A Pennsylvania mother sentenced to life in prison for brutally killing her two sons also tried to shoot their 19-year-old cousin — but the gun miraculously jammed and she was able to disarm, according to harrowing security footage shown by prosecutors this week.
Trinh Nguyen, 40, was sentenced on Wednesday to two consecutive life terms for killing her son in May 2022 and received an additional 10 to 20 years for the attempted murder of her ex-husband’s nephew, who was also a neighbor.
Shortly after shooting 9-year-old Nelson Tini and 13-year-old Jeffrey Tini in their bed as they slept, the deranged mother pulled a gun on Gianni Melchiondo outside her home in Upper Makefield Township in eastern Pennsylvania.
Nguyen tried to shoot but the gun never discharged, giving Melchiondo a chance to disarm, prosecutors said.
Video from the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office shared on the Bucks County Courier Times website shows Nguyen handing Melchiondo a box — reportedly a picture for her to give to her ex-husband — before pulling out a gun.
He dropped the box, grabbed it, and tried to grab the gun from it.
Surveillance video shows Trinh Nguyen pulling a gun on her ex-husband’s niece. Bucks County District Attorney’s Office The gun misfired and the teenager was able to disarm him. Bucks County District Attorney’s Office
They were out of sight when Melchiondo was heard shouting, “Trinh! Drop it!”
They reappeared, with Melchindo holding the gun, as he pushed him to the ground.
Startled, he noticed that the gun was loaded.
“I could die,” he said.
Trinh Nguyen pleaded guilty Wednesday to shooting her two sons as they slept in their Pennsylvania home in May 2022. MICHELE C. HADDON / BUCKS COUNTY COURIER TIMES / USA TODAY NETWORK
An argument ensued as Nguyen screamed and tried to retrieve the weapon.
He eventually fled to a white minivan.
“I thank God all the time that the gun misfired,” Melchiondo’s mother, who is also the man’s aunt, testified in court, according to a press release from the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.
Pictures shown at the sentencing hearing for Trinh Nguyen showed her two sons, 13-year-old Jeffrey, and 9-year-old Nelson, smiling together before they were brutally murdered. Trinh Nguyen/Facebook
Assistant Assistant District Attorney Jen Schorn at the hearing called the feat “nothing short of extraordinary” and said Melchiondo’s bravery may have prevented Nguyen from going on a killing spree.
Nguyen had been plotting the murder for more than a week, The Post reported, and left a will blaming others for the problems in his life, including an impending eviction from his home.
He was months behind on rent, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Prosecutors said Trinh Nguyen planned the murders of her two sons in part to get back at her ex-husband, Ed Tini. Trinh Nguyen/Facebook
A year earlier, she filed for divorce from Ed Tini, the father of her youngest child, according to reports. Schorn said in an interview that prosecutors believe her rampage was partly to “make her ex-husband pay.”
The boys, who were both shot in the head, died of their injuries in hospital four days later.
A slide show presented at the hearing showed photos of the brothers, who are remembered as loving and fun-loving, smiling side by side and playing baseball, one of their many sports.
Trinh Nguyen was sentenced Wednesday to two consecutive life terms for killing her two sons, plus additional time for attempted murder. Bucks County DA
After pulling a gun on Tini’s nephew, Nguyen fled in a minivan to New Jersey to buy heroin, which he tried to swallow in a failed suicide attempt.
Detectives later found ammunition and drugs in the vehicle.
The plea and negotiated sentence “will ensure that the defendant will die within the four walls of a correctional facility,” Schorn said Wednesday.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
