BUCKS COUNTY, P.A. (KYW Newsradio) — A 40-year-old Bucks County woman who shot her two sons in the head while they slept, and then tried to shoot her nephew, will spend the rest of her life in prison.
Trinh Nguyen pleaded guilty to two counts of First Degree Murder and one count of Attempted Murder and in a negotiated deal with prosecutors, will serve back-to-back life sentences, with an additional 10-20 years in prison.
Police say on May 2nd, 2022, Nguyen shot her 9-year-old son Nelson Tini, and 13-year son Jeffrey Tini in their heads. She took the shell casings out of the revolver, pointed the gun at her 22-year-old nephew, and pulled the trigger twice. But the revolver was on the two empty chambers and did not fire. Before Nguyen could pull the trigger a third time, her nephew wrestled the gun from her.
When police entered the home with a neighbor, they say they discovered the two boys with gunshot wounds to the head. The boys were taken to a nearby hospital and placed on life support and succumbed to their injuries a week later.
Nguyen was arrested a few hours after the shooting at a church parking lot in Washington Crossing.
Bucks County First Assistant District Attorney Jenn Schorn says the community will be safer with her behind bars.
“This sentence ensures the community that Miss Nguyen will die within the four walls of a correctional facility.”
Nguyen’s lawyer says she planned to use the gun to kill herself. After her nephew took it from her, she drove to Trenton to buy a lethal dose of heroin. Her lawyer said she was unfamiliar with drugs and mixed them with water to drink in an attempt to end her life. Schorn says Nguyen also wrote a manifesto, laying out what she was going to do.
“And you could see throughout the hate she had for others and the people she blamed,” she said.
Family members say the boys were funny, full of life, and loved sports like baseball, swimming, and karate. They also said that Nguyen seemed like a good mom who was involved with her children, but after Nguyen and her husband divorced and his sister was trying to evict her from her Newtown Home, they saw her dark side, calling her “a calculating destructive woman willing to do whatever was necessary to get what she wanted.”