Friends, Relatives Recall Slain Youth’s Kindness, Dedication

HUNTINGTON BEACH —  Nearly 600 people came to say a tearful goodby Saturday to a popular senior at Ocean View High School who was shot to death last week in a van along the Corona del Mar Freeway.

His friends and family remembered Viet Nguyen, a varsity basketball player with a 3.6 grade-point average, as a caring young man who usually had a smile.

“In this world of selfishness, when you find somebody who’s just the opposite, you tend to gravitate to it,” said Jim Harris, Nguyen’s basketball coach, after the 18-year-old was buried at The Good Shepherd Cemetery and Mausoleum.

“He made more friends in his 18 years than many of us do in a lifetime,” said Kaleena Nguyen, his cousin.

About 75 relatives, some whom flew in from Texas and Missouri for the funeral, tied white cloth bands around their heads in the traditional Vietnamese way of mourning for the dead.

“This should not have happened,” said Nguyen’s older brother, Peter Nguyen, 24. “Not long ago, we were talking about college and the future. Now there is no future.”

On Feb. 25, Costa Mesa police found Nguyen’s body slumped over the wheel of his parents’ minivan on the right shoulder of the Corona del Mar Freeway near the San Diego Freeway overpass. He was shot twice in the head execution-style, police said.

Police said the investigation is continuing. “We’ve questioned about 20 or so people,” Sgt. Tom Boylan said, “And all I can tell you is, we haven’t come up with a clear motive. I can’t say any more because it could really hamper the investigation.”

The day before his death, Nguyen had mowed the lawn and vacuumed the minivan for his parents before asking permission to go to a movie with a friend, said Hien Nguyen, his uncle. He gave his mother, Thieu Hoang, some chrysanthemums and promised to be home by midnight, a curfew Peter Nguyen said he can’t remember his younger brother missing.

At 5 p.m. the next day, police officers arrived at the front steps of the family’s Westminster home to tell the Nguyens that their son was found dead, Peter Nguyen said.

“We couldn’t believe it then and we still can’t believe it,” Kaleena Nguyen said.

Dan McDonald, 18, an all-county basketball player at Ocean View on Nguyen’s team, said he heard about the slaying at a basketball game that weekend and “I just went numb.”

On Saturday, McDonald remembered the time when he couldn’t get his basketball sneakers untied after a tournament and Nguyen gave it a shot.

“He tried and tried and couldn’t do it,” McDonald said as tears ran down his face.

“So then he started to bite it and got his braces caught, and we both laughed about it later.”

At Ocean View last week, hundreds of students and faculty members attended a memorial service and many have written letters to Nguyen’s family. Friends said they plan to dedicate a rosebush in Nguyen’s memory.

Nguyen and his family left Vietnam in 1981 and lived in Missouri for about a year before moving to Southern California. He loved sports and excelled in academics. In eighth grade, he was named student of the year, said Shannon Donegan, who knew Nguyen since the seventh grade.

His coaches remember him as the “Small Fry,” because of his 5-foot, 3-inch frame. But he could jump like a “6-foot-6 guy,” said John Cummins, Nguyen’s basketball coach in the fifth and sixth grades.

And he could “whip up anything in the kitchen,” Kaleena Nguyen said.

Neighbor Michael Mullen appreciated the teen-ager’s sensitive side.

“He took the time to listen to an old man when all the other boys were long gone,” said Mullen, 40. Those who attended Nguyen’s funeral Saturday were held together by such memories.

Under a partially sunny sky Saturday, all of those memories were summed up by Harris when he said: “I don’t know if you can capture him with words. It’s like trying to hold spirit in your hand.”