first called to Lam’s home at 8:30 p.m. on December 29 after receiving a call about a suicidal man. CTV reports that the police couldn’t find Lam and didn’t see anything suspicious, so they left without entering. When cops were called again to the house, they entered and made the gruesome discovery. Police chief Knecht said cops received “additional information,” which is why they entered the home. The chief didn’t say what that information was. Speaking to the Edmonton Journal, the former mayor of the city, Jan Reimer, questioned whether police made the right call in cops not entering the house on their first visit:

It’s hard to second-guess. But you wonder about so many different things. I have questions about what the police knew when they first went to that house. If they had no right of entry? Well, why not?

Just after 2 a.m. on December 30, police were then called to the VN Express restaurant in the nearby suburb of Fort Saskatchewan. After a standoff, cops blew the door open and entered the restaurant around 8 a.m., preceded by dogs and a police robot. Inside, they found Lam, dead of an apparent suicide. Phu Lam’s black Mercedes SUV was parked outside the restaurant. The daughter-in-law of the restaurant’s owner told the radio station 630 CHED that Lam had worked at VN Express doing odd-jobs. He had a key. The restaurant’s owner, Chau Tran, told CBC that she was Phu Lam’s former common-law wife. She told the network that he had remarried but she didn’t know his new family.

According to Chief Knecht, the gun used in the attack was a 9mm that was legally registered in 1997 but had been reported stolen in 2006 in Surrey, British Columbia. The chief stressed during a press conference the attack was “planned and deliberate” and that it was not a gang attack. He added that the killings were “tragic incidents of domestic violence.”


3. A Neighbor Described Lam as a ‘Really Nice Guy’

Speaking to the Edmonton Journal, a neighbor of Lam’s, Thanh Nguyen, said that Lam was a “really nice guy” but added that “the family had trouble, problems.” Nguyen also said that Lam co-owned the home where the dead bodies were found, along 180th Avenue and 83rd Street in Edmonton. Nguyen added that Lam was retired and in his 60s, the suspect was described as being 53. Chief Knecht described the suspect as being “well known to police.” Chief Knecht told the media that the suspect in the murders had a criminal record going back to September 1987, including arrests for domestic violence and sexual assault.


4. Lam Had Just Filed for Bankruptcy

According to public records, Lam’s home was built in 2012 and he, along with another woman, Thuy-Tien Truong, took out a $365,000 mortgage in July 2012. The Edmonton Journal reports that Lam filed for bankruptcy in October 2014. In an official statement, Chief Knecht said that Lam was “depressed and overly emotional.” The Journal further reports that Truong was sued by the Royal Bank of Canada in 2013 over mortgage payments.


5. Edmonton Is 1.6% Vietnamese

The city of Edmonton is 1.6 percent Vietnamese. In total, there are around 157,000 Viets in Canada. The Vietnamese community in Edmonton is represented by the magazine Thoi Bao.

The Edmonton Journal reports that a Family Violence Death Review Committee had been set up in Alberta in February 2014. The chair of that committee, Allen Benson, said that formal inquiry will be launched into Lam’s killing spree.