Lei family murders

On the morning of March 23, 2012, five people were found dead at a row house at 16 Howth Street in the Ingleside district of San Francisco. The victims — an elderly couple, two of their adult children, and a daughter-in-law, all Chinese immigrants — were discovered by a daughter and granddaughter of the elder couple; three bodies were found inside the house and two more in the backyard. Police initially considered the case a possible murder-suicide before ruling that out. Investigators determined the victims died of blunt trauma and believed an edged weapon was also used, though the weapon was never recovered. A neighbor reported hearing a loud, angry male voice around midnight the night before the discovery, but no gunshots.

The victims were identified as Hua Shun Lei, 65, a former mathematics teacher and longtime cook at a Chinatown restaurant; his wife Wan Yi Xu, 62, a Target cashier; their son Vincent Lei, 32, an architect; his wife Chia Huei "Chantel" Chu, 30, a City College of San Francisco student from Taiwan; and their daughter Yingxue "Jess" Lei, 37, a software engineer and owner of the house.

Following an investigation involving more than forty officers, San Francisco police arrested 35-year-old Binh Thai Luc on March 25, 2012, charging him with five counts of murder, five counts of robbery, and burglary. Luc, who had an extensive criminal record and was reportedly a frequent guest of the victims, pleaded not guilty at his April 5, 2012 arraignment. Prosecutors stated they would not seek the death penalty. The case underwent years of delays in preliminary hearings as both sides sought additional time to review evidence, with the preliminary hearing not concluding until June 2015.

Luc's trial began October 10, 2017. Prosecutors presented physical evidence including a fingerprint on a Windex bottle at the scene and victims' blood in Luc's car and on his jeans, arguing the crime scene had been tampered with by someone with plumbing knowledge — Luc's profession. The defense argued the prosecution failed to establish a clear motive and that another individual, potentially connected to a Chinatown gang, may have been responsible. On December 11, 2017, after a week of deliberation, a jury convicted Luc of five counts of murder, five counts of attempted robbery, and two counts of burglary, while acquitting him of robbery. In March 2018, Luc was sentenced to five consecutive life terms and began serving his sentence at California State Prison, Corcoran.

Luc appealed to the California First District Court of Appeal, which in March 2021 upheld his murder and burglary convictions but overturned three of the five attempted robbery convictions for insufficient evidence, and remanded the case for resentencing consideration under an amended state sentencing law. The California Supreme Court declined further review in May 2021.

The case also became entangled in a national political debate over immigration detention. Luc, who arrived in the U.S. legally from Vietnam in 1989, had been ordered deported in 1998 following an armed robbery conviction, but could not be deported because Vietnam refused to issue travel documents for people who arrived before 1995. Citing the Supreme Court's Zadvydas v. Davis ruling, Luc was released after 180 days in immigration detention rather than held indefinitely. His case was repeatedly cited by congressional Republicans in proposed legislation, including the Keep Our Communities Safe Act, to argue for longer detention authority over undeportable noncitizens with criminal convictions.