For slain woman, a solemn farewell

Sixteen years after bringing their daughter to Boston, the Nguyen family held a solemn wake last night for Nhuan Nguyen , whose death prompted a monk to call for the casting aside of hatred.

``It's just not fair," said Phyllis Nguyen , one of the victim's cousins, before the wake at Wing Fook Funeral Home in Boston. ``You think about the parents and all the work they did to raise their kids. The kids are finally ready to go out into the world. And to have her life taken away, it's just not fair."

An estimated 400 to 500 people attended the traditional Vietnamese service last night.

``Forget all about hatred, because the hatred can never be seized by hatred," said Thich Giac Duc , a Buddhist monk and local academic, during a service with family and friends that preceded the public wake. ``It can only be seized by love and kindness."

On Friday, her mother and aunt plan to help transport the body to Vietnam, where Nhuan Nguyen, 19, was born and will be buried next to her grandfather. The monk bestowed a new name on Nguyen for her next life and asked that family and friends call her Dieu Linh .

Boston police are investigating her death, and said no arrests had been made as of yesterday.

According to her brother, On , 17 , Nhuan was killed as payback for a drug deal that had gone bad. On Nguyen said he had planned to buy 3 pounds of marijuana from a Dorchester drug dealer about two weeks ago. He said he paid $7,000 but didn't receive the drugs, so last Monday he went to the dealer's home in Dorchester's Codman Hill section.

He said he arrived about 10:30 p.m. and argued with the dealer's mother, who told him her son was not home. She slammed the door on him, and On Nguyen smashed her windows with a brick , he told the Globe .

Within minutes, a man called the Nguyen home, yelling that someone had broken the windows at his mother's house, and saying he was coming over.

The family called police.

A short time later, someone arrived at the Nguyen house in a car. He approached Nhuan, who was on the front porch, and they exchanged shouted remarks. As he walked away, he warned her that he'd be back. Again, the family called 911.

Minutes later, Nhuan Nguyen was smoking on the porch when two men walked up to the house and fired shots, the family said. She was pronounced dead at Boston Medical Center.

Nhuan Nguyen, who was 4-foot-9 and called Lun, or ``shorty" by her family, had been working to get her high school equivalency degree at Crittenton Inc., a social service agency in Brighton that operates an alternative high school program, and had planned to attend community college.

A month ago, she moved to Philadelphia, where she worked for her aunt's catering company.

``She was excited about the future," Phyllis Nguyen said. ``She wanted to be a flight attendant, but she was too short. She loved to travel."

Last week, she returned to her family's Dorchester home to take her high school equivalency test.

Nhuan Nguyen's death was recorded as the 30th homicide in Boston this year.

Councilor Sam Yoon visited the family on Wednesday, spokesman Jack Kowalski said yesterday in a telephone interview. He has joined 11 Dorchester civic associations in calling for the renewal of a Youth Mentoring Street Program, especially during the summer months.

``We want to be able to identify those kids who are in the danger zone, and hire youth workers to . . . keep them out of trouble," Kowalski said.

Yoon wants to use as much as $1 million from the city's emergency fund to pay for this program, Kowalski said. Business and civic leaders in the city's Vietnamese community have donated about $10,000 to pay for Nguyen's wake and burial.

Weeping outside the funeral home, the victim's aunt, Mai Nguyen , said Nhuan was like a daughter to her.

``She was very kind, very sweet," she said.

Christine McConville can be reached online at cmcconville@globe.com.