02 February 2006 :

Dinh Pham, a Vietnamese man accused of strangling a Fairfax County woman and her 22-month-old daughter would not face the death penalty in Virginia, a judge ruled, because police violated the man's Vienna Convention rights by not informing him that he could have contacted his embassy.
The ruling came six days before the scheduled capital murder trial of Pham, 34, of Annandale, who was arrested January 8, 2004. Pham was picked up a day after Huy Huang Ton discovered the bodies of his wife, Loan P. Nguyen, 30, and his daughter, Ashley N. Ton, in a crawl space beneath their townhouse in the Merrifield area. Pham was charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Nguyen and capital murder in the premeditated killing of a child. In an interview with Fairfax detectives, and with a Vietnamese interpreter, Pham said he went to the family's home on Lester Lee Court to steal money, was surprised by Nguyen, strangled her with a belt and then strangled the crying child, according to a transcript of his statement.