Bee reporters answer questions about area crime news, trends and other issues.
QUESTION: Several years ago there was a homicide at the pool hall then located at Arden and Ethan. Three young Vietnamese men were charged with murder relating to gang activity. In a trial, two were found guilty. There was a hung jury on the third defendant. What happened to the three of them?
Submitted by: ET, Sacramento
ANSWER: Three people, including a 17-year-old, were arrested in the shooting death of 18-year-old Southalay Vongsedone outside the Hot Shots Billiard Parlor on Arden Way on April 10, 1998.
Shortly after midnight, Vongsedone and friends were involved in a fight that was broken up by an off-duty deputy working at the pool hall, according to a story in The Bee. The deputy ordered everyone to leave, and shots rang out from a departing car.
Arrested were Quyen Tran and Ro Vo, both 18, and Tuan Thanh Huynh, 17.
A jury found Tran and Vo guilty of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, according to Sacramento Superior Court online records, and both were sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
Tran, 33, is at California State Prison, Sacramento in Folsom, and Vo, 32, is at California State Prison, Centinela in Imperial.
Although Huynh was a juvenile at the time of the shooting, he was ordered to stand trial as an adult. He pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced in December 2000 to eight years in prison.
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