A dog thief held a knife to a terrified father’s neck and threatened to kill him in front of his teenage children as they looked on in horror. Three dog thieves were stealing the family’s dogs at 1am when they disturbed the sleeping family. Two younger siblings shouted to alert their dad the dogs were being stolen. This family live in a remote shack in an open field near a water canal, in Saigon.

The 60+ year old father got out of bed and ran after the dog thief. The father and two sons were running and yelling as they overpowered the dog thief, who screamed for his two accomplices to help him get escape. Vision was difficult with no street lights and only dim lighting available.

Two accomplice dog thieves arrived with knives, guns and ropes to help free their friend. They grabbed the father by his neck and held a knife to his throat, threatening to kill him. They began to beat the father mercilessly then dragged him off with them. The man’s two teenage sons were paralyzed with fear, but one of his daughters arrived and hit the dog thieves with a tree branch. So the dog thieves shot one of the sons, repeatedly in the stomach. By now at the scene was the father and mother, two older sons (16 and 18 years old) and five younger siblings (girls and boys); plus the three dog thieves.

The terrified daughters screamed so loud that people in other shacks woke up and came to see what was happening. As people began arriving two of the dog thieves fled leaving their motorbikes, knife, gun and a bag of ammunition. The two dog thieves jumped into the canal to escape being caught. One dog thief got out of the water. The other one did not surface. (The third dog thief was overpowered and held by the people.) The family were scared the dog thieves would return to get revenge so they called for police help.

Police arrived and questioned everyone. They inspected the dog thieves belongings left behind when they fled. Police divers were called in and retrieved the drowned man’s body from the canal. Police arrested the husband, wife and two sons. The next day the wife was released to collect her husband’s urgently needed medicine for his heart disease and insulin dependent diabetes.

The father is charged with Intentional Murder and his wife and two sons charged as accomplices to murder!

Remember: the dog thieves escaped and jumped into the river to escape capture and arrest.

Police arrested the two surviving dog thieves, who refuse to confess and blame the father for the death of their accomplice. The father was accosted at knife point by the dog thieves, then beaten and dragged. The family is in tatters. Five young children have lost both parents and two older brothers. A mentally disabled aunt lives with the family but is unable to care for herself or the young children left behind.

Prior to the dog thieves waking the family up at 1am, each family member was asleep in their bed, inside the family shack. It seems unfathomable that police are charging the father with murder, and the mother and two sons as accomplices to murder. We’ll follow this story as it unfolds and eventually goes to court. Absolute tragic situation in so many ways.

Thank you for reading,

Michele Brown
Founder,
Fight Dog Meat.