Five people were found dead at a home in Ingleside, San Francisco, United States on the morning of Friday, March 23, 2012. The victims, all Chinese immigrants, were an elderly couple, two of their adult children, and their daughter-in-law. In Chinese-language media both in the United States and overseas, which devoted the most coverage to the killings, the case was usually referred to as the Lei family quintuple slayings.
Police initially believed the case to be a murder-suicide, but two days later arrested 35-year-old San Francisco resident Binh Thai Luc, a friend of one of the victims, and charged him with five counts of murder, five counts of robbery, and two counts of burglary. At his arraignment on April 5, 2012, Luc pleaded not guilty to the charges. After years of delays in preliminary hearings as prosecutors requested additional time to review evidence, Luc's trial finally began on October 10, 2017. Following a seven-week trial and a week of deliberation, on December 11 the jury found Luc guilty of all the murder and burglary charges, as well as five counts of attempted robbery. Luc was subsequently sentenced to five consecutive life terms and began serving his sentence at California State Prison, Corcoran in March 2018. On Luc's appeal three years later, a higher court overturned three of the attempted robbery convictions, but upheld the murder and burglary convictions, ruling that the evidence was sufficient and the jury instructions were proper.
Luc's arrest and conviction led to political controversy over deportation from the United States, in particular the Supreme Court ruling in Zadvydas v. Davis that existing statutes did not authorize long-term post-prison detention of criminals whose deportations could not be carried out. Luc, a native of Vietnam who immigrated to the U.S. legally in 1989 as a child, was ordered deported after a 1998 conviction for armed robbery, but was released in the U.S. after completing his sentence because Vietnam's repatriation agreement with the U.S. explicitly excludes people who arrived in the U.S. before 1995. Republican politicians suggested amending the law to permit longer-term detention of deportable criminals and to deny visas to citizens of countries which failed to issue a travel document to any person ordered deported from the United States, and in 2017, the Vietnamese and U.S. governments formed a working group to discuss deportation issues.
Killings
Discovery At approximately 7:45 am PST on March 23, 2012, three people were found dead inside a row house with the address of 16 Howth Street, located in the Ingleside district of San Francisco, near City College of San Francisco. The bodies were discovered by a daughter and granddaughter of the elder slain couple. Police arrived and found two more bodies in the house's backyard. A neighbor said that she heard a "loud male person angry or yelling at around midnight" the night prior to the morning the bodies were found, but did not hear any gunshots. The five victims were all Chinese immigrants and were related to each other; among the dead was 37-year-old Yingxue "Jess" Lei, the owner of the house. Investigators said that the victims suffered from blunt trauma, and ruled out gunshot wounds as the cause of death. Police also believed an "edged weapon" was involved in the slayings, although they never located the weapon that was used. News reports speculated that the killings were motivated by an attempt to collect on gambling debts; investigators declined to comment on that theory.
Arrest Following the homicides, police carried out intensive investigations involving more than forty officers, and executed search warrants in San Francisco and in neighboring San Mateo County to locate the suspect. On Sunday, March 25, 2012, the San Francisco Police Department announced that they had arrested 35-year-old Binh Thai Luc, a San Francisco man, and charged him with five counts of murder in connection with the five bodies found in the home. Luc has an extensive criminal record, and his younger brother, 32-year-old Brian Luc, also a San Francisco resident, was arrested the same day as his brother on unrelated charges of drugs and ammunition possession and violation of probation. Binh Thai Luc is reported to have known all five of the victims, and had been a frequent guest at their house. Police stated that both Luc brothers were affiliated with a Vietnamese street gang. At the time, Binh Thai Luc was employed as a plumber.
Victims The five victims were:
Hua Shun Lei (; husband), 65, a native of Taishan, Guangdong, was previously a mathematics teacher in China. After moving to the US, he worked at the R&G Lounge in Chinatown for 18 years, first as a kitchen assistant and later as a cook. His specialty was sliced roast duck. Wan Yi Xu (; wife), 62, was a cashier at Target. Vincent Lei (; son), 32, was an architect. Chia Huei "Chantel" Chu (; daughter-in-law), 30, a student at the nearby City College of San Francisco since 2007, was from Taiwan. Yingxue "Jess" Lei (; daughter), 37, was a software engineer for Quantitative Medical Systems, Inc., in the East Bay city of Emeryville.
Pre-trial court appearances
Legal representation In his first court appearance, Luc, who is of Chinese descent, requested a Cantonese court interpreter, but also spoke to the judge in English, and asked to be represented by the public defender's office. At the San Francisco County Superior Court on March 29, 2012, before Judge Lucy McCabe, Chief Assistant District Attorney Sharon Woo argued that there existed a potential conflict of interest if Luc were represented by the public defender's office, as the office had previously represented Luc's brother Brian Luc, who was a potential witness. Public Defender Jeff Adachi argued that this was not relevant as his office no longer represented Brian Luc, but McCabe sided with Woo, and so Binh Thai Luc's defense was handed over to private attorney Mark Goldrosen. Separately, the public defender's office filed an appeal from McCabe's decision not to permit it to represent Luc. The matter came before Judge Newton Lam, who on April 10 denied the appeal.
Possibility of death penalty District Attorney George Gascón stated in late March 2012 that he probably would not seek the death penalty, though Luc might be eligible due to special circumstance enhancements. A poll conducted by CBS affiliate KPIX-TV around the same time found that 56% of San Francisco residents thought the government should pursue the death penalty in its case against Luc, while 33% were opposed and 11% unsure. When interviewed again on the matter in late April 2012, Gascón stated that the special circumstances committee (composed of senior homicide prosecutors) was still awaiting sufficient evidence before making the final decision. During Luc's court appearance on June 19, 2015, Assistant District Attorney Michael Swart stated that the prosecution would not be seeking the death penalty. The maximum sentence Luc faced for each count was thus life imprisonment.
Arraignment and hearings Luc was arraigned on five counts of murder with special circumstances of multiple murders and lying in wait, five counts of robbery, and one count of burglary before Judge Samuel Feng of the San Francisco County Superior Court on April 5, 2012. He pleaded not guilty to all charges, but otherwise did not speak. His bail was set at $25 million, and his next court appearance was set for May 3 at which time a hearing date would be decided. Feng stated that he was "not comfortable" with granting bail, but Sharon Woo of the District Attorney's Office responded that because the investigation was still in its early stages, the prosecution was not yet prepared to offer sufficient evidence to meet the standard of "likely guilt" required to deny bail. Additionally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) placed an immigration detainer on Luc, such that even if he were to make bail, he would be released into ICE custody rather than being freed. In late June 2012, Luc's brother was sentenced on unrelated drug charges.
Luc appeared in court again on July 20, 2012. He continued to be represented by Mark Goldrosen. Feng announced that Luc's trial would be held on October 25, and then adjourned the hearing. Goldrosen explained the delay by stating that the investigation was still ongoing and that both the prosecution and the defense needed time to review witness statements and evidence. He also stated that his Luc was in good health and had received a visit from his parents. By January 2013, Luc's case had still not gone to trial. A pre-trial hearing held before Judge Jerome Benson on January 15 resulted only in another court date being set for March 19, nearly a year after the date of the deaths, because a police report was not yet complete. At the hearing on March 19, Judge Benson had been expected to set a date for a preliminary hearing, but instead defense lawyers again stated that they needed more time to review evidence, and so the hearing was set to continue on May 3. In Luc's court appearance on May 30, the preliminary hearing was again delayed until July 30.
By December 2013, the preliminary hearing still had not been held; in Luc's court appearance that month, the judge set the new date for the preliminary hearing to February 14, 2014. Afterwards, the date was further pushed back to April 11, June 18, and then July 17. On July 17, Luc did not appear in court due to illness; the court set dates of October 16 for the status conference and November 17 for the preliminary hearing. The preliminary hearing finally began on March 16, 2015, and concluded in June.
Trial and sentencing Luc's trial was initially scheduled to begin in March 2016, but prosecutors requested delays in order to have more time to review evidence. Luc's trial finally began on October 10, 2017, before Judge Carol Yaggy. Luc was ultimately charged with two counts of burglary rather than the original one count, as the house consisted of two separate residential units each with their own entrance: the upstairs portion for the elder slain couple Hua Shun Lei and Wan Yi Xu and their daughter Jess Lei, the downstairs portion for the younger slain couple Vincent Lei and Chia Huei Chu. In opening statements, prosecutor Eric Fleming of the District Attorney's Office emphasized physical evidence linking Luc to the crime scene, including Luc's fingerprint on a bottle of Windex found at the scene and the blood of the victims found in Luc's car and on a pair of jeans at Luc's home, and suggested that efforts to destroy evidence at the scene by disassembling the sinks in order to flood the house would have required plumbing experience to carry out. Mark Goldrosen's defense of Luc focused on the prosecution's failure to advance a plausible motive for the killings, and on leads which the police failed to follow due to their focus on Luc, such as a report by an informant that a Chinatown gang leader had ordered the killings and DNA samples which had not been tested. Goldrosen stated that while Luc was present at the scene, another person masterminded and carried out the killings.