Teen charged in son's death found infant brother dead

This story was written by Brian Ballou, Michael Levenson, and Milton J. Valencia of the Globe staff.

WORCESTER - When police responding to a frantic 911 call arrived at the apartment of Nga Truong Sunday morning, they found the 16-year-old girl's infant son blue in the face and lifeless. A short while later, they made a troubling discovery: Eight years ago, after a similar emergency call, authorities had rushed to the girl's home and found her infant brother dead in eerily similar circumstances.

The death in November 2000, when Truong was 8 years old, was determined to be the result of sudden infant death syndrome. But investigators wondered. Both were infants, both had mysteriously stopped breathing while in their cribs. And both had been discovered by Truong.

"That is what really piqued the interest of our investigators, because that seemed a little weird," said a Worcester law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the case, who declined to be named because the investigation is ongoing.

Yesterday, Truong, who turns 17 today, pleaded not guilty in Worcester District Court to a charge of murder, accused of suffocating her year-old son Khyle by holding a teddy bear over his face. She stood motionless before Judge Paul F. Loconto, flushed as though from sobbing, as he ordered her held without bail.

Her court-appointed lawyer, Edward P. Ryan Jr., vigorously denied the charges and accused authorities of leaping to conclusions and wringing a confession from a frightened 16-year-old who was questioned without a parent or lawyer by her side.

"There will be a lot of questions about the legality of the statement," said Ryan, a former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association. "We're dealing with a 16-year-old child who didn't have a lawyer, who was interrogated for a number of hours without a parent present. Under those circumstances, you could get people to confess to the killing of Jimmy Hoffa.

"She was not the instrument of death," Ryan said. "She's a frightened kid."

Police said yesterday that Truong was questioned only after being informed of her Miranda rights. Asked if she wanted a lawyer or parent present, she declined, police said.

Truong, a junior at South Community High School, lives with her mother, 31-year-old Van Truong, a year-old brother, another brother three years her junior, and a boyfriend of seven months, Edwin Vasquez, 17, who said yesterday that Truong is currently pregnant with his child. He said he is not Khyle's father.

The 2000 death of Truong's 3-month-old brother, Hien, occurred while Truong was baby-sitting him and another brother, according to the law enforcement source and another Worcester law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the case.

"She awoke to find her brother blue, unresponsive in the crib," one of the officials said.

State child welfare officials were alerted and had some kind of involvement with the family, the law enforcement officials said. It was not clear yesterday the extent of the contact. Alison Goodwin, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, declined to comment, beyond saying that the agency had not had contact with Truong since the birth of Khyle a year ago.

Before Khyle's death, according to Vasquez, the couple had given the baby a small dose of Tylenol for a fever and put him to bed. Vasquez said the baby awoke several times during the night. At 5 a.m. Sunday, awakened by the baby crying, he said, he gave Khyle a bottle of milk and put him back in his crib. Three hours later, the baby again awoke crying, and Truong changed his diaper, Vasquez said.

At 11 a.m., Vasquez said, he was awakened by Truong repeatedly screaming that Khyle was not breathing.

"I jumped out of bed and saw that his lips were blue and his face was gray," Vasquez said. "There were no signs of life."

Truong shouted Khyle's name over and over, trying to wake him. Both Vasquez and Truong attempted CPR on the baby and called 911, Vasquez said.

Police said they arrived at the home around 11:15 a.m. The baby was taken to St. Vincent Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about noon.

On Monday, police brought Truong to headquarters. In the course of questioning, police said, Truong initially said she had found her son unconscious in his crib. But later, after investigators asked her about the death of her 3-month-old brother in 2000, she told them she had smothered Khyle with a brown teddy bear.

The Worcester law enforcement officials stressed that no evidence suggests that Truong was responsible for her brother's death. They also said the girl appeared genuinely anguished over the death of her child.

"She was clearly distraught," one official said. "It is nothing but sad all across the board."

An autopsy is being performed; results are pending. One of the officials said preliminary results show some hemorrhaging and broken blood vessels in the eye and below the eye. "It can suggest there was pressure exerted to the head at some point," the official said.

Ryan said he has hired a forensic pathologist to independently analyze the evidence.

Vasquez said Truong would not have harmed her child.

"There is no way that she would do something like that, because she is not that kind of person," he said outside the courtoom. "I was in the bedroom the whole time, and I would have heard if anything like that happened.

"That's impossible, crazy," Vasquez said. "I know they pressured her to say that."

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.