A Pennsylvania woman who was arrested for shooting her two young sons in their heads while the boys were sleeping in their bedroom is now charged with two counts of first-degree murder after the boys died on Monday, authorities said.
The boys, who had been on life support since their mother, Trinh Nguyen, allegedly shot them in bed on May 2, died on Friday at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
“I have been praying for these boys and their surviving family for days,” District Attorney Matt Weintraub said in a statement. “I am so sad to hear of their passing. This defendant’s murder of two of her sons is unconscionable and horrific.”
The 38-year-old mother planned the vicious act at least a week in advance and left a handwritten note with instructions on what to do with her ashes and the remains of her sons, ages 9 and 13, authorities alleged in court documents filed Monday in Bucks County criminal court.
When Nguyen was busted at a church parking lot in a Philadelphia suburb hours after shooting her sons, investigators found a note in her Toyota minivan that reads: “Please call 911! My children are dead in their bed,” the probable cause affidavit says.
Nguyen is also facing an attempted murder charge after she was accused of trying to shoot her neighbor in the head, the prosecutor’s office said. She is being held without bail.
According to documents obtained by NBC Philadelphia, Nguyen, who had been in a custody dispute with the father of her younger son, owed more than $11,000 in unpaid rent to her former sister-in-law.
According to the documents, Nguyen accused the father of her younger son of failing to comply with the terms of their custody agreement after the couple separated last year. The man, on the other hand, accused Nguyen of kidnapping their child and said he feared she would flee to Vietnam after a divorce payout.
Nguyen was supposed to be evicted from her home in Upper Makefield on May 3, the day after the shooting.
