Born to Kill (22 page)

PART TWO

The Investigation

I
nside ourselves lies the root of

good; the heart outweighs all talents

on this earth.

—N
GUYEN
D
U
       
The Tale of Kieu

Chapter 9

Y
ing Jing Gan stood with her husband, Sen Van Ta, on the sidewalk in front of Golden Trading Discount, a small Chinatown clothing store managed by Ta's sister. The store was wedged in at 423 Broadway, half a block north of Canal Street, just around the corner from Ta's own jewelry store and clothing outlet. Often, after closing their own store, Gan and Ta would walk over and help Ta's sister close her shop for the day.

It was early on the evening of Sunday, March 10, 1991. Rain had threatened for most of the afternoon, but business remained brisk. Sundays were traditionally a time when Asians from all over the city came to Chinatown to do their shopping, a day when the malls and shops sometimes sold more merchandise than on all the other days of the week combined.

Gan and Ta began the tedious task of retrieving handbags, scarfs, jackets, and assorted other merchandise from display counters outside Golden Trading Discount. Around them, the day's steady flow of pedestrian traffic was thinning out. Dusk had come
and gone, and the sky above the tenements and storefronts along lower Broadway grew dark. Sen Van Ta disappeared inside the store with an armful of leather jackets while his wife took inventory and separated items on the sidewalk outside.

Nearly two months had passed since Sen Van Ta had been robbed by the BTK, then threatened through the mail and in person by David Thai. It was four weeks since Ta walked into the Pho Hanoi luncheonette and identified the leader of the gangsters who had added insult to injury by trying to extort money. The pall that hovered over Ta and his wife since these events unfolded had only recently begun to lift. For the first time in many weeks, Ying Jing Gan saw an occasional smile come to her husband's face. Now four months pregnant, she and Sen Van Ta had begun to make plans for the future. They discussed possible names for their child. They even talked about buying a nice middle-class house, maybe in Queens or out on Long Island.

The fear that once consumed their lives may have receded, but it had not disappeared entirely. Criminal charges were being brought against the four gang members apprehended after the wild post-robbery car chase through the streets of Chinatown. No trial date had been set, but Ta and his wife knew that eventually the police and government prosecutors were going to be coming around again. This time, they would want Ta to take the stand in court and testify against the robbers. Neither Ta nor his wife was looking forward to that ordeal, which they had chosen to deal with by not thinking or talking about it.

While Ta and Gan were helping close the Golden Trading Discount Store, two blocks south, at the corner of Broadway and Walker Street, a black sedan pulled over to the curb and stopped. The car was from a taxi service, the driver a Hispanic male. In the backseat were gang members Lan Ngoc Tran and Kenny Vu, both dressed entirely in black.

They had arrived to do the bidding of Born to Kill.

They had come to assassinate Sen Van Ta.

In the weeks since the robbery at Sen Van Ta's store had ended so disastrously for the BTK, high-ranking gang members had met numerous
times to discuss what should be done about the store owner. David Thai was shocked when he learned that the robbery victim had picked the gang members out of a lineup. The BTK leader took this as a personal insult. Thai was even more incensed after he visited the store himself, and still his warning was ignored.

Even though it was Sen Van Ta whom David Thai had spoken with that morning in front of the store,
Anh hai
could not be sure whether it was Ta or one of the store's other managers or employees who was cooperating with the authorities. Later, when Sen Van Ta fingered LV Hong on Canal Street,
Anh hai
had actually been pleased. Now he knew for sure.

“The first person who cooperate with police, this is the first person we kill,” David promised LV Hong, who was released on bail the day after his arrest.

One week later, Thai and a handful of gang members met at a BTK safe house in suburban Long Island to discuss how they would handle Sen Van Ta. LV Hong was at the meeting, as were Lan Tran, Black Phu, Danny White Boy, Dung Steven, Hai, and Kenny Vu.

“This store owner have to be taken out,” declared
Anh hai
. Turning to the gang member named Hai, he asked, “You think you can handle this job?”

Before Hai even had a chance to answer, Uncle Lan spoke up. “I handle this job,” Lan volunteered. “This an important job,
Anh hai
. We don't want any fuck-up.”

Normally, David Thai liked to use newer gang members for jobs like this. It was a way for him to test a person's loyalty, to give a young gang member a chance to prove himself. But no one was going to argue with Uncle Lan. If the gang's premier killer wanted to be the one who murdered the store owner, then so be it.

On the afternoon of March 10, Lan drove to one of the gang's many safe-house apartments in Brooklyn, this one at 810 Forty-fifth Street in the Sunset Park section. Kenny Vu was living there with a handful of other gang members. “You come with me,” Lan told Kenny. “We go kill this store owner on Canal Street.”

Lan did not want to drive into Chinatown in his own car, a beat-up, easily identifiable Datsun 280Z. Lan and Kenny tried to find a car
they could use from among the two or three vehicles that circulated among the BTK's Brooklyn crew, but no car was available. “No problem,” said Lan. “We call a taxi.”

BTK gangsters commonly used car-service drivers as unwitting “wheel men” during crimes. To an outsider, the idea of relying on a complete stranger to unknowingly serve as an accomplice during a major act of lawlessness might seem incredible, even bizarre. But since Chinatown gangsters rarely met resistance when preying on merchants, they could literally mosey away from a crime, secure in the knowledge that it wouldn't even be reported. Moreover, if there did happen to be non-Asian witnesses to the crime, having a Caucasian, black, or Hispanic driver had its advantages. Who would suspect that an anonymous taxi driving through Chinatown with a non-Asian behind the wheel was, in fact, a BTK getaway car?

Seated in the backseat of the taxi near the intersection of Broadway and Walker streets, Uncle Lan checked to make sure his gun was safely tucked inside his waist-length jacket. “You wait here five minutes,” Lan said to the driver. “We need you take us back to Brooklyn.”

The driver shrugged. “Sure, man. It's your money.”

In Vietnamese, Lan told Kenny Vu to sit tight, adding, “This should not take too long.” Lan got out of the car and headed north on Broadway.

At Golden Trading Discount, Ying Jing Gan was still standing on the sidewalk in front of the store, folding clothes and putting merchandise into boxes. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed somebody entering the store, but thought little of it.

Inside, Sen Van Ta was standing near the cash register, wearing a waist-length charcoal coat and faded green khakis. A female employee was near the back; a few feet away, also standing near the register, was Ta's twelve-year-old nephew, Vinh Tran.

Young Vinh Tran was the only one who noticed what he thought was a customer come into the store. A Southeast Asian male dressed in black, the man had a face that looked strange to Tran. He had pockmarked skin, and he was smiling. Not a mirthful smile. More like a creepy, sinister grin, almost a grimace.

Born to Kill gang members carry a coffin containing the body of Vinh Vu, better known as Amigo. Three days earlier, Amigo had been gunned down by rival gangsters on Canal Street.
U.S ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF N.Y.

BTK Leader David Thai stands beside Amigo's grave at Rosedale Memorial Park Cemetery in Linden, New Jersey.
U.S. ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF N.Y.

Gang members parade a BTK banner on Mulberry Street during Amigo's funeral procession.
U.S ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF N.Y.

David Thai
(in foreground at left)
and his gang brothers gather around Amigo's grave just minutes before a fusillade of gunfire rang out, sending everyone scattering.
U.S ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF N.Y.