Five die in shooting

Press, 13 June 1984, Page 8

Five die in shooting

NZPA-AAP Sydney A distraught Vietnamese man whose estranged wife would not return to him shot her and three other members of her family dead early yesterday, before turning the gun on himself. Detectives said Van Due Cao, aged 24, of Lakemba, west Sydney, had made previous threats to kill his wife, Thanh Thuy Le, aged 21, most recently on Sunday night when he produced a rifle.

They said Cao was upset because Le, who had been separated from him for 12 months, would not return to live with him and he left a

note in the house revealing his intentions.

The police said Cao waited in his car for the family to settle for the night before ’he entered the house in Camden Street, in the western suburb of Fairfield Heights, and shot his wife, his brother-in-law, Van Phuc Le, aged 29, his sister-in-law, Kim Vinh Le, aged 26, and her husband, Huu Than Le, aged 30, through the head about 1 a.m. local time.

He then shot himself. The police said a .30 calibre M-l carbine repeating rifle had been found beside Cao’s body. 4

The alarm was raised about 9.30 a.m. when a girl, aged six, from the house wandered into the neighbour’s home.

Her sister, aged three, was later found huddled uninjured in a comer of the room where she slept and where her parents had been shot.

Another Vietnamese couple had slept through the tragedy in another bedroom, unaware of the events.

The police said relatives had stepped in to care for all the children in the wake of the tragedy. The case in being treated as a murder-suicide.